Russia 8,380 | ||
The Baraba Tatars (self definition: Paraba) are a sub-group of Siberian Tatars and the indigenous people of the Ob-Irtysh interfluve. After a strenuous resistance to Russian conquest and much suffering at a later period from Kyrgyz and Kalmyk raids, they now live by agriculture — either in separate villages or along with Russians. Some of them still speak Baraba dialect of Siberian Tatar language. They traditionally live on the Baraba steppe.
The Dzungar Khanate extracted yasaq (tribute) from their Baraba Muslim underlings. Converting to Orthodox Christianity and becoming Russian subjects was a tactic by the Baraba to find an excuse not to pay yasaq to the Dzungars. Since Muslim Siberian Bukharans had legal advantages and privileges under Russia, Barabas pretended to be them.
Population
They were first mentioned as a separate ethnic group in the Russian Empire Census in 1897 and First All-Union Census of the Soviet Union in 1926. According to 1897 Census their population was 4,433. In 1926 there were 7,528 Baraba Tatars.
Ethnographers estimated that their population reached 8,380 in 1971.
According to the data of the Institute of Philology of the Siberian Division of the Russian Academy of Sciences, there were 8,000 Baraba Tatars in Novosibirsk Oblast in 2012.