Seto people

Estonia-Russian border controls are actively “tearing apart” the ancestral traditions of the Seto people. Seto people are an indigenous Finno-Ugric ethnic and linguistic minority inhabiting south-eastern Estonia and north-western Russia. Now totaling a population of between 10 to 15,000 around the world, prior to AD 600 the whole of Setomaa, a traditional region that straddles Estonia and Russia, was within the vast northern Finnic lands, until the Estonians’ forced conversion into Catholicism in the 13th century. The Seto remained pagan until the 15th century when they converted into Orthodox Christianity mixed with elements of their traditional beliefs. The Setos’ ancestral territory extends around 17,000 sq km (6,550 sq m), spanning the modern nations of south-eastern Estonia, with at least two-thirds