In Russia, the 23rd of February is men's day. Well, officially, it's "the day of the defenders of the fatherland" (den' zashchitnikov otechestva), but since most men serve in the army, it has become kind of the analog of March 8th (International Women's Day--international in the sense that all the former communist countries celebrate it). Anyway, they have big celebrations all over the country in honor of all the men, whether or not they served in the army. On a frozen lake, near where I live, they had music and other kinds of performances all day long, people gather together with friends and family, women buy their fathers, brothers, sons and husbands/boyfriends small gifts, and, in the evening, young people go out to the clubs, where a whole set of events are staged in honor of men.
My friend, Masha, is a kind of event coordinator in the city, so I had the opportunity to go club-hopping with her as she went around to different places to MC the festivities. First, we went to a restaurant where a group of doctors/medical students had a party. Masha had men volunteer to take part in various games--for instance, who can braid a girl's hair the fastest, who can blow up a balloon until it pops the fastest, who can tie up a girl the fastest so that she can't get out, etc. After a number of these games, she tells them she has a present for all the men. An American young lady has come all this way to congratulate them, and not just in Russian but in Sakha language! And she calls me up on the stage, insisting that I say a few words in Sakha--which for me is still quite difficult. I was mortified as I stumbled through a greeting. and she kindly apologized saying that I was shy... And then, later, after the final game, the prize turned out to be a dance with this same American girl...
A word of explanation: Americans very rarely end up in this part of the world and so I end up as a kind of celebrity at times. America, by virtue of its endless outpouring of hollywood movies, appears as the center of the world, a land of milk and honey where everyone is beautiful and everyone eats in restaurants all the time. So, to simply be from this world is something fascinating for people here. And then, that I can speak Russian and a little Sakha language on top of that gives me far more social capital than I deserve.
Anyway, the night went on and we ended up at a club called "Sporthouse" where further men's day events were being staged--here this included a belly dancer to entertain the fellows. and of course another greeting from the American guest. Fortunately by this time, I had figured out what I was going to say and so no longer looked like a complete fool. Sporthouse is one of the more popular clubs in Yakutsk (although the most popular is without a doubt "Dragon"--a 3-story European style club that has different kinds of techno music on different nights-drum and base, house, etc.). Sport house is two stories--the first floor being the discotec and the second floor for billiards. (I was surprised to find out that Russian billiards is actually played quite differently than in the States--there are no colors and no stripes, any ball can be hit into any other ball. Just one ball is orangey-yellow and is worth more points than the others if you can manage to hit it into the pocket.) After the main festivities, we were introduced to the owner of the establishment who turned out to be overjoyed at the presence of foriegners in his club (at this point some girls from Austria that I knew from the dormitory had met up with us as well--America is not the only place with prestige). We were showered with free drinks and invited to sit and eat various Siberian delicacies with them while we were there. In addition, the idea was proposed that we be given free passes to Sporthouse in order that our presence would somehow give the place greater prestige.
We finally extricated ourselves from our host's hospitality around 2:30 am and headed home. No limousines showed up, but anyway, such was our night of celebrity...
Tuesday, February 26, 2008
Lost in Translation
An embarassing, but yet funny enough story that it must be shared...
Since I arrived here, I have been plagued by static electricity--wearing heavy winter clothes all the time in a rather dry climate creates a lot of it. As such, every time I take off my hat, half of my hair stands up on end. So, since I've arrived I've been thinking of trying to find some kind of hair product that would help with that--in particular mousse, I thought, would be just the thing. Of course, how to say "mousse" in Russian--I hadn't yet figured out. Well, the other day, as I was taking a shower, I noticed that one of the other girls who uses the same shower had a bottle of something called, in Russian, "moos." and then something about hair, but I didn't look too closely or pay too much attention, assuming it must what I was looking for.
