Genetics of Russian Ukrainians, Belarusians and Tatars, Slavs and Caucasians, Jews, Finns and other populations. Genetic map of Russians What haplogroups are most common among Russians

The Pentagon recognized experiments with biomaterials from Russian citizens

The apocalyptic assumption about the possible development of biological weapons by the Americans has received strong confirmation. The Pentagon admitted the fact of collecting biomaterials from Russian citizens.

The 59th Airlift Wing's Molecular Research Center is conducting musculoskeletal studies to identify various biomarkers associated with injury, according to Pentagon spokesman Beau Downey. Samples of Russian origin are required only because the first batch was from Russia, and now an identical one is needed for control.

Let us recall that the US Air Force intends to purchase 12 samples of RNA molecules and 27 samples of synovial (joint) fluid from Russians. An announcement about this was posted on the US government procurement portal. At the same time, the contract emphasizes that among all residents of Russia, the customer is only interested in Europeans, and immigrants, for example, from Ukraine will not be considered.

The issue of collecting biomaterials from Russians began to be discussed in society after Vladimir Putin made a public statement about this. According to him, biomaterials are collected “from different ethnic groups and people living in different geographical locations of the Russian Federation.” “The question is - why are they doing this?” - the president asked rhetorically at a meeting with human rights activists.

Later, Dmitry Peskov explained that they were talking about information received through the special services.

Putin's words provoked caustic ridicule from parts of Russian society. “The ancient Incas were also afraid of such dirty tricks, so the supreme ruler even had special maids, whose task was to eat hair, spit, nail clippings and other biomaterial remaining from the Great, in order to avoid garbage falling into the wrong hands,” the media quotes teacher Andrei Nikulina.

Nevertheless, the country is preparing at the legislative level to counter the new threat. It is expected that in December a law on the protection of biomaterials will be introduced to the State Duma. “Today we have many laboratories that conduct clinical research, these are foreign laboratories, for example, Invitro. We allowed them to access the most secret things,” Gennady Onishchenko, first deputy head of the Russian State Duma Committee on Education and Science, explained the problem.

Invitro denied its involvement in the export of biomaterials. In turn, the Institute of General Genetics of the Russian Academy of Sciences "SP" reported that this institution is involved in the collection of biomaterials. “The scientific director of our institute, Academician Nikolai Yankovsky, has just organized and headed the program for collecting biomaterials,” said Ilya Zakharov-Gesehus, an employee of the institute. It was not possible to promptly contact Yankovsky “SP” himself.

Senior researcher at the laboratory of genetics at the Institute of Developmental Biology of the Russian Academy of Sciences, Alexey Kulikov, is inclined to justify his American colleagues.

We need to understand what the Americans did. They looked at how genes work in patients with damaged musculoskeletal systems and looked at the composition of synovial fluid. They initially purchased biomaterials somewhere in Eastern Europe from sick representatives of the Slavic nation, and therefore they also need control samples of people in whom everything is normal with the musculoskeletal system from representatives of the Slavic nation: Russians, Ukrainians, Belarusians, etc.

“SP”: - Well, how?! The tender explicitly states that biomaterials from Ukraine will not be considered. They need Russians...

All the same, this is not connected with any plans there. Genetic weapons are all nonsense. This is unrealistic, since people in the world are too polymorphic - very diverse. It is difficult to come up with something that would work on some people and not others. I think this is simply about the experimental conditions. There is scientific experience and there is control. Control materials must be from the same region.

“SP”: - Everything is so, if these “scientific research” were not carried out by the military, the Pentagon...

Scientific research can also be carried out by the military. We also have specific medical tasks that are solved by representatives of law enforcement agencies. Perhaps we are talking about low mobility among pilots. They must sit for a long time. Therefore, it is fundamentally important that there are no problems with the musculoskeletal system. Therefore, Americans are interested in these diseases and which specific genes are responsible for them.

In turn, the head of the laboratory of the Institute of General Genetics of the Russian Academy of Sciences, Sergei Kiselev, believes that creating genetic weapons is too risky and it is easier to kill people using traditional methods.

Biomaterials from Russia were and are being transferred. At least, as Onishchenko said, within the framework of clinical trials. Because over the past 25 years, dozens of foreign companies have been conducting clinical trials of drugs in Russia. Biomaterials are needed to understand how drugs work.

Of course, any such sample can be used both for the above purposes and for some others. Because he still remains a national biological specimen. The main thing is how the information obtained using the sample will be subsequently used. Genetic information can be used for a variety of purposes, including for personal gain.

