“Dip a sandwich in reindeer blood”: how I lived with reindeer herders in the tundra for three months. Life of northern nomads in the tundra

Used interview and film by Andrey Golovnev, Ural Federal State University (Ekaterinburg)

They live on the Yamal Peninsula Nenets - eternal wanderers of the tundra. This is the largest of the northern peoples of Russia. Yamalo-Nenets autonomous region with its capital in Salekhard, it is part of the Ural Federal District.

The Nenets are perfectly adapted to the harsh Arctic conditions.

They call themselves "ninno inennuchi", which means "real people". Apparently the rest are considered fake. Maybe. But more precisely, they don’t care about other people. They do not compete with anyone, do not envy anyone, and do not settle scores with anyone. This barren and desert land, deer and cold are their wealth. This is their freedom from civilization, this endless sky above your head, which you can reach with your hand, the same endless horizon constantly before your eyes, not being tied to your place of residence, to money (there is nothing to buy in the tundra and nowhere), a minimum of amenities...

They used to be called Samoyeds. This strange word from the Sami “Sami edne” - “land of people”. Since the Russians learned about the Arctic from the Sami - the Sami, the Arctic lands east of the White Sea began to be called Sami Edne, that is, generally speaking, “Sami Edne” and “Ninno Inenuchi” are about the same thing, they are about people.

The Nenets have seven (!) seasons. In general, seven is my favorite number. It is not necessary to count the fact that more than seven is a set. Seven by seven by seven - counting by sevens. They don’t even count the reindeer in the herd, but know everyone by sight (in the sense of the face). There is even a Nenets belief that if you count all the reindeer, they may be attacked by pestilence.

They don’t have time - hours and minutes, as we are used to. Here the sun rises, the night shepherd - the guard is driving the flock to the camp. People wake up to the sound of deer hooves. This is instead of an alarm clock. Someone says: “Tyto” - “The deer are coming.” It means " Good morning". The camp is filled with the barking of dogs, women begin to rattle their cauldrons, smoke rises above the tents. People get out of their night fur beds and pull on their daytime fur clothes - malitsa and yagushka.

Migration is a transfer. Everyone roams: people, birds, animals, gods. We stood in one place for a week, in half an hour we dismantled our tent, made of poles and skins, and off we went. The tundra is a continuous road. And so all my life. So century after century. The Nenets see people who are confined to one place as destitute.

The Nenets have many different superstitions and beliefs. If, for example, at the beginning of the trip the reindeer leader of the team sneezes, it is better to return immediately; if he sneezes while crossing the river, it is worth looking for another place. If he snorts while chasing a polar bear, the animal is in front, if he is silent, the animal is behind. In a snowstorm, a reindeer herder finds a camp, watching the jerks of his leader's head. On a clear night, he follows the stars, noting their location between the antlers of the leading deer. On sleds they always carry with them various amulets, an image of the spirit of an ancestor. The spirit must watch over people and deer. Everything bad that can happen in the tundra, where spirits rule, is a response to the bad things that happen here in the camp, where people rule. A woman in a camp should not step over the reins, otherwise the wolves in the tundra will kill the deer. A man should not pass under the corral rope, otherwise he will get lost along the way. Men's things are only for men, women's things are only for women. In the chum, a man does not even dare to touch many women’s things.

The tundra can be treacherous. The only things more treacherous are the ice and the sea. According to Nenets beliefs, you cannot save someone drowning in water or falling into a swamp. He is the rightful victim of the lower spirits. but fortunately the Nenets violate this last custom, although they are well aware of the vindictiveness of the Lord of the Underworld Nga. And so on. In general, there is such a dependence on countless signs, quirks and superstitions.

Everyone has their own share in life, and together they form a cycle like day and night, like summer and winter. This cycle sets the rhythm for the endless movement of nomads. This has been the case for a very long time. Probably from the time when the ancestors of the Nenets came to the north. Somewhere they write that at the beginning new era, where - 6 thousand years ago.

Our usual year is divided into two - winter and summer. When you ask a Nenets “How old are you?” And he will answer, for example, “one hundred and twenty,” which means he is 60. All property and migrations are divided into summer and winter. And accordingly, there are summer and winter sleds. There is a conventional point between the summer and winter cycles, which is called “Po” - “door”. And conditionally, there are winter or summer sledges at this door. When they migrate to winter/summer pastures, they change equipment there. And through this “door” they pass into winter and back into summer. Numerous swamps and streams can be easily crossed on summer sleds. This is not an obstacle for deer. It’s interesting that they also call the year “by”. That is, among the Nenets, space and time are one and the same. Meaning, rhythm and philosophy of their life is such that they feel peace only in movement.