Well, a bit later, again frustrated by my hair, I decided she wouldn't mind if I took just a touch of it. I sprayed it onto my hand, and indeed it looked like mousse, so I put a bit in my hair to just flatten it down. The first thing I noticed was that it smelled absolutely terrible. Thinking, what kind of strange Russian mousse is this, I tried to pull a brush through my hair so that it spread through a bit more. But I couldn't even pull the brush through my hair--it seemed to have become completely like straw. Still not thinking it might not actually be mousse (I never use hair products at home, so I'm not used to what the results ought to be), I washed it out of my hair--I had to wash it three times and my hair still smelled a little.
Next, when I was brushing my hair, I noticed that my lap became covered with small pieces of hair--I thought, that's odd but was in a hurry by this time and didn't really pay attention. Later that evening, I was telling the girl who's bottle it was about her strange mousse--she looks at me with this pained expression on her face. "You put that in your hair?" she says, "Susan, that's not mousse..." It turns out that rather than mousse, it was "moos dlya ydaleniya volosi"--meaning, cream for getting rid of hair--that is, the stuff like Nair, that you put on your legs to dissolve your leg hair instead of shaving. So, not only was it not helping my hair to lay flat, it was actually dissolving it!
Fortunately, I didn't use very much, so it could have been far far worse. As it is, I'm still brushing small pieces of hair out whenver I brush my hair and, if you look closely you can see that I've got quite a lot more shorter hairs, flyaways, but it's not really noticeable to anyone but me. Of course, the static has actually gotten worse because of the top layer of short hairs that all stand up straight when I pull off my hat. But, they will grow long again and I've at least got a funny story to tell...
Since I arrived here, I have been plagued by static electricity--wearing heavy winter clothes all the time in a rather dry climate creates a lot of it. As such, every time I take off my hat, half of my hair stands up on end. So, since I've arrived I've been thinking of trying to find some kind of hair product that would help with that--in particular mousse, I thought, would be just the thing. Of course, how to say "mousse" in Russian--I hadn't yet figured out. Well, the other day, as I was taking a shower, I noticed that one of the other girls who uses the same shower had a bottle of something called, in Russian, "moos." and then something about hair, but I didn't look too closely or pay too much attention, assuming it must what I was looking for.
Well, a bit later, again frustrated by my hair, I decided she wouldn't mind if I took just a touch of it. I sprayed it onto my hand, and indeed it looked like mousse, so I put a bit in my hair to just flatten it down. The first thing I noticed was that it smelled absolutely terrible. Thinking, what kind of strange Russian mousse is this, I tried to pull a brush through my hair so that it spread through a bit more. But I couldn't even pull the brush through my hair--it seemed to have become completely like straw. Still not thinking it might not actually be mousse (I never use hair products at home, so I'm not used to what the results ought to be), I washed it out of my hair--I had to wash it three times and my hair still smelled a little.
Next, when I was brushing my hair, I noticed that my lap became covered with small pieces of hair--I thought, that's odd but was in a hurry by this time and didn't really pay attention. Later that evening, I was telling the girl who's bottle it was about her strange mousse--she looks at me with this pained expression on her face. "You put that in your hair?" she says, "Susan, that's not mousse..." It turns out that rather than mousse, it was "moos dlya ydaleniya volosi"--meaning, cream for getting rid of hair--that is, the stuff like Nair, that you put on your legs to dissolve your leg hair instead of shaving. So, not only was it not helping my hair to lay flat, it was actually dissolving it!
Fortunately, I didn't use very much, so it could have been far far worse. As it is, I'm still brushing small pieces of hair out whenver I brush my hair and, if you look closely you can see that I've got quite a lot more shorter hairs, flyaways, but it's not really noticeable to anyone but me. Of course, the static has actually gotten worse because of the top layer of short hairs that all stand up straight when I pull off my hat. But, they will grow long again and I've at least got a funny story to tell...
Wednesday, February 13, 2008
At the Market
Last Sunday I went shopping--which always seems to be an adventure here. I was trying to act as the tourguide this time, however, as 3 Austrian girls had just arrived in Yakutsk and didn't know their way around. Of course, despite having spent a considerable amount of time in the city, I managed to put us on 3 wrong buses before we got on the right one and found our way to the market we wanted to go to, that is "krestyanskii rynok" or "peasant market". I wanted to go here in particular because it's one of the larger markets and has a wide variety of both food and other products. Half of the market is outside, while half of it is in a large 2-story building. The cheaper products are, naturally, all outside, while the more expensive things are inside.