“SP”: - Which ones?

Today's technologies make it possible to determine the genome of each person in detail. That is, by taking a DNA sample from a spoon in the cafeteria of the CIA building, you can determine whether the intelligence officer really comes from the state of Minnesota, as he wrote when applying for a job, or whether he is from Eastern Siberia. That is, you can very accurately tie a person to a place.

But to do this, you must first create a genetic map of the territories. I think that the interested intelligence services of many countries around the world have been making such maps of territories for a long time. To be able to identify people in different circumstances.

For example, people in dangerous professions. If one of them is torn to pieces, then, using a genetic map, it is possible to establish who he is, where he came from and give him his due. That is, within the country. But if this information falls into third hands, it can be used to their advantage.

“SP”: - In this case, we are interested in the likelihood of creating genetic, ethnic weapons...

In my opinion, creating such weapons is pointless. Firstly, in order to kill a person, you need to influence vital functions such as breathing, blood circulation, etc. There are few of them, and they are the same for all people. It is hardly possible to find an ethnically important vital function.

And secondly, who are the Americans? They don’t have a titular nation. Everyone mixed there, including Russians, Chinese, Anglo-Saxons. Therefore, if you create a weapon against the Russians, some Americans will fall under its action, since they are either Russians or their descendants.

Therefore, the more people spread around the planet and the mixing of genomes, the less likely it is that it will be possible to create genetic weapons. It's not profitable. It’s easier, cheaper and more effective to “soak” in another way.

“SP”: - Nevertheless, the Pentagon is conducting such research, and today its representative directly admitted this...

I looked at the terms of the tender. This Air Force base requested RNA samples. But RNA is subgenetic material. It is an intermediary between the human genome and the functional state of the cell. RNA reflects the specialization of each individual cell at one time or another. That is, the genome - the DNA in every cell of the body is always the same. And the RNA in every cell is different because it is a portrait of how the genome works at any given moment. Therefore, an RNA sample taken from a big toe will be different from RNA from any other organ. The Americans did not indicate where exactly they needed the RNA.

The second thing they asked for was synovial fluid from the joint capsule. Moreover, in the terms of the tender it was stipulated that the liquid could be taken from another donor, not from the one from whom the RNA was collected. That is, Americans do not need any connection between RNA and synovial fluid. It looks like they were taking samples for different studies that were not related to each other.

“SP”: - However, this did not increase clarity...

Maybe they laundered money there that way. Or students learned to write tender applications.

But former member of the UN Commission on Biological Weapons Igor Nikulin has no doubt about the Pentagon’s aggressive plans.

Of course, this is an attempt by the Americans to conduct research for military purposes. The Pentagon is not a charitable or humanitarian organization designed to benefit humanity. Quite the contrary. It is possible to use viruses that will act selectively.

Such viruses still exist today. For example, Ebola, Lassa, Marburg. The hemorrhagic fevers they cause affect mainly the Negroid race, bird flu - the Mongoloid race, and atypical pneumonia - the Indo-Europeans.

“SP”: - For some reason, in the conditions of the competition, an exception is made for Ukraine...

In Ukraine, the American program was carried out 5-7 years ago. And now they have only epidemics. Now measles, now rubella, now tuberculosis, now tetanus, now cholera, etc. And then the Americans offer them vaccines against this. Very comfortably.

Over the past ten years, the United States has spent tens of billions of dollars and created more than four hundred laboratories around the world in which new types of biological weapons and vaccines for them are being developed. About forty laboratories are located in the countries of the former USSR. These are Ukraine, Moldova, Georgia, Armenia, Azerbaijan, Uzbekistan, Kyrgyzstan and Kazakhstan. This is controlled chaos.

“SP”: - But our Russian geneticists are skeptical about the likely development of weapons aimed at one or another ethnic group...

What else can they do? Many of them are on grants. If I were on a grant, I would also remain silent. But since the Americans will not offer me any grants, I can speak freely on these topics.

Scientists have recently come close to deciphering the human genetic code. This in many ways allowed us to take a fresh look at the history of the Russian ethnic group, which turned out to be more ancient and not as homogeneous than previously thought.

In the depths of centuries

The human genome is a changeable thing. During the evolution of humanity, its haplogroups have undergone mutations more than once. Today, scientists have already learned to determine the approximate time when this or that mutation occurred. Thus, American geneticists found that one of these mutations occurred about 4,500 years ago on the Central Russian Plain. A boy was born with a different set of nucleotides from his father - he was assigned the genetic classification R1a1, which arose instead of his father's R1a.