They do not know the measures in children. They give birth as long as they have enough strength. They give birth in the plague like their grandmothers and great-grandmothers, usually easily, although anything can happen. That’s the will of Myah-pukhche - Mistresses of the Plague. This is the main female goddess - the patroness of motherhood. She is depicted as a figurine wearing as many fur coats as she helped give birth to. The belt for this figurine must be brought from the distant sanctuary of the “Seven Plagues”, where the mother of all Myah-pukhche, the goddess Yamal-khada, lives. I wonder what kingdom of the dead or the underground kingdom, where all people at one time go is quite realistic for the Nenets. The departed are there and also wander around their underground world. When a child was born, the spirit of some ancestor moved into him. That is, a birth here is at the same time a funeral there and vice versa. If a child was born dead, it means his ancestors did not let him go from there.

A woman is always the sovereign mistress of the plague. The man is like a guest there. All women and even little girls have an amazing command of fire. The hearth is the kingdom of women - they heat it with a dwarf birch tree. Their fire is also a woman. And the sun is also a woman. As the Nenets say, everything that is warm is a woman, everything that is cold is a man.

Dogs always accompany people. The Nenets believe that a dog is half from this world, half from that ( world of the dead). She is sacrificed to the spirits when some misfortune comes to the camp. They have a ritual of purification - nipthora - fumigation with smoke of everything that is in the camp: all people and all things. The ritual is performed if someone has died, before childbirth, before the new moon, with the change of season, if deer change their fur or shed their antlers, when grass grows, in front of the road, especially at the sanctuary of the seven plagues, if a woman steps over a man’s thing, and so on. for any other reason. Niptor is also carried out after a trip to the village - the Nenets consider it an unclean place. There is something smoking in the cup (pieces of chaga, skins on coals) and this fumigates everything. This is such a sacred rite of expelling bad spirits, very common among different nations.

Fur clothing is worn directly on the naked body. It is hygienic because the lint rubs and cleanses the skin. In summer, Nenets like to wash and do laundry near a lake or river. Then washed things are laid out throughout the tundra. Such a tundra laundry. Moss is placed in the baby's cradle - a tundra diaper.

Sanctuaries.

The Nenets live in childbirth. Some of them are called multideer. According to legend, the leaders of these clans followed a doe with seven fawns. Where the deer stopped and lay down on the ground, people chasing in their tracks created sanctuaries. At the very edge of the earth, the hunters overtook the doe and killed her and her fawns. In that place is the main Nenets sanctuary Siumya or Seven Plagues. The hunter who killed the deer began to cut the skin on it and his knife clanged against a metal buckle, the kind that women usually wear on their belts. And people realized that they were led by a woman - a goddess. And they erected a sanctuary for the seven plagues for her and her seven children.

Shamans perform rituals there and communicate with spirits. They make sacrifices. Once upon a time, a woman fled here to the ends of the earth from her ferocious husband. He was from a family of many deer. He overtook his wife and killed her. And since then, animals have been sacrificed to atone for that act. Now there are many bones and skulls of animals scattered there.

Among the Nenets, gods and people live together. On the edge seashore there is an idol - “Seated” - this is the goddess of Yamal-Khad. This is in the very north of Yamal. This is one of the incarnations of the goddess Yamal. She appears either as a woman or as a white deer. There is a whole country of spirits here: gods, their children and servants. The Nenets perform a ceremony there. They take the heart of a deer, cut it into 7 parts, according to the number of fawns killed, and put it in a cauldron. Then the pieces are put into this “chum”, or rather a heap like a chum, made up of bones, antlers and skulls of deer, as well as various things. Not everyone who pleases comes there, but representatives of key, indigenous clans. This is a kind of Nenets Mecca where people come on special occasions.

Photo: Encampment near Nadym.

That is, such a representative pilgrim collects gifts from all the camps and goes there to offer them. A person puts his brought things and objects into this pile and takes away those that have already lain there and become, as it were, sacred amulets, absorbing the power of spirits. Such rotation and interchange occurs. At the sanctuary you can also ask the spirits about something important for life. Well, that is, we kind of talked. The sanctuary has a guardian. The Nenets say: “Whoever is in a hurry in the tundra is in a hurry to die.”