Sunday, of course, happened to be one of the coldest days yet since I've been here--well below -40 degrees, a fact discernable by the thickness of the fog the enshrouds the city. Below -35 or so there is a thin fog and it gets thicker the colder it gets. So, Sunday we could hardly see 5 feet in front of us, meaning that it was likely around -47,-48, which partly accounted for my inability to actually get us to the market. Despite the cold temperatures, all the outdoor merchants had their little shops set up. No one, however, was there shopping. Perhaps out of boredom or perhaps to keep themselves active, they all decided to harass the foriegners--as we obviously were. So, before we even got to the indoor 2-story building, we had to pass through the gauntlet of outdoor merchants standing in front of piles of frozen rabbits, squirrels, fish and moose meat. They had no problem grabbing our arms to lead us to their stands. Initially, the interest was in getting us to buy products from them, but soon they stopped caring about that altogether and poured an onslaught of questions--where are you from? why are you here? what do you think of yakutia? aren't you cold? how old are you? what is your name? I have a cousin in America! Do you know Brittany Spears? And one man, who was very proud of his limited English speaking ability, decided to demostrate with repeated declarations of "I love you baby," accompanied by attempts to hug and kiss me. It gets to feeling a little like being an animal in a zoo sometimes.
Having frozen ourselves fending off the outdoor vendors, we made our way inside the two story, brick building. On the first floor is where they sell fruits and vegetables (during the summer this is all outside as well, but understandably can't be in the winter). These are all in one large room. There are about 4 or five kiosks there, selling potatoes, onions, carrots, cabbages and even oranges, grapes, apples, tomatoes and bananas. The latter group are extremely expensive, however, (grapes were $6 a kilogram) and not the best quality. So I find it best to stick with the root veggies. All of the vendors sell precisely the same products for precisely the same prices--I can't for the life of me decide how people decide who to buy from because I simply don't see a difference in quality, price, or selection. I choose randomly typically.
Passing through the fruit and veggie room, you get to a corrider that winds around a large staircase. The corrider is lined with various shops selling assorted products like toiletries or movies or simply socks or handbags. On the second floor of the market is a much larger room where meat and dairy products are. Again individual vendors sell much the same products, lined up one after another in front of little refrigerators showing their butter, cheese, ground beef, large chunks of beef, horse, etc. and even intenstines, tounges and heads of various animals. They call out as you walk past "what are you looking for?" "here, take some cow toungue--the highest quality! I'll give you a discount, special for our visitors (priezhie)."
Also on this floor are small stores similar to those that are everywhere in the city that sell a wide range of groceries. Like in other stores as well, all the products are displayed behind the counter and you have to ask the cashier to grab things for you. However, shopping in the market is generally much more pleasant than elsewhere as you can wander around and look at what all the different vendors are selling and think about what it is that you want to buy. Some will even barter with you a bit if you push them to--"those are so expensive, you can't give me a discount?" Although, bartering culture is not super highly developed here as in other places I've been--the posted price is generally a fair price, so that you're not expected to haggle and if business is good, the vendors won't go any lower. I often give it a try, because things are not cheap here--I think because of the cost of importing things, oftentimes some products are even more expensive than they would be in the US.