This mutation, unlike many others, turned out to be viable. The R1a1 genus not only survived, but also spread over a large part of the Eurasian continent. Currently, approximately 70% of the male population of Russia, Belarus and Ukraine are carriers of haplogroup R1a1, and in old Russian cities this number reaches 80%. Thus, R1a1 serves as a kind of marker of the Russian ethnic group. It turns out that in the veins of most men in modern Russia flows the blood of an ancient boy who lived in the late Neolithic era.

Approximately 500 years after the birth of haplogroup R1a1, migration flows of its representatives spread to the east – beyond the Urals, to the south – to Hindustan and to the west – to the territory of modern European countries. Archaeologists also confirm that the inhabitants of the Central Russian Plain went far beyond the boundaries of their ancestral range. Analysis of bone remains of burials in Altai of the 1st millennium BC. e. showed that in addition to the Mongoloids, pronounced Caucasians also lived there.

There is no Tatar

One of the issues of the popular science publication The American Journal of Human Genetics published an article about research by a Russian-Estonian team of scientists into the gene pool of the Russian people. The researchers' findings were quite unexpected. First: the Russian ethnos is heterogeneous in its genetic nature. One part of the Russians, living in the central and southern regions of the country, is close to the neighboring Slavic peoples, the other part - in the north of Russia - is genetically closely related to the Finno-Ugric peoples.

The next conclusion is more interesting. Scientists have never been able to detect the notorious Asian element in the Russian genome. The Tatar-Mongol set of genes is not present in any noticeable quantity in any of the Russian populations. It turns out that the established expression “Scratch a Russian and you will find a Tatar” is wrong.

The head of the laboratory of genomic geography at the Institute of General Genetics of the Russian Academy of Sciences, Professor Oleg Balanovsky, considers the Russian gene pool to be “almost entirely European,” and calls its differences from the Central Asian one “really great,” as if they were two different worlds.

Academician Konstantin Scriabin, head of the genomic direction at the National Research Center Kurchatov Institute, agrees with Balanovsky. He says the following: “We did not find any noticeable Tatar additions in the Russian genome, which refutes theories about the destructive influence of the Mongol yoke.” In addition, Siberians, according to the scientist, are genetically identical to the Old Believers - they have the same “Russian genome.”

Researchers also pay attention to the slight difference in genotype between Russians on the one hand and neighboring Slavic peoples - Ukrainians, Belarusians and Poles - on the other. The difference between the southern and western Slavs and the inhabitants of the Russian north is more pronounced.

Special markers

According to anthropologist Vasily Deryabin, the Russian genotype also has its own clear physiological markers. One of them is the predominance of light shades of eyes among Russians: gray, blue, gray-blue, blue. We have 45 percent of such people, in Western Europe there are fewer – about 35 percent. There are many Russians and fair-haired people. According to anthropologists, there are no more than 5 percent of Russians with natural black hair. In Western Europe, the chance of meeting a black-haired person is 45%.

Contrary to popular belief, there are not many snub noses among Russians - about 7%, in about 75% of cases the nose is straight. Also, among Russians there is no epicanthus - a fold typical of representatives of Mongoloid peoples at the inner corner of the eye.

The Russian ethnic group is characterized by a predominance of blood groups I and II; among Jews, for example, group IV is more common. Biochemical studies have also shown that in the blood of Russians, as well as other European peoples, there is a special RN-c gene, but it is absent in the Mongoloids.

Northerners are closer

Research Institute of Molecular Genetics of the Russian Academy of Sciences and the Institute of Anthropology named after. D.N. Anuchin of Moscow State University conducted an in-depth study of the gene pool of the Russian people, during which they established a difference in the genotype between the Russians and our northern neighbors the Finns - it amounted to thirty conventional units. But the genetic differences between the Russian ethnic group and the Finno-Ugric peoples (Mordovians, Mari, Vepsians, Karelians, Komi-Zyrians, Izhorians), who traditionally lived in the north of our country, correspond to only three units.

Scientists talk not just about the genetic unity of Russians with the Finno-Ugrians, but about their common origin. Moreover, the specific structure of the Y-chromosomes of these ethnic groups is in many ways identical to the peoples of Hindustan. But this is not surprising, given the direction of settlement of the genetic ancestors of the Russian people.

The formation of chromosomes occurs at the time of meiosis, when, in the process of crossing over, each randomly takes approximately half from the maternal chromosome and half from the paternal chromosome; which specific genes will be inherited from the mother and which from the father is not known, everything is decided by chance.

