Description of the attraction
It is known that the Seto people live in the Pskov region, namely in the Pechora region, as well as in the southeastern outskirts of the state of Estonia, which until 1920 was related to the Pskov province. It is rather difficult to establish the number of this people, because their ethnos is not included in the list of nationalities living on the territory of Estonia and Russia. During the census, the Seto people had to be attributed to the Estonians, although this assignment is not entirely fair and correct, because these two peoples have different religious trends.
An active ascetic of the Seto culture is Tatyana Nikolaevna Ogareva, whose work together with a resident of the village Nikolai Tapper, as well as workers of the Izborsk museum, led to the creation of a new museum, namely the Seto estate, located in the village of Sigovo, Pechora district, Pskov region. Seto cultural and public organizations took part in this work: Panikovsky and Mitkovitsky folklore groups, as well as the Pechora society called "Ecos". The Seto Museum has become a kind of part of the chain of Seto museums in Obinitsa, Värska and Saatse.
The museum is housed in an authentic manor house of the Külaots family. Most of the items also carry the warmth of the family home of the owners of the estate. All the collections presented in the museum have become the fruit of long-term, accumulative and research work.
The museum complex consists of two parts: the estate itself and a private collection in memory of the Seto people. Visiting this museum, one can be convinced of the harmony of the unity of nature and man, learn about the originality of the Seto culture, learn about the complexities and peculiarities of the historical development of this people.
According to the ethnographic classification, the Seto belongs to the Finno-Ugric group. The Seto language is based on the South Estonian or Vyrusian dialect. The Seto people themselves consider their dialect an absolutely independent language, which has no analogues in Estonia.
At the moment, there are the following versions of the origin of the Seto people. The first of them tells that the Seto is a Finno-Ugric people, which survived until the time of the emergence of the Slavs, with whom they met in the process of settling the western part of the East European Plain. According to the second version, the Setos are the descendants of peoples who fled in the Middle Ages from the territory of Estonia at the moment to the lands of the Russian Estonians who were fleeing from the Catholic influence of the knightly order. After some time, the Seto people were replenished with Estonians who moved to the territory of Russia.
For several centuries, the Seto people knew too little of the Russian language. After the Setos adopted Orthodoxy, they still retained most of the elements of paganism in their culture. This people only in the 20th century was able to finally get acquainted and understand the Bible, but nevertheless, regardless of this, the Setos always passionately performed all Orthodox rituals. It is worth noting that, nevertheless, the lack of understanding by the Seto people of all the norms and canons of Orthodoxy led to the fact that the Russian people living next to this people began to call them “half-believers”. On the other hand, the Estonians of the Livonian province also did not consider the Setos their own and referred them to the representatives of the "second class".
According to the results of the painstaking work of scientists from St. Petersburg, it was found that the Seto people nevertheless gravitate more towards the Orthodox Russian culture than towards the Lutheran Estonian culture. In addition, the Setos themselves distinguish themselves from the Estonian people. In terms of their ethnopsychological indicators, as well as their historical fate, the Seto people are closer to Russian culture. In order to preserve the identity of the Seto ethnic group, it is necessary to grant it the status of a small people of the Russian Federation, giving it the opportunity to communicate with Western representatives of the Seto.