Sunday, of course, happened to be one of the coldest days yet since I've been here--well below -40 degrees, a fact discernable by the thickness of the fog the enshrouds the city. Below -35 or so there is a thin fog and it gets thicker the colder it gets. So, Sunday we could hardly see 5 feet in front of us, meaning that it was likely around -47,-48, which partly accounted for my inability to actually get us to the market. Despite the cold temperatures, all the outdoor merchants had their little shops set up. No one, however, was there shopping. Perhaps out of boredom or perhaps to keep themselves active, they all decided to harass the foriegners--as we obviously were. So, before we even got to the indoor 2-story building, we had to pass through the gauntlet of outdoor merchants standing in front of piles of frozen rabbits, squirrels, fish and moose meat. They had no problem grabbing our arms to lead us to their stands. Initially, the interest was in getting us to buy products from them, but soon they stopped caring about that altogether and poured an onslaught of questions--where are you from? why are you here? what do you think of yakutia? aren't you cold? how old are you? what is your name? I have a cousin in America! Do you know Brittany Spears? And one man, who was very proud of his limited English speaking ability, decided to demostrate with repeated declarations of "I love you baby," accompanied by attempts to hug and kiss me. It gets to feeling a little like being an animal in a zoo sometimes.
Having frozen ourselves fending off the outdoor vendors, we made our way inside the two story, brick building. On the first floor is where they sell fruits and vegetables (during the summer this is all outside as well, but understandably can't be in the winter). These are all in one large room. There are about 4 or five kiosks there, selling potatoes, onions, carrots, cabbages and even oranges, grapes, apples, tomatoes and bananas. The latter group are extremely expensive, however, (grapes were $6 a kilogram) and not the best quality. So I find it best to stick with the root veggies. All of the vendors sell precisely the same products for precisely the same prices--I can't for the life of me decide how people decide who to buy from because I simply don't see a difference in quality, price, or selection. I choose randomly typically.
Passing through the fruit and veggie room, you get to a corrider that winds around a large staircase. The corrider is lined with various shops selling assorted products like toiletries or movies or simply socks or handbags. On the second floor of the market is a much larger room where meat and dairy products are. Again individual vendors sell much the same products, lined up one after another in front of little refrigerators showing their butter, cheese, ground beef, large chunks of beef, horse, etc. and even intenstines, tounges and heads of various animals. They call out as you walk past "what are you looking for?" "here, take some cow toungue--the highest quality! I'll give you a discount, special for our visitors (priezhie)."
Also on this floor are small stores similar to those that are everywhere in the city that sell a wide range of groceries. Like in other stores as well, all the products are displayed behind the counter and you have to ask the cashier to grab things for you. However, shopping in the market is generally much more pleasant than elsewhere as you can wander around and look at what all the different vendors are selling and think about what it is that you want to buy. Some will even barter with you a bit if you push them to--"those are so expensive, you can't give me a discount?" Although, bartering culture is not super highly developed here as in other places I've been--the posted price is generally a fair price, so that you're not expected to haggle and if business is good, the vendors won't go any lower. I often give it a try, because things are not cheap here--I think because of the cost of importing things, oftentimes some products are even more expensive than they would be in the US.
Valentine's Day in Siberia
Today is Valentine's Day and, indeed, the people of Yakutsk have embraced this holiday and all the Hallmark traditions. Young children give me small cards with short messages like "we go better together" and recieve heaps from their friends at school. Teenagers and young adult couples go out to restaurants or to the movies. Even the old ladies greet you with "happy valentine's day!"
Today, I visited a grade school (the city lyceum), where they were having a giant valentine's day celebration. As I walked into the main hall, it seemed the whole school was gathered in front of the stairs, while two girls, wearing red heart pins to hold up their pig tales spoke into microphones, music playing in the background--announcing the results of some kind of contest. Once I got through the crowd, I was greeted by the teacher who had invited me there and she led me to her class where Russian children were learning Yakut language. Today was to be the day that the students recited poems in Yakut language for the teachers and me (as the distinguished guest from America). So I sat and watched as student after student got up and recited a few lines.
