Back to Russia

Well, I managed to hitch a ride on a sledge behind a snowmobile. It was the singularly least enjoyable mode of transport I've ever done. Sitting on a frozen reindeer carcass and empty fuel cans with a nervous dog in my lap, trying to also stay on the sled and not become frost-bitten from fierce cross winds in a blizzard. Somehow, I made it back to Hemmogiede, a small assortment of houses, stood on the side of the road for an hour in minus 25 C, finally hitchiked into Kautokeino, and caught a ride to the Jokkmokk Winter Market in Sweden, arriving at around 2 am I promptly fell asleep on a gym floor and woke up for 3 days of excellent Sami food, costumes, parties, etc. Now I'm in Oslo, on my way to Moscow, to meet the team for the research project CLUE (Circumpolar Land Use and Ethnicity). Sunday we'll fly north to Naryan Mar in Nenets Autonomous Okrug! Man I'm excited...

Here are a few photos from Finland, Norway, and Estonia...

Ooh exciting!

I'm writing from the winter cabin at the reindeer herding grounds of some folks I met in Kautokeino. Unlike the cabin in Tuva, this one has a generator and electricity, wireless internet, and a phone signal, but no water and only a wood stove for heat and cooking. This time of year there's not much to do, aside from riding on a snowmobile through all terrain, circling the herd of more than a thousand reindeer, to make sure no groups of 1-200 reindeer wander off in search of food or other nearby herds, butchering a few deer to bring to a Sami education day at a nearby folk high school, collecting firewood, water from the river, etc. It's super different from how herding is done in Tuva, where it mainly serves to facilitate quick movement while hunting. Here, it's all about the meat. And supposedly the sale price has fallen and support from the government has gone to extractive industries instead (typical). It's only been around -20 celcius, (-4 F), but very windy, and it's quite cold zooming on a scooter at 50-60 km/hr. Clutching to the driver and trying not to fall off helps you to keep warm though.

If some folks stop by from a nearby cabin on their way back to town in the next 30 minutes, I will be able to hop on a 2 pm bus going straight to Jokkmokk, Sweden, for the Jokkmokk Winter Market, an annual Sami festival that started in the early 1600s. The herders I've been with may gather their reindeer into a fence next Monday and Tuesday (so they can migrate them down to town to sell). So I may also be able to come back up and watch that awesome process before I fly to Oslo Feb. 9, Moscow Feb. 10, and Nenets Autonomous Okrug on Feb. 12, with the anthropology field expedition. Allllright!

But, as usual, everything depends on my making it back down to town, which, of course, is uncertain. (Update: the generator ran out of fuel, we ran out of water (I washed a bunch of dishes with snow melted on the fire), and the people on the snowmobile slept in and still have not arrived, so I will hopefully hitch a ride with someone driving to Jokkmokk today or tomorrow...) Ahhh adventure!

In Sápmi

Well, again, since I’ve blogged, a lot has happened. Firstly, I broke my computer, and I’m still in the process of recovering my photos… I also joined a really cool anthropology field expedition that will go to Nenets Autonomous Okrug in Russia Feb. 12-March 3 to study indigenous land use and ethnicity under conditions of climate change and industrial development. Afterwards I hope to stay in Russia on my own, because I also took a train from Rovaniemi to Helsinki and acquired a 90-day Russian visa in 2 days, which I think must be a record for speed. And in celebration, I took a ferry with my dad (who was in Helsinki by coincidence), to Estonia. For a wonderful weekend, we toured around bogs, forests, and old cities with buildings from every period of the last 1000 years, and learned about how many times the Estonians have been conquered by Danes, Swedes, Norwegians, Germans, and Russians. It’s not the Arctic, but it was a fun and productive vacation weekend to learn about post-Soviet development in an old USSR country. Estonia seems to be thriving.

And then I began a quick bus, taxi, ferry, train, taxi, bus, and taxi trip across the Baltic and north through Finland to Kautokeino, Norway, (or wikipedia here) a center of Sami culture and reindeer herding in the center of Sápmi, the red area on the map. I’m really interested in learning about how herding differs in VERY wealthy Norway as compared the mountainous South Siberian forests (Tuva) or European Russian Arctic (Nenets). In Kautokeino I’ve been staying with a schoolteacher whose husband was supposed to bring his deer to the butcher in town yesterday or today, which is why I came so quickly. However, as is usual with Arctic peoples or wild animals, things change, so yesterday I rode behind her brother on his snowmobile while he made his daily check on his reindeer herd, dispersed in meadows across the frozen river. But today he went alone to move his reindeer to a new pasture and cull a sick calf, both of which I would’ve liked to see… Everyone has suggested I need to buy a snowmobile, about which I’m not so confident. We’ll see. I was able to help him butcher two of his reindeer in the snow under the headlight of a snowmobile, since the sun is only up for an hour or two.