Only one male chromosome, Y, is not involved in this lottery; it is passed entirely from father to son like a relay baton. Let me clarify that women do not have this Y chromosome at all.

In each subsequent generation, mutations occur in certain areas of the Y chromosome, called loci, which will be transmitted to all subsequent generations through the male gender.

It was thanks to these mutations that it became possible to reconstruct the genera. There are only about 400 loci on the Y chromosome, but only about a hundred are used for comparative haplotype analysis and genera reconstruction.

In the so-called loci, or they are also called STR markers, there are from 7 to 42 tandem repeats, the overall pattern of which is unique for each person. After a certain number of generations, mutations occur and the number of tandem repeats changes up or down, and thus on the general tree it will be seen that the more mutations, the older the common ancestor for a group of haplotypes.

The haplogroups themselves do not carry genetic information, because Genetic information is located in autosomes - the first 22 pairs of chromosomes. You can see the distribution. Haplogroups are just markers of days gone by, at the dawn of the formation of modern peoples.

What haplogroups are most common among Russians?

We constantly hear that Russians are not a people united by blood, related by blood, but a conglomerate of people united by a common culture and territory. Everyone remembers Putin’s catchphrases “There are no pure Russians!” and “scratch every Russian, you will certainly find a Tatar.”
They say that we are “very different in blood”, “we did not sprout from the same root”, but were a melting pot for the Tatar, Caucasian, German, Finnish, Buryat, Mordovian and other peoples who have ever raided, entered, strayed on our land, and we received them all, let them into the house, took them into our family.

This has become almost an axiom among politicians who are blurring the concept of Russian, and at the same time for everyone it has become an entrance ticket to the environment of the Russian people.

This approach, raised to the flag by numerous Russophobic a la “human rights” organizations and Russian Russophobic media outlets, has filled the airwaves. But, sooner or later, Putin and others like him will have to answer for their words of humiliation of the Russian people. The scientists' verdict is merciless:

1) In 2009, a complete “reading” (sequencing) of the genome of a representative of the Russian ethnic group was completed. That is, the sequence of all six billion nucleotides in the Russian human genome has been determined. His entire genetic makeup is now in full view.

(The human genome consists of 23 pairs of chromosomes: 23 from the mother, 23 from the father. Each chromosome contains one DNA molecule formed by a chain of 50-250 million nucleotides. The genome of a Russian man was sequenced. Decoding of the Russian genome was carried out on the basis of the National Research Center "Kurchatov Institute", on the initiative of Corresponding Member of the Russian Academy of Sciences, Director of the National Research Center "Kurchatov Institute" Mikhail Kovalchuk According to information received from the Russian Academy of Sciences, the Kurchatov Institute spent approximately $20 million on the purchase of sequencing equipment alone. National Research. The Kurchatov Institute center has a recognized scientific status in the world.)

It is known that this is the seventh deciphered genome beyond the Ural ridge: before that there were Yakuts, Buryats, Chinese, Kazakhs, Old Believers, Khanty. That is, all the prerequisites for the first ethnic map of Russia have been created. But all of these were, so to speak, composite genomes: pieces assembled after deciphering the genetic material of different representatives of the same population.

The complete genetic portrait of a particular Russian man is only the eighth in the world. Now there is someone to compare Russians with: an American, an African, a Korean, a European...

“We did not find any noticeable Tatar additions in the Russian genome, which refutes theories about the destructive influence of the Mongol yoke,” emphasizes the head of the genomic direction at the Kurchatov Institute Research Center, academician Konstantin Scriabin. - Siberians are genetically identical to Old Believers, they have one Russian genome. There are no differences between the genomes of Russians and Ukrainians - one genome. Our differences with the Poles are negligible.”

Academician Konstantin Scriabin believes that “in five to six years a genetic map of all peoples of the world will be compiled - this is a decisive step towards understanding the susceptibility of any ethnic group to medicines, diseases and products.” Feel what it costs... Americans in the 1990s gave the following estimates: the cost of sequencing one nucleotide is $1; according to other sources - up to 3-5 dollars.