People here love contests. At school, the students not only compete for grades, but often are competing for awards. The awards include "best reader of poems in the 5th grade", and other types of honors. As an oddity, I am often invited to come watch or sometimes even to participate as part of the "jury"--which is always an odd place to be. I always thought that our culture is very competitive, caught up with ranking people, etc. and I always had difficulties grading students papers for that reason. But, here, I am asked to rank students constantly and I'm not even their teacher. I want to simply say, you all did a great job and leave it at that but I am often pressed to say who is the best out of all the students. I think that these kind of awards and rankings are in a way more meaningful for people than are grades. But yet, at the same time, they don't take them as seriously as I sometimes think people do in the states, i.e. getting a low rank doesn't seem to bother them. But then again, perhaps I am projecting my own complexes onto all American people =)
Today, I visited a grade school (the city lyceum), where they were having a giant valentine's day celebration. As I walked into the main hall, it seemed the whole school was gathered in front of the stairs, while two girls, wearing red heart pins to hold up their pig tales spoke into microphones, music playing in the background--announcing the results of some kind of contest. Once I got through the crowd, I was greeted by the teacher who had invited me there and she led me to her class where Russian children were learning Yakut language. Today was to be the day that the students recited poems in Yakut language for the teachers and me (as the distinguished guest from America). So I sat and watched as student after student got up and recited a few lines.
People here love contests. At school, the students not only compete for grades, but often are competing for awards. The awards include "best reader of poems in the 5th grade", and other types of honors. As an oddity, I am often invited to come watch or sometimes even to participate as part of the "jury"--which is always an odd place to be. I always thought that our culture is very competitive, caught up with ranking people, etc. and I always had difficulties grading students papers for that reason. But, here, I am asked to rank students constantly and I'm not even their teacher. I want to simply say, you all did a great job and leave it at that but I am often pressed to say who is the best out of all the students. I think that these kind of awards and rankings are in a way more meaningful for people than are grades. But yet, at the same time, they don't take them as seriously as I sometimes think people do in the states, i.e. getting a low rank doesn't seem to bother them. But then again, perhaps I am projecting my own complexes onto all American people =)
Tuesday, February 5, 2008
Food
One thing I certainly miss most when I'm here is the foods that I'm used to back home. Some of you might remember my stories of various parts of cows and horses and moose being served to me. Those are actually delicacies here and people rarely eat them on a day-to-day basis. Most days its just soup, pasta, rice, chunks of canned beef or chicken legs sent from the US. The chicken legs they call "Bush's legs" because they were first sent during Bush senior's presidency. They sell fresh vegetables in the wintertime, but they're expensive and they're very watery. The best veggies to eat are cabbage, beets, carrots, potatoes and onions. Everything else, you might as well not buy.
Living by myself now, rather than with a family, I have to cook for myself--which, honestly is quite a chore. I love to cook in the states, but here, finding any ingredients that I know how to cook with is difficult. And furthermore, you don't get much time to think when you go the stores. They are not like supermarkets in the US. You're typical "grocery store" is quite small and everything is kept behind the counter. You have to think before you go in what you want to buy and ask one of the cashiers to grab it for you. Almost without fail I forget something in the process. You don't really get a choice of brand either. And you don't necessarily know what they have and don't have. More often than not, all the stores will be out of bread or some other really common staple--you'd think it was still the Soviet Union.
But things are changing here. There are one or two bigger stores that let you wander around, but the constant police presence is slightly menacing and furthermore, there's not much greater of a selection. Things there are more expensive anyway. The most pleasant place to shop is the outdoor markets, where local farmers come to sell their wares, or "entrepreneurs" set up stands to sell things they import from China or elsewhere. Even in -40 degree weather the market is open and the sellers are there. Although fewer farmers and more hunters, with frozen fish, rabbits and squirrel beseech you to buy from them.
Living by myself now, rather than with a family, I have to cook for myself--which, honestly is quite a chore. I love to cook in the states, but here, finding any ingredients that I know how to cook with is difficult. And furthermore, you don't get much time to think when you go the stores. They are not like supermarkets in the US. You're typical "grocery store" is quite small and everything is kept behind the counter. You have to think before you go in what you want to buy and ask one of the cashiers to grab it for you. Almost without fail I forget something in the process. You don't really get a choice of brand either. And you don't necessarily know what they have and don't have. More often than not, all the stores will be out of bread or some other really common staple--you'd think it was still the Soviet Union.
