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While conducting fieldwork in Russian Karelia, the authors encountered in an abandoned forest village of Yashozero the last native inhabitant - an almost 80 years old Veps woman Maria. There, at noon on 11 July 2005, at the lake-side cemetery, Maria lamented to her husband. Her lament, rich in archaic words and concepts, is more a one-sided dialogue than a monologue. It is possible to point out three...