(Sequencing (reading the genetic code) of mitochondrial DNA and the DNA of the human Y chromosome is the most advanced DNA analysis method to date. Mitochondrial DNA is passed down through the female line from generation to generation practically unchanged since the time when “the ancestor of mankind, Eve "came down from the tree in East Africa. And the Y chromosome is present only in men and therefore is also passed on to male offspring almost unchanged, while all other chromosomes, when transmitted from father and mother to their children, are shuffled by nature, like a deck of cards before being dealt. Thus. , in contrast to indirect signs (appearance, body proportions), sequencing of mitochondrial DNA and Y-chromosome DNA indisputably and directly indicate the degree of relatedness of people.)

2) Outstanding anthropologist, researcher of human biological nature, A.P. Bogdanov wrote at the end of the 19th century: “We often use expressions: this is purely Russian beauty, this is the spitting image of a hare, a typically Russian face. One can be convinced that it is not something fantastic, but something real that lies in this general expression Russian physiognomy. In each of us, in the sphere of our “unconscious”, there is a fairly definite concept of the Russian type” (A.P. Bogdanov, “Anthropological physiognomy.” M., 1878).

A hundred years later, and now the modern anthropologist V. Deryabin, using the latest method of mathematical multidimensional analysis of mixed characteristics, comes to the same conclusion: “The first and most important conclusion is to state the significant unity of Russians throughout Russia and the impossibility of identifying even the corresponding regional types, clearly limited from each other” (“Questions of Anthropology.” Issue 88, 1995). How is this Russian anthropological unity expressed, the unity of hereditary genetic characteristics expressed in the appearance of a person, in the structure of his body?

First of all, hair color and eye color, the shape of the skull structure. According to these characteristics, we Russians differ from both European peoples and Mongoloids. And we cannot be compared with Negroes and Semites at all, the differences are too striking. Academician V.P. Alekseev proved a high degree of similarity in the structure of the skull among all representatives of the modern Russian people, while clarifying that the “Proto-Slavic type” is very stable and has its roots in the Neolithic era, and possibly the Mesolithic. According to the calculations of the anthropologist Deryabin, light eyes (gray, gray-blue, light blue and blue) are found in 45 percent of Russians, while in Western Europe only 35 percent are light-eyed. Dark, black hair is found in five percent of Russians, and in 45 percent of the population of foreign Europe. The popular opinion about the “snub nose” of Russians is also not confirmed. 75 percent of Russians have a straight nose profile.

Conclusion of anthropologists:
“In terms of their racial composition, Russians are typical Caucasians, who, according to most anthropological characteristics, occupy a central position among the peoples of Europe and are distinguished by slightly lighter pigmentation of their eyes and hair. One should also recognize the significant unity of the Russian racial type throughout European Russia.”
“A Russian is a European, but a European with physical characteristics unique to him. These signs make up what we call a typical hare.”

Anthropologists have seriously scratched the Russians, and - there is no Tatar, that is, a Mongoloid, in the Russians. One of the typical signs of a Mongoloid is the epicanthus - a Mongolian fold at the inner corner of the eye. In typical Mongoloids, this fold occurs in 95 percent; in a study of eight and a half thousand Russians, such a fold was found in only 12 people, and in its rudimentary form.

Another example. Russians literally have special blood - the predominance of groups 1 and 2, which is evidenced by many years of practice at blood transfusion stations. Among Jews, for example, the predominant blood group is 4, and the negative Rh factor is more common. During biochemical studies of blood, it turned out that Russians, like all European peoples, are characterized by a special gene RN-c, this gene is practically absent in Mongoloids (O.V. Borisova “Polymorphism of erythrocyte acid phosphatase in various population groups of the Soviet Union.” “Questions of Anthropology ". Issue 53, 1976).

It turns out that no matter how you scratch a Russian, you still won’t find a Tatar or anyone else in him. This is confirmed by the encyclopedia “Peoples of Russia”, in the chapter “Racial Composition of the Population of Russia” it is noted: “Representatives of the Caucasoid race make up more than 90 percent of the country’s population and about 9 percent more are representatives of forms mixed between Caucasoids and Mongoloids. The number of pure Mongoloids does not exceed 1 million people.” (“Peoples of Russia”. M., 1994).