Before visiting the sanctuary, you must sacrifice a deer and perform all the rituals. If you fail to comply, you will receive punishment from the gods.

According to legend, once upon a time shamans of the multi-reindeer clan came here to the cape. They set up a large tent and began to perform rituals. The spirits told them that Great Goddess Yamala wishes to incarnate in the body of a woman. Then a woman was sacrificed. Voluntary or not? She gave up her ghost and the spirit of the goddess entered her. The victim was placed in a tent, and in the morning people saw that the tracks of a doe and seven fawns were going away into the distance from the tent. Anyone who has once visited the Seven Plagues must return here every three years.

Photo Tundra. Reinhard Strickler (Switzerland).

Since then, the Nenets have mastered Yamal from edge to edge. A trochee is a pole used to control deer. Arriving at a new camp, the man sticks it into the ground. When a man is buried, they stick a trochee on the grave - the main male symbol. And the woman is given some kitchen utensils. The place where the tent was placed is considered reclaimed. In heroic tales, the conquest of the earth is depicted not as the expulsion of enemies from it, but as the capture of their women. The picture of the final victory is the tent, where, after long wanderings, the hero’s mother, sister or wife lights a fire. That is why not a god, but a goddess led the many reindeer through the Yamal tundra to the seashore.

The Nenets live in childbirth. In general, the entire tundra is close or distant relatives to each other. The Nenets have long chains of kinship, going back many generations and many hundreds of kilometers in breadth. IN certain time Nenets have been preparing antlers for years. This is the only profitable business after the decline of the fur trade in which the Nenets can earn money and buy something. Shepherds do not like to cut off the newly grown fluffy antlers of their deer, although they reassure themselves that this makes the deer stronger in body. But deer without antlers become ugly. And the favorite Nenets ornament is branched deer antlers. Just as the steppe nomads considered the horse a model of beauty, so the northern peoples considered the deer.

There has probably been a story going around for a hundred years about how a Russian merchant bargained with a Nenets shepherd. - Sell the deer! - There are no corrupt ones. - Why don’t you take money? Buy some wine. - I stocked up on wine. - Buy something for women or arctic foxes for bride price. - I have two arctic foxes. - You have three thousand deer. Where do you save it? - The deer are walking, I’m looking at them. And if you hide the money, it won’t be visible.

And for the rest life goes on in its own way. It’s interesting that the Nenets call Yamal only the most northern part peninsula, where they have their main sanctuary. The word "Yamal" is translated from Nenets as "edge (end) of the earth." Where Yamal ends, the Kara Sea begins. Through the Malygina Strait, White Island. There is an idol of an old man on it, facing to Yamal, just opposite the Sitting Old Woman. Well, and a weather station. There is no permanent population.

Gas is currently being produced in Yamal. Both gas pipelines and roads for deer are a serious obstacle. Gas workers actually build special crossings through gas pipelines and roads along migration routes. These crossing points were agreed upon with the indigenous population. Some Nenets live sedentary in villages, and as a rule, their lives do not work out because they become drunkards. They need to live in the tundra in freedom under familiar conditions.

The Nenets believe that every two thousand years a flood comes to the earth and washes it. And after the flood the earth is reborn and becomes new. Such a philosophy.

Russia, Nenets Tundra. The girl Mariana is 9 years old. Her city-dwelling peers are already versed in cosmetic trends, scrolling through glamorous Instagram feeds, and Mariana skillfully drives a reindeer team across the endless expanses of the Nenets tundra. Very soon, in a week, she will sit down and go to boarding school until spring, but for now she is in a plague, in which life does not stand still, in which a place on the map is only tied to a changeable GPS position, which only the helicopter pilot knows, with whom we went to visit Mariana.

The life of reindeer herders who lead a traditional nomadic lifestyle in the Tundra is one of the most interesting parallel realities, with whom I came into contact during my travels. Today I want to tell and show how life works in the plague in the summer, but I will definitely return for the winter continuation of this amazing story. A story that very much contrasts with the realities of life in megacities that are familiar to us.

Where is the fresh air... which you can taste.
Where is the endless space... which you really feel, but cannot grasp with your imagination.
Where the age-old traditions of their ancestors are preserved... which cannot be replaced by any modern technology.