But things are changing here. There are one or two bigger stores that let you wander around, but the constant police presence is slightly menacing and furthermore, there's not much greater of a selection. Things there are more expensive anyway. The most pleasant place to shop is the outdoor markets, where local farmers come to sell their wares, or "entrepreneurs" set up stands to sell things they import from China or elsewhere. Even in -40 degree weather the market is open and the sellers are there. Although fewer farmers and more hunters, with frozen fish, rabbits and squirrel beseech you to buy from them.
Sunday, February 3, 2008
Arrival
I have now been in Yakutsk since Thursday (it is Monday now), after 3 full days of traveling, from Washington, DC to Atlanta to Moscow and then to Yakutsk. I unfortunately spent the weekend in bed due to an illness that was aggravated by the long trip, but am up and moving around now and feeling quite good in fact. I've moved into the dormitory here, where I'm happy to say, I should be able to access the internet as soon as I have it set up. There are only two other international students there at the moment, two Koreans who unfortunately do not speak much English or Russian so it is difficult to communicate with them. But they say another group of 5 Koreans should be arriving soon, two Austrians and and Polish guy. So, it should be relatively lively place shortly.
A few words about the city. It is quite similar to the first time I came here, almost 3 years ago now. It has not been a severe winter for people here--in fact, people say it has hardly dropped below -40 and it is around -30 now. While that may sound to most of, if you have spent time in conditions such as this there is quite a difference between -40 and -30. If you can imagine, -30 is tolerable, people have no problems going about their daily business. When temperatures drop below -50, however, the whole city just about shuts down--it is almost impossible to do anything out of doors.
But, enough talk of cold. The city is quite beautiful right now. When I arrived, a quite dreary fog sat on the city so that the sun was hardly even visible, just a glowing patch in the foggy sky, but on Sunday, the fog lifted and it even got a little warmer so that I was able to go for a walk. When the sun shines it is amazing. It glints off the trees, which are all white, caked in snow and bend over the walkways, themselves covered in snow, making it seem truly like a winter wonderland. The people who live here all dress in fur, which further contributes to this wonderland like feeling. The women look like princesses in the long coats and felt boots, ornately decorated with beads. The men don't look like princes, but are impressive nonetheless with their oh-so-stereotypical Russian hats--you know the ones that have the long ear flaps that can be tied on top? and they rarely let those flaps down--I wonder their ears don't fall off.
I hope this finds all of you well. I will write more soon.
Susan
A few words about the city. It is quite similar to the first time I came here, almost 3 years ago now. It has not been a severe winter for people here--in fact, people say it has hardly dropped below -40 and it is around -30 now. While that may sound to most of, if you have spent time in conditions such as this there is quite a difference between -40 and -30. If you can imagine, -30 is tolerable, people have no problems going about their daily business. When temperatures drop below -50, however, the whole city just about shuts down--it is almost impossible to do anything out of doors.
But, enough talk of cold. The city is quite beautiful right now. When I arrived, a quite dreary fog sat on the city so that the sun was hardly even visible, just a glowing patch in the foggy sky, but on Sunday, the fog lifted and it even got a little warmer so that I was able to go for a walk. When the sun shines it is amazing. It glints off the trees, which are all white, caked in snow and bend over the walkways, themselves covered in snow, making it seem truly like a winter wonderland. The people who live here all dress in fur, which further contributes to this wonderland like feeling. The women look like princesses in the long coats and felt boots, ornately decorated with beads. The men don't look like princes, but are impressive nonetheless with their oh-so-stereotypical Russian hats--you know the ones that have the long ear flaps that can be tied on top? and they rarely let those flaps down--I wonder their ears don't fall off.
I hope this finds all of you well. I will write more soon.
Susan
Thursday, January 24, 2008
Prologue
Dear Friends and Family:
As most of you probably are aware, I am about to leave for 1 year to live in Eastern Siberia. I thought I would start a blog to keep you all updated on my life while I'm there, but also to share with those of you who are interested a little about what it is like to live there. I'll try to keep "update" and descriptive posts separate, so if you don't have the time, you can don't have to wade through paragraphs of description to find out what I'm doing. But that may or may not be possible. Feel free to leave comments and ask questions if you'd like. I will hopefully be posting at least once a month. But I will be checking email more often and I will respond eventually if you write me :)
Love to all,
Susan
Prologue
Just a couple of words I guess would be appropriate in this first blog posting about what it is I am actually doing in Siberia, why I would be going to live for a year in what is in fact known as the coldest inhabited place on Earth.
