Bjarmaland

Bjarmaland (also spelled Bjarmland and Bjarmia)[a] was a territory mentioned in Norse sagas from the Viking Age and in geographical accounts until the 16th century.

The term is usually understood to have referred to the southern shores of the White Sea and to the basin of the Northern Dvina River (Vienanjoki in Finnish) as well as, presumably, to some of the surrounding areas.

[1] At the estuary of the river dwelt the Beormas, who unlike the nomadic Sami peoples were sedentary, and their land was rich and populous.

The name Bjarmaland appears in Old Norse literature, possibly referring to the area where Arkhangelsk is presently situated,[2] and where it was preceded by a Bjarmian settlement.

[4] The place-name Bjarmaland was also used later both by the German historian Adam of Bremen (11th century) and the Icelander Snorri Sturluson (1179–1241) in Bósa saga ok Herrauðs, reporting about its rivers flowing out to Gandvik.

[1] Accordingly, many historians assume the terms beorm and bjarm to derive from the Uralic word perm, which refers to "travelling merchants" and represents the Old Permic culture.

In fact, burial sites in modern Perm Krai are the richest source of Sasanian and Sogdian silverware from Iran.

More important for the decline was probably that, with the onset of the Crusades, the trade routes had found a more westerly orientation or shifted considerably to the south.

[citation needed] When the Novgorodians founded Velikiy Ustiug, in the beginning of the 13th century, the Bjarmians had a serious competitor for the trade.