Ethnic groups

The indigenous population of Upper course of Volga were Finnic (Valtai, Rehevä and Tihveri) Karelians, known also by the Russians as Wild Forest and Tver Karielas followed by Meri Russian Merya, that were later partly assimilated to Russians. Other Finnic ethnic groups are Maris and Mirdes / Merdis Russian Mordvins of middle Volga. Turkic populations appeared in the 600s and assimilated some Finnic and Indo-European population at the middle and lower Volga, later they were transformed to Christian Chuvash and Muslim Tatars; also to Nogais, which were supplanted to Daghestan later. Mongolian Buddhists Kalmyks resettled to Volga in the 17th century.
The Volga region is home to a German minority group, the Volga Germans. Catherine the Great had issued a Manifesto in 1763 inviting all foreigners to come and populate the region, offering them numerous incentives to do so. This was partly to develop the region but also to provide a buffer zone between the Russians and the Mongol hordes to the east. Because of conditions in German territories, the Germans responded in the largest numbers. Under the Soviet Union a slice of the region was turned into the Volga German Autonomous Soviet Socialist Republic to house many of the Volga Germans. Others were executed or dispersed throughout the Soviet Union prior to and after World War II.