I am lucky

In case I hadn't already known.
Today a Saami lady from Norway invited me to help butcher some of her reindeer, and I may have found an opportunity to go to the Nenets Autonomous Okrug in Russia!

And I skiied for two hours on skis that a Norwegian lent to me. (Within an hour of my arrival in Norway back in December, I went for a walk and met a fellow who not only lent me skis for two months, but also took me that day to an (Ant)Arctic festival commemorating the 100th Anniversary of Roald Amundson's South Pole expedition!). And then I took a wonderful Finnish sauna. At 80-100 deg C, it was a lot hotter than the Russian banya, which reaches only about 40-50 deg C.

I was looking through some photos and found this one of a Greenlandic fisherman going to his boat in mid-September snow. I couldn't resist sharing it. What a place! What a people!

From We are not so big

Happy Holidays!

I've finally returned to the Arctic, to a folk high school that teaches dogsledding, sailing and outdoor life, near Tromso, at 69 degrees. The sun won't rise for another few weeks, but there's a surprising amount of light midday for 2 or 3 hrs. They call it "polar night," meaning the sun doesn't rise, but until you go really far north, it still gets lightish midday. Yesterday I drove my first ever dogsled- 4 hrs in blustery wind by headlamp! It's a fun and FAST way to travel. I clipped a few trees by mistake. Yup, Norway's Arctic has lots of trees, thanks to the Gulf Stream. It also has farms (sheep, cows, strawberries!) and lots of people; Norway is VERY rich and has chosen to maintain a rural population throughout the country. It's only about freezing, so not too cold at all! (It was -30 C the day I left Krasnoyarsk). When I arrived to Norway Dec. 14 I spent a few days visiting friends in Oslo and the holidays with a family near Trondheim . I'd like to return to Russia, so I will hop across the border to northern Finland to speak with researchers about contacts in reindeer herding communities in the Russian north! But first I may watch a sled dog race in Finnmark county, Norway.

I've posted some photos of my time in Tuva, which was 1 week with other researchers making contacts in the Tozhu region and 2 weeks on a hunting and fishing trip (bracketed by a stay with a wonderful family).

Oh what a wonderful republic!

I'd gone to Tuva expecting to stay for only a week or so. Now, after a month in that wonderful place, I'm back in Krasnoyarsk. The hunting trip and week-long visit afterwards with a family in Toora-Khem were wonderful! I'd met Boris just once before, when he stopped by the hotel room to tell me, a complete stranger he'd met for just 5 minutes, that I could join him in the taiga (such amazing trust and welcomingness, which should be a word). I'd expected winter camping with just the two of us, but his best friend Sasha also joined in. These two grandfathers were my patient teachers for two weeks in the Tuvan taiga. They're both in their 50s, which was good, because it meant I could almost keep up with them! We weren't completely winter camping either, since there was a teeny cabin where we slept on a platform made of felled trees, with bark and all. But we spent the rest of our time outside. On the 5 or so days with new snow (when you can track animals best), we weaved our way through the forest in search of sable, ears cocked for the bark of their dogs. On the 11 or 12 days with no new snow, we walked along the frozen margin of the Ulu-Khem/Yenisey River at the pace of its current, so our homemade flies on bobbers floated attractively.

In contrast to Greenland or other more-industrial fishing, we only caught about 150 kg, but given the method and small fish size, that's quite impressive. And only 4 sable. All three of the other hunters we met in the two weeks also reported scarce findings, so I wonder if there has been too much hunting pressure on the creature. They will sell the fur for clothing, and either sell or keep the fish for themselves. Whatever meager earnings they make in the taiga complement the similarly sparse results of their mid-winter and summer employment- building houses. These men live in one of the least-human impacted parts of Russia (aka mining, oil and gas, and logging), but that also means that life is simple and rigorous. For example, we saw a single farm on the "road" (place people had driven in the forest before)on our 5 hr truck ride to the cabin. The two-room farmhouse (the size of a dorm room) had no electricity or running water and was the home for seven people. All cooking is done outside on a campfire, even in winter. The last night in Tuva was -30 deg. C (-22 deg. F), so in mid-winter I imagine it will be quite cold.

