MESCHERYAKS, or Meschers, a people inhabiting eastern Russia. Nestor regarded them as Finns, and even now part of the Mordvinians (of Finnish origin) call themselves Meschers. Klaproth, on the other hand, supposed they were a mixture of Finns and Turks, and the Hungarian traveller Reguli discovered that the Tartarized Meschers of the Obi closely resembled Hungarians. They formerly occupied the basin of the Oka (where the town Meschersk, now Meschovsk, has maintained their name) and of the Sura, extending north-east to the Volga. After the conquest of the Kazan empire by Russia, part of them migrated north-eastwards to the basins of the Kama and Byelaya, and thus the Meschers divided into two branches. The western branch became Russified, so that the Mescheryaks of the governments of Penza, Saratoff, Ryazan, and Vladimir have adopted the customs, language, and religion of the conquering race; but their ethnographical characteristics can be easily distinguished in the Russian population of the governments of Penza and Tamboff. The eastern branch has taken on the customs, language, and religion of Bashkirs, with whom their fusion is still more complete. They can be distinguished from their neighbours only by their more peaceful character. This Bashkir-Mescheryak branch was estimated by Rittich in 1875 to number 138,000. They make 6 per cent, of the population of the government of Upa, and 22 per cent, in the district of Birsk. The number of the western Mescheryaks is unknown, and could hardly be estimated on account of their mixture with Russians. It is only in the government of Penza that they have maintained their national features; there they make 3 per cent, of the population.