In the Northern capital of Russia are living about 1700 Veps. Such the information said the head of national-culture Veps society Victor Trifoyev during "The Veps tea-party" in the press centre of the informational agency "Rosbalt". According to him the number of people of this nationality in St. Petersburg is growing away.

"A couple of decades ago about 4000 people lived in St. Petersburg. Nowadays people is dying out. Meanwhile we try to stop this process, and we restore the Veps language", - said he. According to V. Trifoyev about 7 thousand Karelian schoolchildren study Katelian, Finnish and Veps today. This year the number of pupils that study these languages increased.
In 12 arrondissements of Karelia 6927 pupils study native languages. Last year the number was 6500 people, and in 2011 - 6000. In Sortavalsky region's schools the Finnish language is included into school program. 
Veps people - is small-numbered Finno-Ugric people that lives in Karelia and some regions of Russia - Vologda and Lenimgrad oblasts. Till 1917 in official documents of the Russian Empire the nationality exchanged chud'. Since April, 2006 they were included into the List of native small-numbered peoples of the North, Siberia and Far East of Russia. 
The Veps language is related to the Baltic-Finnish branch of the Finn-Ugric family of languages, it is the nearest to Karelian, Izhorsky and Finnish. 
It should be noted that the round table "TheVeps tea-party" is the second meeting of the cycle "Tea party on...". The hosts are representatives of the Veps community - Igor and Svetlana Topalovs. The heroes said about traditions, foundations, national tokens and, of course, about a usage to drink tea - with Veps kalitkas from saucers. As guests were pupils, students and journalists.