Welcome to Tundra!

Satellite dish and TV in the tent. One tank of diesel fuel in a diesel generator is enough for 6-8 hours of viewing. Everything is delivered only by helicopter in the summer! In winter it’s a little easier - you can bring the necessary things, food, and diesel fuel from the nearest village by snowmobile.

I will tell you about the structure of the plague in a separate article, there are so many details and so many obvious and incredible things :)

This is firewood... it’s not easy to find firewood in the tundra, there are no trees here.

In the tent, the hostess treats us to delicious pasta with stewed venison! The taste cannot be described in words.

Last days summer... the last rays of the stingy polar sun. Last days in the tundra for Mariana before the long school year at a boarding school.

"Deer" - translated from Nenets means "life". Deer is everything: food, dishes, clothes, it is life in the literal sense of the word.

So who is leading whom where?
A reindeer herder leading a herd of reindeer?
Or do reindeer herders move their chum from place to place following the herd?

to be continued...

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The story of the lost deer

I wake up from being covered in snow. Despite the temperature of minus twenty degrees, the May sun warms, which in the North at this time of year already rises high. The shepherd Ilya is sleeping next to me near the sled. All around, up to the horizon, there was snow and three thousand deer, which had been haunting us for the last 24 hours. It's a long way from the plague, about four hours' ride on a sled. We were very cold, didn’t eat anything and are now waiting for other shepherds to replace us.

But let's go back a day, when nothing foreshadowed trouble.

“We won’t strain ourselves today. Zoya gave us a lot of food, so we’ll look at the deer, and then we’ll go to the ravine (hunting lodge. - Note ed.), it's near the river. I have vodka hidden there too. special case. And the first duty is just a special occasion,” Ilya made me happy last night, while we were following the tracks in search of the herd that we had just left in the tundra. “Three thousand deer can’t just get lost,” I thought and imagined how we were lighting the stove, laying out supplies on the table in the house - despite a hearty dinner, I was madly hungry again, but the herd was still not visible.

It is not surprising that we never found them: they grazed alone and were completely invisible in the dark. We realized this only at midnight. There was no hope left for a warm house: hard work began. We had to gather three thousand scattered deer into one herd.

By morning it got colder. The snow hardened and became like stone. We had been driving the team for 24 hours and fighting the cold; there was barely any left in the thermos. warm tea, but he didn't help anymore. Everyone was tired: me, the shepherd, the deer. And there was still a whole frosty day ahead before the evening shift. I wanted to sleep, and a snowdrift would have been perfect.

"VvIIIÖÖ++="

Ilya is a shepherd of the second brigade of reindeer herders from the Komi people, who have been wandering along the Bolshezemelskaya tundra for about three hundred years. This is a swampy desert in the Far North - where the Ural Mountains end. By historical standards, the Komi came to this region quite recently, mixed with the families of the local Nenets and adopted them everyday life Ulyanov N.I. Essays on the history of the Komi-Zyryan people.

Once a year, tens of thousands of deer left their winter camp on the very border with the forest-tundra and went to the Kara Sea in search of moss and salt water. They had to collect a supply of salt for next year. Families of reindeer herders were filmed together with the reindeer. They worked together in small communes and followed the herd all the way to the sea and back. We started before the snow melted and finished before the first persistent frosts. They warmed themselves with fires and traveled on sleds: spruce runners rolled well both on the snow and on the ground. They ate venison, and the balance of vitamins was restored with fresh deer blood. The winter was spent in extreme cold in the forest-tundra, so that by spring everything would begin at first Khomich L.V. Nenets. M.-L.: Nauka, 1966. “Their threads are made from the tendons of various small animals; This is how they sew together various furs that serve as their clothing, and in the summer they wear the skins with the pile outward, and in the winter inward, turning them towards the body,” the Dutch merchant Isaac Massa wrote about the clothing of Nenets families in the 17th century.

As a result of the development of Siberia, by the 16th–17th centuries, Russian merchants, yasak collectors and officials were firmly entrenched in the North. Appeared major cities- strongholds throughout Siberia: Salekhard, Surgut. They became a center of trade with the indigenous population and forever changed their way of life. Reindeer herders had their first firearms, nets, fabrics, which they bought for furs and fur.

