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alternatehistory.com
(aka my very first thread under the New Board)
Here's the map of Eastern Europe in the 9th century. As you can see, the north-central part of European Russia was inhabited by Finno-Ugric tribes, most specifically in the Volga River basin, hence the obvious term. Except for Mari, Permians, Mordvinians and a small percentage of the Veps, most of the Volga Finns were culturally assimilated to the Eastern Slavs from neighboring Kievan Rus'.
Inspired by some threadstackling thesame topicthat I've read a long time ago, with a single PoD or a series of PoDs covering a period/different periods before the establishment of Kievan Rus' in the 882, with a different development for the Volga Finns, most specifically in agriculture and trading. Assuming that the events that developed OTL Russia would still occur (e.g. Mongol invasions), what particular Volga Finnic group would lead the unification and consolidation of Volga Basin as a single political entity?