From Tiksi you go another 50 km by motor boat to the village of Cape Bykov (Bykov Mys), where 500 people engage at 72 degrees northern latitude and harsh climate engage in coastal fishing all over the Lena River Delta. Today the only still remaining proper kolkhoz (cooperative enterprise) in the Sakha Republic (Yakutia) is …
Category: Fieldwork
New field site in East Siberia, Lena Delta and Tiksi
Until last year it used to be very easy to get to this fieldsite in the Lena River Delta, because direct flights from Moscow brought you to Tiksi in 6 hours. But last year the Russian army who used to run the airbase in Tiksi closed it, and shipped out all the security equipment, so …
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Oral History of the Arctic – along the shores of the ocean
The Orhelia researchers in the anthropology research team are having an intensive fieldwork season. We collect material that allows us to compare how the inhabitants of Eurasia's Arctic shoreline were affected by and respond to different state policies designed in capital cities by governments that are very far from the centres of life of our …
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Anthropology of polar bears
"Polar bear, polar bear what do you see? I see an anthropologist fearing of me." The city map of Longyearbyen is colored according to the secure areas without polar bear protection – the darker the color, the safer is to walk around. The house where I am located is one of the last houses, between …
New book about the history of the Sámi from Russia during Soviet times – online open access
My book “The Sámi of the Kola Peninsula: About the life of an ethnic minority in the Soviet Union” has been recently translated into English and published on the internet within the publication series of the Centre for Sámi Studies at the University of Tromsø. Using extensive biographical interviews as a primary source, this oral …
“If research doesn’t surprise you, it’s not worth the research” Julie Cruikshank
I would like to share with you some of the things we learned from Julie Cruikshank and other elders from the Yukon Territory to better understand oral history from the North. To search for surprising insights, to be open to challenges to our conventional perceptions, that was Julie's most important advice to us. Her talk …
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Adventure Siberia, 90 minutes documentary
TV channel ZDF (second German state channel) screened over the holiday a two-part documentary on Siberia and the fascination that this huge land mass has had on researchers, business people and other adventurers. The programme can be watched online via the media library of the TV channel as PART ONE and PART TWO. The film …
Arctic Anthropology 