Who were "Njerpez" ?

[Erkka]

Da, no problem!

Also, I'm sorry my writing was again a little bit too vague. I didn't mean to claim that during XV-XVI centuries there were constant raids by Muscovites into Finnish territory. Nor did I mean to portray Finnic tribes as mere innocent victims. For me these are such self-evident basic premises that sometimes I forget to mention them.

Like, earlier in this thread I said: "And not just Novgorod expansion, but probably also Finnic tribes launching (counter)raids into Novgorod territory.", indicating that I'm aware that there was warfare to both directions, raids and counter-raids, strikes and revenge-strikes, and revenge-revenge-revenge -strikes and so on. (Also, Finnish peasants had a regular habit of establishing new settlements in the no-mans land on the Russian side of the border, thus making the border less meaningful, irritating the Russian side when they realized that Finnic tribes are silently expanding their territory. But most of this was not Finnic tribes raiding Russian villages, but just Finnich peasants doing slash-and-burn agriculture in uninhabitated woodlands. This can be considered as some sort of passive warfare, the western side of the peace treaty showing that they don't respect the treaty that much for they feel free to gain new lands east of the border.)

The linked article about Muscovites besieging Vybord also says: "The following year Russian generals Vasily Kosoy and Andrey Chelyadnin severely devastated Swedish Finland as far as Hämeenlinna (Tavastehus)." - sure, that doesn't mean constant raids.

I only meant to post a example that it indeed was possible that there were Muscovite raids into Finnish territory during XV-XVI centuries, and that there is historical evidence of at least one such raiding campaign led by Kosoy and Chelyadnin.

But, sure - this is getting severely offtopic and not that much related to the real-life inspirations of UnReal World game world.

To conclude, I'd like to emphasize that personally I have absolutely no intention to paint this or that historical tribe as "bad" or "evil". I'm not interested in blaming anyone. I think that if we examine history, the best we do is to try learn from the history, so that we and the future generations wouldn't need to repeat the mistakes of the past. Finnic and Russian tribes fighting each other and launching raids and counter-raids has been a historical fact. Personally I wish that things like these would stay in the history and happen no more. I have Russian friends and I've visited the country and I love many aspects of the Russian culture, especially the arts, music and literature.

 

[Ilyich79]

I think that if we examine history, the best we do is to try learn from the history, so that we and the future generations wouldn't need to repeat the mistakes of the past. ... Personally I wish that things like these would stay in the history and happen no more.

My thoughts exactly.

I have Russian friends and I've visited the country and I love many aspects of the Russian culture, especially the arts, music and literature.

Well thank you, Erkka, and if I may be so bold, I would like to compliment Finland and Finnish culture and people too, your love of nature, diligence, strive for independence. I read Kalevala myths as a kid (it was translated into Russian in Soviet era and the book was present in my school's library). Your country is very beautiful and I certainly wish to visit it someday before i get too old .