Leningrad Oblast is a federal subject of Russia. The oblast has an area of 84,500 square kilometres (32,600 sq mi) and a population of 2,000,997 ; up from 1,716,868 recorded in the 2010 Census. Leningrad Oblast is highly industrialized. Its administrative center and largest city is Gatchina.

Veps, also known as Vepsian, is a Finnic language from the Uralic language family, that is spoken by Vepsians. The language is written in the Latin script, and is closely related to Finnish and Karelian.