The Filmans

Nomads at a Dead End

Abstract

A group of Norwegian Sami moved to live on the Kola peninsula after the border treaty of 1826 between Norway and Russia. For some, the parish of Inari in Finland served as an interim point. They were called the Filmans by the Russians. Their appearance, language and material culture differed from the Russian East Sami, and a few descriptions appeared in the Russian press. During the nineteenth century, the Finnish clergy kept records of the reindeer herders and the Sea Sami who fished on the Murman coast along with the Finnish and Norwegian colonists.

In Russia, the exonym Fil’man (< Finmark) still appeared in the first Soviet census in 1926. The group seems to have vanished in the purges and evacuations in the 1930s and 1940. On the Finnish side, a few nomads had come over when the Petsamo area became part of Finland. Apparently they assimilated to the Sami or Finns. The situation in Norway remains unclear; several Sami families are known to have stayed in Kola, although some returned to Norway. Now there is no trace of the Filmans, except in the memories of the oldest living Skolt Sami generation.