Abstract. The author highlights the problem of the little studied ethnic history of the Slavs in the Russian North, the development of which by the Novgorodians from the X-XI centuries formed the basis of the North Russian traditions, where Russian shipbuilding dominates. The lack of modern research on the Slavic-Russian settlement and development of this region does not contribute to the study of the history of folk culture and the ways of its development, which can be traced in the study of folk shipbuilding. In the north of European Russia, folk boats preserve the terminology and traditions of Novgorod shipbuilding, even in the XXI century, ancient watercraft used by the local population – rafts and dugout boats with an ancient name - «ushkuiki», lake soymes and Pomeranian carbases have been preserved. At the Institute of Language, Literature and History of the Karelian Branch of the Russian Academy of Sciences, no one deals with the ethnic history of the Slavic-Rus, obviously, that is why ethnographers and linguists often associate the origin of these ship terms with the Baltic-Finnish languages. It is known from the history of shipping that such types of vessels of various sizes as the Ushkui, Soyma and karbas have been widely used by the Russian population since ancient times in the basins of Lakes Ilmen, Ladoga and Onega, in Pomerania and on the Kola Peninsula, in the Volga region and Siberia. According to the author, it is obvious that these types of vessels with Slavic-speaking roots cannot belong to Finnish, Karelian and Vepsian watercraft.

Russian Russian ethnic history in the latest monograph «Peoples of Karelia», published in 2020, does not reveal the fundamental role of the Russian people in the development of the spiritual and material culture of the Russian North, in the development and use of the riches of the region. The materials of the monograph allow the author to pay attention to the current situation of studying ethnic history, dialects and traditional culture of the indigenous Russian population of the republic. Due to the non-systematic approach to the analysis of historical processes in the light of new data, the richest layers of Slavic-Russian history are hidden on the modern territory of the Republic of Karelia, the first common cauldron after Novgorod, in which the history of the Arctic and Siberia exploration was born. To change the current situation and solve the problem that has arisen, it is necessary to develop areas of work on the topic «Ethnohistory of the Slavo-Russ of the Russian North», may be according to a special program.