It is easy to calculate that if there are 84 percent Russians in Russia, then all of them are exclusively people of the European type. The peoples of Siberia, the Volga region, the Caucasus, and the Urals represent a mixture of European and Mongolian races. This was perfectly expressed by anthropologist A.P. Bogdanov in the 19th century, studying the peoples of Russia, he wrote, refuting from his far, far away today’s myth that the Russians poured foreign blood into their people during the eras of invasions and colonization:

“Perhaps many Russians married natives and became sedentary, but the majority of the primitive Russian colonizers throughout Rus' and Siberia were not like that. They were a trading, industrial people, who cared about organizing themselves according to their own, in accordance with the ideal of well-being they had created for themselves. And this ideal of the Russian person is not at all such that he can easily twist his life with some kind of “trash,” just as even now Russian people often dishonor the non-religious. He will do business with him, will be affectionate and friendly with him, will become friendly with him in everything, except to become related, to introduce a foreign element into his family. For this, ordinary Russian people are still strong, and when it comes to the family, to the roots of their home, then they have a kind of aristocracy. Often villagers of different tribes live in the same neighborhood, but marriages between them are rare.”

For thousands of years, the Russian physical type remained stable and unchanged, and was never a cross between different tribes that at times inhabited our land. The myth is dispelled, we must understand that the call of blood is not an empty phrase, that our national idea of ​​the Russian type is the reality of the Russian breed. We must learn to see this breed, admire it, appreciate it in our near and distant Russian relatives. And then, perhaps, our Russian appeal to complete strangers, but our own people for us - father, mother, brother, sister, son and daughter - will be revived. After all, we are actually all from a single root, from one clan - the Russian clan.

3) Anthropologists were able to identify the appearance of a typical Russian person. To do this, they had to transfer to a single scale all the photographs from the photo library of the Museum of Anthropology with full-face and profile images of typical representatives of the population of the Russian regions of the country and, combining them by the pupils of the eyes, superimpose them on each other. The final photographic portraits turned out, naturally, blurry, but they gave an idea of ​​the appearance of the standard Russian people. This was the first truly sensational discovery. After all, similar attempts by French scientists led to a result that they had to hide from the citizens of their country: after thousands of combinations from the resulting photographs of the reference Jacques and Marianne, gray faceless ovals of faces were seen. Such a picture, even among the most distant Frenchmen from anthropology, could raise an unnecessary question: is there a French nation at all?

Unfortunately, anthropologists did not go beyond creating photographic portraits of typical representatives of the Russian population of different regions of the country and did not superimpose them on each other in order to obtain the appearance of an absolute Russian person. In the end, they were forced to admit that such a photo could get them into trouble at work. By the way, “regional” sketches of Russian people were published in the general press only in 2002, and before that they were published in small editions only in scientific publications for specialists. Now you can judge for yourself how similar they are to the typical cinematic Ivanushka and Marya.

Unfortunately, mostly black and white old archival photographs of the faces of Russian people do not allow us to convey the height, build, color of skin, hair and eyes of a Russian person. However, anthropologists have created a verbal portrait of Russian men and women. They are of average build and average height, light brown-haired with light eyes - gray or blue. By the way, during the research a verbal portrait of a typical Ukrainian was also obtained. The standard Ukrainian differs from the Russian only in the color of his skin, hair and eyes - he is a dark brunette with regular facial features and brown eyes. A snub nose turned out to be absolutely uncharacteristic of an Eastern Slav (found in only 7% of Russians and Ukrainians); this feature is more typical for Germans (25%).

4) In 2000, the Russian Foundation for Basic Research allocated approximately half a million rubles from state budget funds for the study of the gene pool of the Russian people. It is impossible to implement a serious program with such funding. But this was more of a landmark decision than just a financial decision, indicating a change in the country’s scientific priorities. For the first time in Russian history, scientists from the Laboratory of Human Population Genetics of the Medical Genetics Center of the Russian Academy of Medical Sciences, who received a grant from the Russian Foundation for Basic Research, were able to focus entirely on studying the gene pool of the Russian people, rather than small nations, for three years. And limited funding only spurred their ingenuity. They supplemented their molecular genetic research with an analysis of the frequency distribution of Russian surnames in the country. This method was very cheap, but its information content exceeded all expectations: a comparison of the geography of surnames with the geography of genetic DNA markers showed their almost complete coincidence.

Unfortunately, interpretations of family analysis that appeared in the media after the first publication of data in a specialized scientific journal could create a false impression about the goals and results of the scientists’ enormous work. The project leader, Doctor of Sciences Elena Balanovskaya, explained that the main thing was not that the surname Smirnov turned out to be more common among Russian people than Ivanov, but that for the first time a complete list of truly Russian surnames was compiled by region of the country. First, lists were compiled for five conditional regions - Northern, Central, Central-Western, Central-Eastern and Southern. In total, across all regions there were about 15 thousand Russian surnames, most of which were found only in one of the regions and were absent in others. When superimposing regional lists on top of each other, scientists identified a total of 257 so-called “all-Russian surnames.” It is interesting that at the final stage of the study they decided to add surnames of residents of the Krasnodar Territory to the list of the Southern region, expecting that the predominance of Ukrainian surnames of the descendants of the Zaporozhye Cossacks evicted here by Catherine II would significantly reduce the all-Russian list. But this additional restriction reduced the list of all-Russian surnames by only 7 units - to 250. From which followed the obvious and not pleasant conclusion that Kuban was populated mainly by Russian people. Where did the Ukrainians go and were they even here at all is a big question.