As most of you reading this blog are likely aware, I am a graduate student in cultural anthropology and this research constitutes the primary research for my dissertation. Broadly speaking, as a student of cultural anthropology, I study contemporary human culture(s). "Culture," of course, means many different things to different people. For my purposes here, I really just want to distinguish cultural anthropology from either archaelogy (Indiana Jones) or physical anthropology (Lucy, Louis Leakey), both of which involve digging in the ground and wearing wide-brimmed hats. I will do no digging, although I may occasionally wear a wide-brimmed hat--the sun gets a little intense in the summer.
My specific purpose in the research I am about to embark upon is to examine the relationships between diamond mining, international organizations and expressions of indige
nous identity in a region of Eastern Siberia called the Sakha Republic or Yakutia. This is actually an enormous region, about twice the size of Alaska--you can see that it's the large pink region in the map of Russia to the right (map provided Courtesy of the University of Texas Libraries, The University of Texas at Austin). The Sakha Republic is named for the dominant indigenous population, the Sakha, who speak a Turkic language (that is, one related to Kazakh, Kirghiz, and Turkish) and whose ancestors are supposed to have migrated from the south sometime between 1000 and 1500AD.
Historically the Sakha were semi-nomadic horse and cattle breeders and practiced a pagan religion that included shamanistic elements. They were first incorporated into the Russian empire around the middle of the 17th Century and, during the early years of the Soviet Union, forcibly settled into villages and agricultural collectives.
In the 1950's, diamonds were discovered in the region and Sakha agricultural collectives were enlarged to support an immigrant workforce for the mines. The region's diamond industry now produces almost 25% of the world's diamonds, making it an extremely lucrative and vital industry for the Russian Federation. The majority population of the Republic is now Russian and other Slavic "newcomers," with the Sakha and other indigenous groups comprising around 40%.
After the collapse of the Soviet Union in the early 1990's, the region experience a "cultural revival" with Sakha activists hoping to promote Sakha language and culture and to assert regional autonomy from the Russian Federation. To this end, the first president of the post-Soviet Sakha Republic, Mikhail Nikolaev, who is himself Sakha, sought bilateral contacts with other countries and membership for the region in various international organizations, like the UN or the Northern Forum. More recently, however, the autonomy of the region has been severely curtailed by recentralization moves on the part of Russian president Vladimir Putin. The Republic's president is no longer popularly elected; he is appointed by Putin. The diamond industry, briefly controlled by the Republic, is now controlled by the Russian federal government, meaning that crucial profits are not retained in the region.
So, what I'm interested in is how all of these events and processes have influenced the way Sakha people see themselves and their identity. Do they see themselves as an "indigenous group", with rights and grievances addressable in documents like the recently passed UN Declaration of Indigenous Rights. Or, do the see themselves more as an ethnic minority, that could be an independent "nation" like France or England. Or, perhaps, identity as Sakha is not so important to people and other kinds of identities are more important, like being a member of the Russian Federation, or being from a certain region within the Sakha Republic.
Clearly, every individual will see things differently and there will be many contradictions in the ways that people view their own identity and sense of self. This is why I think it will be important to live in the region for a while, to get to know people, to learn to speak Sakha language, interact informally. I will certainly conduct some formal "research"--interviews, surveys, etc.--but the majority of my time will be spent simply living and interacting with people while they go about their daily lives.
What I'm hoping to do in this blog, then, is to share my experiences with all of you and in doing so, share the experiences of the people whom I get to know. I hope you enjoy...