The next time the life of nomads changed radically only at the beginning of the 20th century with the advent of Soviet power. Civil war and constant robberies on both sides left many families of reindeer herders without herds and food supplies. They were forced to form cooperatives and work together. Fortunately, the creation of collective farms (kolkhozes) was the main policy Soviet Union in the North. The initiators of collectivization were poor and often illiterate families. For example, the Nenets Yadko expressed his desire to join a collective farm in the form of the pictogram “VvIIIÖÖ++=”, this meant that there were two workers in the family - Yadko himself and his younger brother; two disabled women; They also have five deer - three males and two females.

The era of collectivization began. Reindeer farms were divided into collective and individual. Moreover, preference was given to the first. By the 1930s, collective farms were given nomadic lands - varga - and deer were tagged. The farms no longer belonged to the Nenets.

By the 1940s, the Union had built up to Vorkuta, a large coal deposit right in the very heart of the Bolshezemelskaya tundra. Vorkuta has become district center, and small villages appeared along the Vorkuta railway. In Meskashor they were engaged in experimental agriculture: Tried to grow vegetables in extreme cold. Civilization came, and the nomads received its benefits.

Collective farm workers acquired apartments in Vorkuta. True, they did not visit them more than once a year, but they always took care of their housing and shared it with relatives who either could no longer roam or chose a different life for themselves. “We lived in the tundra,” explains Ilya. - It would seem that you would stay in this comfortable apartment. What to do with the deer? If only they would give us a house in the village and a paddock, we wouldn’t have to wander anywhere. Have you heard how they live in Europe? »

The children of the nomads went to. It was opened for them special boarding schools, in which they were to live until the beginning of the summer migration, and then go on vacation with their family and a herd of thousands of deer to the Kara Sea. Classes were only in Russian: Nenets and Komi were banned. After school - the army. And there, if you don’t find a job, then you go back to the tent.

“He takes me for cracklings and chums me”

The family of reindeer herders I stayed with did not look like a family in the traditional sense. It is more like a small community that lives under one roof. It is called the “second brigade” and consists of two families with children, a foreman and a pair of shepherds - Nenets hired workers who roam between communities until they find a wife and stay in one place forever.

“I was born in the plague. Then school, thirty-first college. Got married. My Lesha is also from Chum, he graduated from 9th grade. He lived at home for a year and wore me out, and then he also killed me - for cracklings and chum,” Zoya says with a laugh. Her husband is a foreman. He no longer herds reindeer or sits in the snow for thirty-six hours, but he decides more important issues. Every year he and his brother, also a foreman, share camps. He loves to hunt. All free time before the spring migration, he drives a Finnish snowmobile. He needs to have time to solve problems with fuel and food. And in the morning the entire brigade wakes up to his command: “Company, rise!”

Reindeer husbandry is family business. Despite the fact that any person from the outside can “settle” into the tent, no one lingers. Everything here is incomprehensible to someone who grew up in the city. Even the rules are the only one card game The book will have to be studied for a whole month. Russian demobilizers also got jobs in the chum, but never in the history of any brigade did anyone stay. “Who would want to? Hereditary reindeer herder only. Children’s children,” explains Lesha.

Everyone knows each other. There are few families, and they are scattered across the farthest corners of the tundra. And if they spend the summer in wild conditions, where they don’t meet anyone, then winter is the time to visit each other. IN big cities At this time, holidays are held - days of the reindeer herder. This is a reason for everyone to get together and get to know each other. Some will then leave to work with another team, others will find their other half. In any case, life here does not stand still at all. People are separated by huge distances, but this makes life even more interesting.

The work of nomads and their practices

There is a fairly simple hierarchy within the brigade. The foreman plans the migration, searches for parking, and once a year tries to wrest from the neighbors the most pleasant places for wintering near the village, where there are shops and a bathhouse. Women practically never leave the chum: they have to do a lot of cooking, cleaning, and sewing clothes.

Until now, nomads wear homemade clothes from skins, make belts from leather and buckles from deer bones. They always have a bear fang with them: if your fang is larger than that of a living bear, then it will not attack

The work of shepherds is the most difficult, because they have to spend the most time with the flock away from home in the terrible cold. And sometimes their workday doesn't end even after they get home to sleep.

