My grandfather is Ingrian (Izhorian), but I grew up far away from the language and culture.

Over the past year I've been slowly exploring Ingrian folklore and the runo-singing tradition connected to the same poetic world that influenced the Kalevala.

There's something strange about trying to reconnect with a culture that mostly survives in fragments: recordings, books, and scattered archival material. Something that feels distant, yet somehow still very close. This piece is a small musical experiment inspired by that search.

I collaborated with Finnish folk singer Emmi Kuittinen, who helped shape the vocal phrasing based on runo-song tradition.

I'm genuinely curious how this sounds to Finnish ears. Especially if anyone here is familiar with these singing traditions.





—
suhogurkin

1 comment

  1. A bit more context behind the piece:

    I’ve been exploring some archival materials related to Ingrian runo-singing — including recordings and transcriptions preserved in collections like the Estonian Folklore Archives and the Finnish Literature Society archives.

    Many of these historical recordings were written using Finnish orthography, which makes reconstructing pronunciation quite tricky.

    Because of that I worked on the vocal part together with Finnish folk singer **Emmi Kuittinen**, who has experience with Finno-Ugric singing traditions.

    The piece uses fragments inspired by traditional runo-song lines like:

    Kumae, ved oi, kumea metsoi
    Heläe, ved oi, metsoi heleä
    Kumae, ved oi, kui miä kumoidan
    Heläe, ved oi, kui miä helöidän

    Roughly translated in the archive as:

    “Hum, dear humming forest
    Ring, dear ringing grove
    Hum while I’m humming
    Ring while I’m ringing.”

    If anyone here knows more about Ingrian or runo-singing traditions I’d genuinely love to hear your perspective.

    And if someone is curious about the broader project behind this experiment, I wrote a bit about it here:

    [https://ingriantape.com](https://ingriantape.com)

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