Semeiskie

an ethnographic group of Russians in Transbaikalia (Buriat ASSR). The Semeiskie are descendants of Russian Old Believers who escaped from tsarist persecution and resettled during the 17th and early 18th centuries in Poland. After these regions were incorporated into Russia in the second half of the 18th century, many of the Old Believers and their families (hence their name, meaning in Russian “family men”) were exiled by Catherine II to Transbaikalia in Siberia. The Semeiskie retained some of the unique features of their material culture and folklore; during the Soviet period the former insularity of their way of life has disappeared.