The day after my first duty, we were replaced by Misha and Egor - two cheerful Nenets, who are jokingly called “nailed” here because they have not yet started a family. It suddenly became warmer, a powerful snowstorm arose - this is the most disgusting weather, when the cold penetrates through and it seems that it is simply impossible to warm up. The shepherds returned, as expected, only a day later, just at the moment when we were collecting tents to move. All they had to do was finish the lukewarm soup, put on their wet malitsa and pimas (high boots made of reindeer hair) again, and prepare the caravan for the journey. Only two days later, when they managed to sleep, they told how during a snowstorm they covered themselves with sleds and waited until they were covered with snow, so that it would become warmer and they could get some sleep.

A special place in the tales of the second brigade is occupied by the story of how Ilya and his wife Nastya met. It is usually told somewhere between the story of how the shepherd Misha fell into his den and woke up the bear, and the story of the shepherd Yegor, who was found in the tundra when he was little. The entire team insisted that Ilya should tell it to me personally.

I just waited until we were on duty together, and while we drove the team all night after the missing herd of deer, Ilya said: “When I was young, I traveled all over the tundra. I myself am from the south, from Vorgashor, but my friends are everywhere. When I turned twenty-five, we were off the coast of the Kara Sea, so I celebrated my birthday in the most decent place - in Ust-Kara. My brother is there. I came and said that it was a holiday and we should celebrate. And he has no gifts, no vodka. Well, there were no problems with the vodka, but he surprised me with the gift. Imagine, I come to him, and there is a girl there. She's so modest, her name is Nastya. “Here’s a gift for you, as it should be,” he said. I didn’t even think that he would do such a thing.”

In the morning, Ilya took Nastya to his tent, and they had to cross the Bolshezemelskaya tundra on a sled for several days - Ilya’s camp was at the other end, near the Pechora Sea. Nastya’s family did not accept such a daring act, so her brother Vanya followed in the footsteps of the escapees. He took a larger rifle and set out to deal with the kidnapper.

Ivan crossed the tundra and had almost reached the camp. The reprisal was so close. But at the entrance he met Ilya, heartbroken. He had just lost his entire herd - three thousand heads, an unthinkable number at that time. I needed to help a colleague in trouble. They got back into the sled and headed back to the tundra. The massacre had to be postponed.

These stories, shocking to us, still exist thanks to the remnants of Nenets culture. Until the middle of the 20th century, tribal relations reigned in the Nenets family: wives were paid with bride price, they were kidnapped, and polygamy was in fashion. In 1927, the Soviet Union decided to put an end to such barbarity, unacceptable in a secular state, and issued a decree banning bride price and polygamy. A special commission appeared to improve the work and life of women, and the court began to consider cases of bride price. From archives Khomich L.V. Nenets. M.–L.: Nauka, 1966 cases come up like: “The Samoyed Salinder Napakata bought his sister from Yadne Panten in 1926 for his son, who was then 12 years old, and gave a bride price for her - 50 important females, 20 male deer, several arctic foxes of the autumn hunt, 20 pieces of pawns ( deer calves), one copper cauldron and a dagger.”

More than seventy years have passed since then until the collapse of the Soviet Union. If the traditions were not completely eradicated, they acquired a new shade.

“Everything ended well. Vanya stayed with us to live. You just know him. So this is the one who wanted to kill me,” Ilya finished his story.

"We'll die with them"

People began to leave Vorkuta after the collapse of the Soviet Union. In the 1990s, experimental farms had already closed, food prices rose sharply, and wages fell. The population census tells us that at present, compared to only Vorkuta, there are only a few inhabitants left. They left for large cities, and the villages along the Northern Railway were completely deserted. The North looks bleak today. In the village of Seyda, for example, there are about twenty people left - railway station workers and a grandmother who bakes bread. Half of the houses are boarded up, Khrushchev-era apartment buildings stand with broken windows, and only a couple of them can have lights on. Progress has stopped.

In the early 1990s, state farms. The reindeer herders never gained independence, but remained with the benefits of civilization. Former state farms, now reindeer herding enterprises, still supply their teams with food, fuel and vodka, and also send a helicopter with supplies once during the nomad movement, when the nomads go too far from residential areas, closer to the Kara Sea. Children are also sent by helicopter to the camps when many of them begin to develop summer holidays, and the family had already gone north, beyond Vorkuta. Reindeer herders are paid salaries: a shepherd receives 10,000 rubles, and his wife receives half as much - a ridiculous amount for the North, where just a kilogram of apples or oranges can cost 300 rubles. But in the bare tundra there is practically nowhere to spend money. On the other hand, after the collapse of the Soviet Union, there was no one to control the work of enterprises. Chaos began.