It was spectacularly peaceful, and somewhat mind-boggling, to sit in a boreal forest at the geographical center of Asia, around a campfire where fresh fish soup boiled (for dinner and the next day's breakfast, almost every day), in -20 deg. C (below 0 F) temperatures, with two Buddhist/"Shamanist" men who spoke Russian. And I was happy that I had learned enough Russian not to be completely incapable of communicating! They were very patient and giving men, as it seems most Tuvans are. The whole two weeks I waited hopefully for the river to freeze enough for a nearby reindeer herd (herded by friends of Boris) to cross so I could see how they are "farmed" nomadically and we could go on a riding trip on the deer. Tuva's the only place the deer are large enough to ride, so that would have been unique! By the end of our time, we walked across with no problem, but the deer did not arrive...There hasn't been much snow, so perhaps they'd strayed too far off into the hills.

Since I had such an amazing time with the kind people of Tuva, I had hoped to go on another "expedition"- north to Evenkiya or elsewhere. However, there is too much red tape. Instead, I'll stay here and do a bit of writing comparing my time in Greenland with Tuva. I now feel like I should've stayed longer in Tuva, but such is travel. You learn as you go. Today I learned how to rent skis and discovered a new race course and biathlon stadium that I can ski to from my hotel, so life is not terrible! On December 14 I'll go to Norway for the holiday season. Afterwards I will hopefully check out methods of reindeer herding in the Arctic part of that very-organized country. Then maybe hop across the border to Rovaniemi in Arctic Finland. And after January I have no clue! I'll listen to your thoughts!

Wowee! Tuva!

Well, the Siberian Federal University (SFU) "expedition" just finished, but I've stayed on alone in Kyzyl, the capital of the Republic of Tuva (click for map). Last week, after a 15 hour bus ride from Krasnoyarsk and an 8 hour bumpy ride in a massive Russian army vehicle called a "Ural" (which drove over a mountain range and then through the half-frozen Yenisey river!) myself and two other researchers reached the 2,000-person town of Toora-Khem, administrative center for the Todzhu region of Tuva. It's between Iy and Adyr-Kezhig on this map). There, we toured around all the administrative centers (ahh bureaucracy...) and the power plant, saw my first reindeer (they're BIG here!), went fishing on a lake with too-thin-ice, and visited a bunch of homes. Sergey and Sasha were studying the power use of the town, but I was doing "cultural studies," which basically means observing everything, since the town was so different from anything I've ever seen! I can't upload any images, but I thought I was in a historical reconstruction village, since it was all log buildings, cow paddocks, huge mounds of hay, etc. Plus lots of drunken people stumbling about, it being the end of the month...

My main goal in Toora-Khem was to find either a hunter or a reindeer herder with whom I could go out into the taiga (boreal forest), to learn about local use of the taiga. After lots of frustrating comments that "all the hunters are out hunting and will be back in 2 months," on the last morning, 30 min. before the bus left, Boris and his wife visited our hotel room. He invited me to go sable hunting on foot with him next week (he'll sell the fur for luxury clothing), and to visit his son at their reindeer herd (by riding reindeer) at the end of the month! Now, going on a commercial hunt for a luxury clothing item is not exactly subsistence or food related, but it is an important way people use the local environment. Plus, I've never gone winter camping! I'm a little bit apprehensive, because I'll be with a man who was born out on the taiga alongside a reindeer herd, we'll use bivy sacks instead of a tent, and this is the beginning of Siberian winter. It's been about 20 farenheit in the day, so, much warmer than the MINUS 50 it can get in the really cold time in January. Also, Boris doesn't speak any English, and Russian is his second language. But I'm not that worried about language issues, because it's a lot easier to understand someone when you're alone with them in the forest and need to speak less than in a busy city...

Today there are only about 1,000 reindeer in Tuva, whereas in the early 1990s there were 17,000. The post-Soviet government has not been supportive, and the lifestyle is not as soft and cozy as town life. Boris's kids come into town only twice a year, to drop-off and pick-up their own kids at school! So, modern education as incompatible with traditional lifestyles. But, schooling is useful...

Taking Russian "banyas" every few days (instead of showering) was another highlight of the "expedition." These are like Minnesota saunas, except not as hot, and with more steam production. I would say my "Russian baptism" was when a Russian guy I'd just met said "Alex. Take off clothes. Put on hat. [An old Red Army hat that I think you're supposed to wear to increase your perspiration.] Lie down," and began beating me with a bundle of birch leaves, which whoosh burning hot air all over you and exfoliate your skin. It felt great! I'll have to bring the tradition back to the US!

I just purchased a snowsuit and boots rated to minus 60 degrees and a bunch of food, and tomorrow morning I'll hop back on the Ural to visit a family we met in Toora-Khem. Sometime after the 10th of Nov., Boris and I will be off just the two of us for at least a week! I'm VERY excited.