Over the course of three years, participants in the “Russian Gene Pool” project walked around almost the entire European territory of the Russian Federation with a syringe and a test tube and made a very representative sample of Russian blood.

However, cheap indirect methods of studying the genetics of the Russian people (by surnames and dermatoglyphics) were only auxiliary for the first study in Russia of the gene pool of the titular nationality. His main molecular genetic results are available in the monograph “Russian Gene Pool” (Luch Publishing House). Unfortunately, due to a lack of government funding, the scientists had to carry out part of the research together with foreign colleagues, who imposed a moratorium on many of the results until joint publications were published in the scientific press. Nothing prevents us from describing these data in words. Thus, according to the Y chromosome, the genetic distance between Russians and Finns is 30 conventional units. And the genetic distance between Russian people and the so-called Finno-Ugric peoples (Mari, Vepsians, etc.) living on the territory of the Russian Federation is 2-3 units. Simply put, genetically they are almost identical. The results of mitochondrial DNA analysis show that the Russians from the Tatars are at the same genetic distance of 30 conventional units that separates us from the Finns, but between the Ukrainians from Lviv and the Tatars the genetic distance is only 10 units. And at the same time, the Ukrainians from the left bank of Ukraine are genetically as close to the Russians as the Komi-Zyrians, Mordovians and Maris.
from the blog AEKSEI_RUDKO

Where did the Russians come from? Who was our ancestor? What do Russians and Ukrainians have in common? For a long time, the answers to these questions could only be speculative. Until geneticists got down to business.

Adam and Eve

Population genetics deals with the study of roots. It is based on indicators of heredity and variability. Geneticists have discovered that all of modern humanity can be traced back to one woman, whom scientists call Mitochondrial Eve. She lived in Africa more than 200 thousand years ago.

We all have the same mitochondrion in our genome - a set of 25 genes. It is transmitted only through the maternal line.

At the same time, the Y chromosome in all modern men is also traced back to one man, nicknamed Adam, in honor of the biblical first man. It is clear that we are only talking about the closest common ancestors of all living people; their genes came to us as a result of genetic drift. It is worth noting that they lived at different times - Adam, from whom all modern males received their Y chromosome, was 150 thousand years younger than Eve.

Of course, it’s a stretch to call these people our “ancestors,” since out of the thirty thousand genes that a person possesses, we have only 25 genes and a Y chromosome from them. The population increased, the rest of the people mixed with the genes of their contemporaries, changed, mutated during migrations and the conditions in which people lived. As a result, we received different genomes of different peoples that subsequently formed.

Haplogroups

It is thanks to genetic mutations that we can determine the process of human settlement, as well as genetic haplogroups (communities of people with similar haplotypes who have a common ancestor who had the same mutation in both haplotypes) characteristic of a particular nation.

Each nation has its own set of haplogroups, which are sometimes similar. Thanks to this, we can determine whose blood flows into us and who our closest genetic relatives are.

According to a 2008 study conducted by Russian and Estonian geneticists, the Russian ethnic group genetically consists of two main parts: the inhabitants of Southern and Central Russia are closer to other peoples who speak Slavic languages, and the indigenous northerners are closer to the Finno-Ugric peoples. Of course, we are talking about representatives of the Russian people. Surprisingly, there is practically no gene inherent in Asians, including the Mongol-Tatars. So the famous saying: “Scratch a Russian, you will find a Tatar” is fundamentally wrong. Moreover, the Asian gene also did not particularly affect the Tatar people; the gene pool of modern Tatars turned out to be mostly European.

In general, based on the results of the study, in the blood of the Russian people there is practically no admixture from Asia, from the Urals, but within Europe our ancestors experienced numerous genetic influences from their neighbors, be they Poles, Finno-Ugric peoples, peoples of the North Caucasus or ethnic group Tatars (not Mongols). By the way, haplogroup R1a, characteristic of the Slavs, according to some versions, was born thousands of years ago and was common among the ancestors of the Scythians. Some of these Proto-Scythians lived in Central Asia, while others migrated to the Black Sea region. From there these genes reached the Slavs.

