The Republic of Udmurtia is the titular homeland of the Udmurt people – a Uralic people who traditionally spoke Udmurtian which is a Uralic language. Today ethnic Udmurts make up just under a third of the population of the republic and Udmurtian remains an official language along with Russian. The republic is situated between the Kirov Region, the Perm Territory and the republics of Bashkortostan and Tatarstan in the part of Russia often referred to as Central Prikamye – literally the land ‘next to the River Kama’. The capital of the republic is Izhevsk – which is most famous for its links with the production of the Kalashnikov automatic rifle.

  In addition to the republic’s industrial capital, other interesting destinations here are Votkinsk, where the composer Pyotr Tchaikovsky was born and spent his childhood (the estate where he lived is now a museum), and Sarapul, a pretty provincial city located on the Kama.