“They haven’t even decided where to roam now. They crawled out of the tundra and came up with the idea: “I’m going where my father showed me,” and there’s no one to deal with them. Wild world“,” complains Sergei Pasynkov, director of the former Vorkuta state farm “Olenevod”. Since the 1990s and until now, he has been unable to establish relations with the reindeer herders and agree on where the nomadic camps are located now. And if during the times of the Union the routes were strictly observed, now the North has “gone wild”. Nomads huddle around railway- the only piece of civilization in the Bolshezemelskaya tundra. There is mobile communications, gasoline, TV and radio signals, and you can simply spend the winter in the village, in a cozy heated house. But Pasynkov is sure that there will not be enough moss for everyone. “One harsh winter, and that’s it! The deer will die! And with them, so do we,” the director is indignant.

Dish

In the evening the brigade gathers together. Even those who are on duty in the herd try to be closer to the tent at this time in order to escape from work for a couple of hours and warm up.

The wind rose, and the snow gusts were so powerful that snow was blown inside through the window at the top of the tent. The floor was covered with a fine dust of snow. The plague hummed and bent. The blizzard was unusually strong even by the standards of reindeer herders who were accustomed to everything - they took turns standing up and holding the sticks on which the chum rests. But the storm did not subside, so soon everyone got tired of playing the role of supports. The shepherds Yegor and Ilya brushed the snow off their low stools and sat down around the table. Hostess Zoya set the table.

The satellite dish does not pick up in this weather. Therefore, on TV we watch the Butyrka concert on DVD, which is of terrible quality - a gift to demobilized Ilya. He received this disc when he decided to return to his family and leave the service, refusing a fabulous salary of 50,000 rubles by the standards of reindeer herders.

For modern man it sounds crazy: a satellite dish in the tent, a DVD, a recording of the Butyrka concert. But in the North this is nothing more than part of the daily routine. Can’t leave the tent, leave the herd and move to a comfortable apartment? So, create comfort in your plague. In the end, a dish costs some 6,000 rubles, and a generator with a cheap Chinese TV and even less.

Dinner in the tent symbolizes the end of the working day. Everyone has worked hard, are very tired, and now they just need to relax. Steel glasses clink, Zoya throws birch wood into the stove, and the chuma begins to smell like a heated bathhouse. She brings a knee-high wooden table into the middle and fills it with small plates of hot dishes and snacks. The generator operates, filling the silent tundra with a measured rumble.

Egor picks up a frozen heart, which is kept in the snow on the floor of the chum. Next he sharp knife slices it into thin slices reminiscent of chips, throws it into the pan, pours sunflower oil and sprinkles salt and pepper. “An excellent appetizer to go with vodka,” says Yegor and puts the pan on the table. But that's not all. Soon the deer's brain arrives right on the plate. “Think of it as pate or chocolate spread. Just spread it on bread,” advises Egor. “But it won’t taste good unless you dip your sandwich in deer blood.”

It sounds crazy. But in reality it is very tasty food.

Better life

At first glance, the life of reindeer herders has changed radically. They were given the opportunity to enjoy the benefits, offered an albeit meager salary, and even told where exactly to roam. Did this affect their traditions? Without a doubt, yes. We will no longer find shamans or animists among most of these people. The nomads changed part of their wardrobe: pimas - boots made of deer skins - are being replaced by rubber ones that do not rot in the off-season. Satellite dishes appeared on the chums, and television penetrated into the daily life of the reindeer herder: every morning women listen to Malysheva and watch “Let Them Talk,” at lunch they play cartoons for children, and in the evening they play chanson on DVD. For breakfast, lunch and dinner they put vodka on the table - you can get it on a snowmobile to the village, which is about six hours away.

“Reindeer husbandry is our life,” says Pasynkov. - Progress? GPS collars can be attached to deer, and reindeer herders can no longer roam if trading posts are built for them. Imagine: you left your herd on a winter pasture, and then business, just leave the warm house and move it once a week. Beautiful? Beautiful. But this way we will break their traditions, we will tame them. Once they change their lifestyle, they will not be able to return back to the plague. Yes, and this is all theory. Look at the villages around us: there are few of them, they are abandoned. Who needs us here? What trading posts? So we return to the tent and begin to nomad.”

