Olija, who timidly asked for an  Udmurt New Testament

The significance of the new publication was captured in the words of the Director of the Udmurt National Museum, speaking at the launch celebration: “When I read the Scriptures in Udmurt they really reach my heart,” he told his audience, which included representatives of the FiBS and IBT. Following trials of the new translation among Christians and non-Christians in Udmurtia, 10,000 copies of the New Testament have been produced, and these are now being distributed through the local churches.

The whole project has the blessing of the Russian Orthodox Patriarch Alexei II. UBS Translation Consultant Dr Sergei Ovsiannikov has been assisting the project, which first began in 1988, working with an IBT team from Helsinki. This includes Father Mihail Atamanov, 52, who is a Doctor of Philology and an Orthodox Deacon, and has been the main translator since 1991, Consultant Ms Marja Kartano, and two assistants, Mr Tortsen Löfstedt and Ms Anne Kartano, plus four native Udmurt speakers. Also involved have been the Summer Institute of Linguistics and the Finnish Christian Publisher and Mission, Avainsanoma, which has helped with the funding.

BACKGROUND: One of the 12 Finno-Ugric languages in which Bible translation is being handled by the Finnish Bible Society (FiBS), the UBS and the Institute of Bible Translation (IBT), and the first to have the New Testament, Udmurt (or Votyak) is the first language of about 70% of the 746,000 Udmurt people of the central Russian Republic of Udmurtia, and the surrounding areas. Russian is commonly the second language. An area of about 42,000 sq kms, and with a total population of more than 1.6 million, Udmurtia forms part of the Upper Kama Highlands, west of the Urals, with Tatarstan and Bashkortostan to the south, and is known by many as the homeland of the great composer Pyotr Tchaikovsky (1840-93). Moscow is about 960 kms (600 miles) to the west and Yekaterinburg 480 kms (300 miles) to the east. Written in the Cyrillic script since the beginning of the 20th century, the first Scripture to appear in the Udmurt language was published in 1847. A Roman script Gospel of Matthew was published privately in 1863, followed by a Cyrillic edition in 1882 (by British and Foreign Bible Society (BFBS) in Helsinki) and the Four Gospels in 1904 (BFBS, Kazan).