- logic dictates that in harsh environment populace to tend to not be big and in case o tribal societies they tend to migrate alot. Claiming that tundra and steppe had any significant numbers of native local population is rather... original.
Math also makes it pretty clear that there were far more people than this, If there were 30 people per province in 1444, and the harsh evironment never improved for years then the populations would remain around 30 people until 1700's or 1800's, there's no way not even if every generation had 6 healthy children who also multiplied by making 6 more children could they ever achieve 80,000 karelians in 2010.
And that is in a world where there is such thing as having 6 healthy children who never die until old age, even their parents for that matter. In a world where There's no such thing as infertility, in a world where everyone even has 6 children when they probably couldn't sustain that ammount, In a world where starvation is out of question!
With 80,000 karelians in todays year, that also doesn't take into account the many karelians who assimulated and the ones who arent even registered
^ If that isn't on par with a source then you severely lack logic.