Mari El in the context of "Volga River"

Idel-Ural (Tatar: Идел-Урал, romanized: Idel-Ural, Russian: Идель-Урал), literally Volga-Ural, is a historical region in Eastern Europe, in what is today Russia. The name literally means Volga-Urals in the Tatar language. The frequently used Russian variant is Volgo-Uralye (Russian: Волго-Уралье). The term Idel-Ural is often used to designate 6 republics of Russia of this region: Bashkortostan, Chuvashia, Mari El, Mordovia, Tatarstan, and Udmurtia, especially in Tatar-language literature or in the context of minority languages.

Idel-Ural is at the center of the Volga Federal District (Поволжье, Povolzhye). The major religions in the region are Islam and Orthodox Christianity.

Tatarstan, officially the Republic of Tatarstan, sometimes also called Tataria, is a republic of Russia located in Eastern Europe. It is a part of the Volga Federal District; and its capital and largest city is Kazan, an important cultural centre in Russia. The region's main source of wealth is oil with a strong petrochemical industry.

The republic borders the oblasts of Kirov, Ulyanovsk, Samara and Orenburg, as well as the republics of Mari El, Udmurtia, Chuvashia and Bashkortostan. Tatarstan has strong cultural, linguistic and ethnic ties with its eastern neighbour, Bashkortostan, which is also a republic of Russia. The area of Tatarstan is 68,000 square kilometres (26,000 sq mi), occupying 0.4% of the total surface of the country. As of the 2021 Census, the population of Tatarstan was 4,004,809.

The Finnic peoples, or simply Finns, are the nations who speak languages traditionally classified in the Finnic language family, and which are thought to have originated in the region of the Volga River. Currently, the largest Finnic peoples by population are the Finns (6 million), the Estonians (1 million), the Mordvins (800,000), the Mari (570,000), the Udmurts (550,000), the Komis (330,000) and the Sámi (100,000).

The scope of the term "Finnic peoples" (or "Finns") varies by context. It can be as narrow as the Baltic Finns of Finland, Scandinavia, Estonia, and Northwest Russia. In Russian academic literature, the term typically comprises the Baltic Finns and the Volga Finns, the indigenous peoples living near the Volga and Kama Rivers; the Perm Finns are sometimes distinguished as a third group. These eastern groups include the Finnic peoples of the Komi-Permyak Okrug and the four Russian republics of Komi, Mari El, Mordovia and Udmurtia. The broadest sense in the contemporary usage includes the Sámi of northern Fennoscandia as well. In older literature, the term sometimes includes the Ugrian Finns (the Khanty, Mansi and Hungarians), and thus all speakers of Finno-Ugric languages.Based on linguistic connections, the Finnic peoples are sometimes subsumed under Uralic-speaking peoples, uniting them also with the Samoyeds. The linguistic connections to the Hungarians and Samoyeds were discovered between the end of the eighteenth and beginning of the twentieth centuries.

The Khanate of Kazan was a Tatar state that occupied the territory of the former Volga Bulgaria between 1438 and 1552. The khanate covered contemporary Tatarstan, Mari El, Chuvashia, Mordovia, and parts of Udmurtia and Bashkortostan; its capital was the city of Kazan. It was one of the successor states of the Golden Horde (Mongol state), and it came to an end when it was conquered by the Tsardom of Russia.
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Yoshkar-Ola (Mari and Russian: Йошкар-Ола) is the capital city of Mari El, Russia. Yoshkar-Ola means “red city” in Mari and was formerly known as Tsarevokokshaysk (Царевококшайск) before 1919, as Krasnokokshaysk (Краснококшайск) between 1919 and 1927 both after the Malaya Kokshaga River and Charla (Чарла), by the Mari people.

Yoshkar-Ola was established as a military fortress in 1584, following the Russian conquest of the Mari-inhabited regions of the Volga and its tributaries. It is one of the centers of the Mari people (especially of the Meadow Mari subgroup) and the administrative center of the Yoshkar-Ola city district.

The Mari (/ˈmɑːri/ MAR-ee), also formerly known as the Cheremis or Cheremisses, are a Finno-Ugric people in Eastern Europe, who have traditionally lived along the Volga and Kama rivers in Russia. They live mostly in the Mari El republic, with significant minorities in Bashkortostan, Perm Krai, Tatarstan and Udmurtia.

Kazan metropolitan area is one of the largest metropolitan areas located in Russia which metropole includes the cities and districts of Tatarstan and Mari El republics:

• Cities: Kazan, Zelenodolsk, Volzhsk;
• Districts (rayons) of Tatarstan: Atninsky, Verkhneuslonsky, Vysokogorsky, Zelenodolsky, Laishevsky, Pestrechinsky;
• Districts (rayons) of Mari El: Volzhsky, Zvenigovsky.