Tundra

Influence natural conditions for the life, everyday life, activities and recreation of people Tundra

Peoples inhabiting the tundra

• Thousands of years ago people settled on these lands. But due to the harsh natural conditions, the tundra is rarely inhabited. You can drive hundreds of kilometers and not meet a single person. The peoples inhabiting the tundra are small in number.

• Yakuts, Chukchi, Evenks, Evens, Nenets, Koryaks, Nganasans, Komi, Sami and other peoples live there.

• Nenets Chukchi

• Yakuts

• Nganasans

• Evenks

Main activities of the tundra population

• Reindeer husbandry

Reindeer pastures have long been protected: they migrated with the herd to a new place when there was still enough moss in the old pasture. They returned to used pastures after a few years.

For centuries, the indigenous inhabitants of the tundra have developed rules of conduct in surrounding nature. The hunt took place without shots or explosions. They used traps, nooses, and snares.

dog is man's friend

• IN northern regions Sled dog breeding is widespread in our country. Dog sleds are more reliable than some modern species transport. They will not fail in a snowstorm when technology is powerless.

Minerals

Gas and oil production is developing particularly rapidly. More and more new deposits are being discovered in Western Siberia and other places in the Far North. However, research has so far involved only a small part of the hard-to-reach tundra. Every significant discovery is the result of the persistent, collective work of an entire army of geologists, their knowledge, energy, and awareness of the importance of the matter.

Traditional home in the tundra

Traditional home in the tundra

• Residents of the Tundra live in their traditional dwellings: tents, yurts, yarangas... There are up to 40 types of northern dwellings alone. For those who want modern comfort, the state provides this opportunity, but naturally, not everyone wants it.

Sites used:

• http://www.terepec48.ru/erm_1.htm
• http://images.yandex.ru
• http://www.timuriego.com/tundra.html

The tundra occupies 1/5 of the territory of Russia. Thousands of years ago people settled on these lands. But due to the harsh natural conditions, the tundra is rarely inhabited.
The population density in the tundra is low: less than 1 person per square meter. km. Khanty, Mansi, Eskimos, Evenks, Sami, Nenets, Yakuts, Chukchi, etc. live here.

The indigenous people are engaged in reindeer herding, fishing, and hunting (Arctic foxes, sea animals).
Reindeer husbandry is the basis economic activity indigenous people of the tundra.
Russia is home to 71% of the world's reindeer population - 2.2 million domestic and about 800 thousand wild. The deer gives the inhabitant of the North everything - the meat is used for food, the skins are used to make clothes, shoes, portable dwellings - tents, yarangas. No less important is the deer vehicle.
In the northern regions of the tundra, sled dog breeding is widespread. Dog sleds are more reliable than even some modern modes of transport. They will not fail in a snowstorm when technology is powerless. A team of 10 - 12 Nenets Laika dogs pulls a sled with a load of 400 - 500 kg at a speed of 7 - 10 km/h. In a day, a dog sled with a load travels 70–80 km, and a light dog sled travels 150–200 km. Very warm clothes and shoes are made from dog skins.

Local population of the tundra for a long time lived in complete harmony with nature. For centuries, the indigenous inhabitants of the region have been developing rules of behavior in the surrounding nature, measures to protect and preserve its wealth.
However, now the relationship between man and nature has changed dramatically. IN last decades the tundra zone is subject to intense economic development; More than 50% of its territory has already been affected. Oil exploration and production is developing here, natural gas and other minerals. Mines, factories, roads, villages - all these are territories taken away from the tundra. But the destructive impact on nature is not limited to this. The worst thing is the pollutants that are formed as a result of economic activities. They are distinguished by enterprises, transport, and boiler houses that heat residential buildings.
Pollutants accumulate in the tundra. Dozens of rivers and lakes are dying. Streams of fuel oil and diesel fuel from drilling rigs flow into the soil and water bodies all year round. The coast of the Arctic seas and the entire tundra are littered with ownerless barrels and rusty iron. Many settlements are in an unsanitary condition. There are practically no environmentally friendly enterprises.
Smog settles on white snow, turning it black, and patches of bare ground appear in places where pollution is especially high. For many years Not a single plant will grow here.
Another problem of the tundra is uncontrolled hunting and poaching. Many species of plants and animals have become rare.