Ancestral home

Once upon a time, Slavic peoples lived on the same territory. From there they scattered around the world, fighting and mixing with their indigenous population. Therefore, the population of current states, which are based on the Slavic ethnic group, differ not only in cultural and linguistic characteristics, but also genetically. The further they are geographically from each other, the greater the differences. Thus, the Western Slavs found common genes with the Celtic population (haplogroup R1b), the Balkans with the Greeks (haplogroup I2) and the ancient Thracians (I2a2), and the Eastern Slavs with the Balts and Finno-Ugrians (haplogroup N). Moreover, interethnic contact of the latter occurred at the expense of Slavic men who married aboriginal women.

Despite the many differences and heterogeneity of the gene pool, Russians, Ukrainians, Poles and Belarusians clearly fit into one group on the so-called MDS diagram, which reflects genetic distance. Of all the nations, we are closest to each other.

Genetic analysis makes it possible to find the above-mentioned “ancestral home where it all began.” This is possible due to the fact that each migration of tribes is accompanied by genetic mutations, which increasingly distort the original set of genes. So, based on genetic proximity, the original territorial one can be determined.

For example, according to their genome, Poles are closer to Ukrainians than to Russians. Russians are close to southern Belarusians and eastern Ukrainians, but far from Slovaks and Poles. And so on. This allowed scientists to conclude that the original territory of the Slavs was approximately in the middle of the current settlement area of ​​their descendants. Conventionally, the territory of the subsequently formed Kievan Rus. Archaeologically, this is confirmed by the development of the Prague-Korchak archaeological culture of the 5th-6th centuries. From there the southern, western and northern waves of Slavic settlement had already begun.

Genetics and mentality

It would seem that since the gene pool is known, it is easy to understand where the national mentality comes from. Not really. According to Oleg Balanovsky, an employee of the Laboratory of Population Genetics of the Russian Academy of Medical Sciences, there is no connection between national character and the gene pool. These are already “historical circumstances” and cultural influences.

Roughly speaking, if a newborn baby from a Russian village with a Slavic gene pool is taken directly to China and raised in Chinese customs, culturally he will be a typical Chinese. But as far as appearance and immunity to local diseases are concerned, everything will remain Slavic.

DNA genealogy

Along with population genealogy, today private directions for studying the genome of peoples and their origins are emerging and developing. Some of them are classified as pseudo-sciences. For example, Russian-American biochemist Anatoly Klesov invented the so-called DNA genealogy, which, according to its creator, “is a practically historical science, created on the basis of the mathematical apparatus of chemical and biological kinetics.” Simply put, this new direction is trying to study the history and time frame of the existence of certain clans and tribes based on mutations in male Y chromosomes.

The main postulates of DNA genealogy were: the hypothesis of the non-African origin of Homo sapiens (which contradicts the conclusions of population genetics), criticism of the Norman theory, as well as the extension of the history of the Slavic tribes, which Anatoly Klesov considers the descendants of the ancient Aryans.

Where are such conclusions from? Everything is from the already mentioned haplogroup R1A, which is the most common among the Slavs.

Naturally, such an approach gave rise to a sea of ​​criticism, both from historians and geneticists. In historical science, it is not customary to talk about the Aryan Slavs, since material culture (the main source in this matter) does not allow us to determine the continuity of Slavic culture from the peoples of Ancient India and Iran. Geneticists even object to the association of haplogroups with ethnic characteristics.

Doctor of Historical Sciences Lev Klein emphasizes that “Haplogroups are not peoples or languages, and giving them ethnic nicknames is a dangerous and undignified game. No matter what patriotic intentions and exclamations it hides behind.” According to Klein, Anatoly Klesov's conclusions about the Aryan Slavs made him an outcast in the scientific world. How the discussion around Klesov’s newly announced science and the question of the ancient origins of the Slavs will further develop remains anyone’s guess.

0,1%

Despite the fact that the DNA of all people and nations is different and in nature there is not a single person identical to another, from a genetic point of view we are all extremely similar. All the differences in our genes, which gave us different skin colors and eye shapes, according to Russian geneticist Lev Zhitovsky, amount to only 0.1% of our DNA. For the remaining 99.9% we are genetically the same. Paradoxical as it may seem, if we compare various representatives of the human races and our closest relatives, chimpanzees, it turns out that all people differ much less than chimpanzees in one herd. So, to some extent, we are all one big genetic family.