Afanasyeva, A. Forced relocations of the Kola Sámi people: background and consequences / by Anna Afanasyeva. - Tromsø: University of Tromsø, 2013. - 82 p.: ill., map, portr.

52 programs introduced on the Peninsula in the 1920’s. During the run of industrial programs cities such as Murmansk, Kirovsk, Mončegorsk, were built and became administrative centers of the region, the centers for mining, ironworks and military bases. 159 The 1920’s was the period of high migration of the Ukranian, Russian, Belorussian and other ethnic populations to the Peninsula as workers. Thus, in 1920, the total population of the Kola Peninsula was estimated at 14,000 people and in 1940 its population increased up to 318,000. 160 The Sámi became a small minority at the time the total population of the Kola Peninsula consisted of 130,000 Russians, 2,100 Finns, 1,900 Sámi, 800 Komi and 15,000 other ethnicities. 161 Nowadays as a consequence of labor migration from the 1940’s -1960’s about 100 ethnic groups inhabit the Kola Peninsula and the Sámi live as a small indigenous minority in the Lovozero district. 162 As might be noticed from map 2 in the late 1930’s there appears the differentiation of the settlements according to the principle of ethnic proportions 163 , where the Sámi residents represent the minority. Most of my informants from the three studied Sámi villages pointed out that the settlements they were living in were ethnically dominant by Sámi residents, who used Sámi languages on a daily basis. The studied Sámi settlements had a majority Sámi population with the prevailing use of the Ter Sámi in Jokanga, Kildin Sámi in Varzino and Voron’e. The Russian or Russian speaking residents were mostly a few up comers working in medical points, local shops and schools. Most of the Sámi settlements enumerated up to 3 non-Sámi persons, such as teachers, shop assistants and medical assistants and a couple of Russian families, which normally could understand Sámi languages. The workers in the shop often used the Sámi language while communicating with the customers, at the time the teachers, medical workers and representatives of the local authority or state farm used Russian language. 164 After the relocations to Lovozero and Gremiha, Russian language became the main language of daily communication with majority population (Russian and other non-Sámi people), living in these settlements. Many Sámi people were no longer using their native Sámi languages as the main language of daily communication. One reason for that was discrimination, resulting in socio-psychological barriers of community 159 Robinson 2000:13. 160 ibid: 14. 161 Wheelersburg, Gutsol 2008:82. 162 Scheller 2013. 163 See the marking of ethnic differentiation of the settlements in the map 3; chapter 2. 164 Informant D, Informant I.