As most of you probably are aware, I am about to leave for 1 year to live in Eastern Siberia. I thought I would start a blog to keep you all updated on my life while I'm there, but also to share with those of you who are interested a little about what it is like to live there. I'll try to keep "update" and descriptive posts separate, so if you don't have the time, you can don't have to wade through paragraphs of description to find out what I'm doing. But that may or may not be possible. Feel free to leave comments and ask questions if you'd like. I will hopefully be posting at least once a month. But I will be checking email more often and I will respond eventually if you write me :)
Love to all,
Susan
Prologue
Just a couple of words I guess would be appropriate in this first blog posting about what it is I am actually doing in Siberia, why I would be going to live for a year in what is in fact known as the coldest inhabited place on Earth.
As most of you reading this blog are likely aware, I am a graduate student in cultural anthropology and this research constitutes the primary research for my dissertation. Broadly speaking, as a student of cultural anthropology, I study contemporary human culture(s). "Culture," of course, means many different things to different people. For my purposes here, I really just want to distinguish cultural anthropology from either archaelogy (Indiana Jones) or physical anthropology (Lucy, Louis Leakey), both of which involve digging in the ground and wearing wide-brimmed hats. I will do no digging, although I may occasionally wear a wide-brimmed hat--the sun gets a little intense in the summer.
My specific purpose in the research I am about to embark upon is to examine the relationships between diamond mining, international organizations and expressions of indige
nous identity in a region of Eastern Siberia called the Sakha Republic or Yakutia. This is actually an enormous region, about twice the size of Alaska--you can see that it's the large pink region in the map of Russia to the right (map provided Courtesy of the University of Texas Libraries, The University of Texas at Austin). The Sakha Republic is named for the dominant indigenous population, the Sakha, who speak a Turkic language (that is, one related to Kazakh, Kirghiz, and Turkish) and whose ancestors are supposed to have migrated from the south sometime between 1000 and 1500AD.Historically the Sakha were semi-nomadic horse and cattle breeders and practiced a pagan religion that included shamanistic elements. They were first incorporated into the Russian empire around the middle of the 17th Century and, during the early years of the Soviet Union, forcibly settled into villages and agricultural collectives.
In the 1950's, diamonds were discovered in the region and Sakha agricultural collectives were enlarged to support an immigrant workforce for the mines. The region's diamond industry now produces almost 25% of the world's diamonds, making it an extremely lucrative and vital industry for the Russian Federation. The majority population of the Republic is now Russian and other Slavic "newcomers," with the Sakha and other indigenous groups comprising around 40%.
After the collapse of the Soviet Union in the early 1990's, the region experience a "cultural revival" with Sakha activists hoping to promote Sakha language and culture and to assert regional autonomy from the Russian Federation. To this end, the first president of the post-Soviet Sakha Republic, Mikhail Nikolaev, who is himself Sakha, sought bilateral contacts with other countries and membership for the region in various international organizations, like the UN or the Northern Forum. More recently, however, the autonomy of the region has been severely curtailed by recentralization moves on the part of Russian president Vladimir Putin. The Republic's president is no longer popularly elected; he is appointed by Putin. The diamond industry, briefly controlled by the Republic, is now controlled by the Russian federal government, meaning that crucial profits are not retained in the region.
So, what I'm interested in is how all of these events and processes have influenced the way Sakha people see themselves and their identity. Do they see themselves as an "indigenous group", with rights and grievances addressable in documents like the recently passed UN Declaration of Indigenous Rights. Or, do the see themselves more as an ethnic minority, that could be an independent "nation" like France or England. Or, perhaps, identity as Sakha is not so important to people and other kinds of identities are more important, like being a member of the Russian Federation, or being from a certain region within the Sakha Republic.
Clearly, every individual will see things differently and there will be many contradictions in the ways that people view their own identity and sense of self. This is why I think it will be important to live in the region for a while, to get to know people, to learn to speak Sakha language, interact informally. I will certainly conduct some formal "research"--interviews, surveys, etc.--but the majority of my time will be spent simply living and interacting with people while they go about their daily lives.
What I'm hoping to do in this blog, then, is to share my experiences with all of you and in doing so, share the experiences of the people whom I get to know. I hope you enjoy...
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