The Mari El Republic is a federal subject of the Russian Federation, a republic within the Volga Federal District and the Volga-Vyatka economic region.[1] It was formed on 4 November 1920 as the Mari Autonomous Oblast; from 1936 it held the status of the Mari Autonomous Soviet Socialist Republic (Mari ASSR).[1] Its capital is Yoshkar-Ola. The official languages are Mari (Hill and Meadow dialects) and Russian.[1] To the west, the republic Nizhny Novgorod Region.

Location and borders

The republic is situated in the Middle Volga region. To the north and east it borders Kirov Oblast, to the southeast the Republic of Tatarstan, to the southwest the Chuvash Republic, and to the west Nizhny Novgorod Oblast.[1]

Connection to Nizhny Novgorod Oblast

The Mari — the indigenous Finno-Ugric people of the republic — have historically also settled across Nizhny Novgorod Oblast; according to the 2002 census, they made up 42.88% of the population of the Republic of Mari El itself, and their communities are recorded in Nizhny Novgorod, Kirov, and Sverdlovsk Oblasts, as well as in Bashkiria, Tataria, and Udmurtia.[1]

The border with Nizhny Novgorod Oblast also shapes a shared environmental agenda: in discussions over raising the level of the Cheboksary Hydroelectric Power Plant to the design Mark 68), it was noted that more than 83,000 hectares of land in Mari El would be flooded, including a significant portion of forest land.[1] The authorities of both regions opposed raising the water to the 68 m mark: in 2009 the President of Mari El, Leonid Markelov, called the project "harmful and dangerous" for the republic — by preliminary estimates, 55,000 hectares of forest were subject to flooding and about three thousand homesteads to relocation; the Governor of Nizhny Novgorod Oblast, Valery Shantsev, also objected to the 68 m mark and promoted an alternative low-head hydro-scheme project.[2] The authorities of both regions opposed raising the water to the 68 m mark: in 2009 the President of Mari El, Leonid Markelov, called the project "harmful and dangerous" for the republic — by preliminary estimates, 55,000 hectares of forest were subject to flooding and about three thousand homesteads to relocation; the Governor of Nizhny Novgorod Oblast, Valery Shantsev, also objected to the 68 m mark and promoted an alternative low-head hydro-scheme project.[2] Filling the reservoir to this mark directly affects the Volga (disambiguation).[1]

Sources

  1. Wikipedia (ru) — Mari El (archive)
  2. Novaya Gazeta — Central Flooding. Residents of two Russian regions anxiously await whether the authorities of a third subject will decide to release the Volga onto them
Based on materials from articles (2)

Raising the Water Level in the Cheboksary Hydroelectric Power Plant Reservoir, Mari people