Khanty people biography

In farewell to curtail while winter slowly leaves the southern regions of Russia, in the Yamal tundra you can still see the landscapes brought by snow. Some indigenous peoples live in winter for most of the year - with long polar nights and a temperature of up to minus 50 degrees. One of these peoples is Khanty. They cooperate with wildlife, wandering around deserted lands. The fragile beauty of the tundra and visual notes on the daily routine of the Khanty - in the photoeopess of Diana Smogikova.

The number by the year is 31 people. Meeting Deep Winter, Yamal. And in front and behind - an endless white void, without landmarks and glimpses. Huge black cars that look so catchy on the streets of cities are completely lost here throughout the northern elements. Slowly we are approaching the destination - the Khanty camp near Salemal. One family agreed to accept us in my plague for several days.

All this time I want to devote to the study of the daily routine of the northern nomads in order to understand them through the photograph - my guide for research. All lakes, plains, hills in their worldview are inhabited by peer spirits, which should be treated carefully and respectfully. The main mechanism of life here is movement. The khanty calls this Kalannia - a nomadic with a herd of deer.

Nomads can move until one year and find balance and comfort in this. One of the meanings of the word “Torum” is the weather. The rhythm of the life of nomads depends on the natural phenomena, and here the Arctic dictates its rules. The herd determines where the family, meat and deer fat will turn out - most of its diet, deer skins are used for clothing and plague. And the deer can be a guide for communication with spirits - for example, in the case of a sacrifice.

Minutes of peace after wandering the reindeer herders stop for a while. So what is more in the life of the khants - parking or movement? The wandering caravan and camp is not opposites, but the balance that creates the rhythm of life. In the tundra, these processes are inseparable. When asked how exactly they choose a place, they answered me: "It’s just good for deer." So we met the Khanty family - Misha, Maya and their children - on the camp near Salemal.

The collection of the plague, according to Maya, takes about 40-60 minutes, and sometimes you have to do it really quickly: for example, when a blizzard begins and there is no way to continue the way. The entire plague, along with the contents, is packed in several sledges of the sled and is disassembled as quickly as it is going. But inside the plague is coziness and crackling of burning wood in the stove.

Nevertheless, the tundra is controlled carefully - nomads will never allow the stove to be melted too much. Fire is the center of the plague, around it is all life. The khanty believe that every diluted flame is the daughter of the spirit of the fire of Pugos Anges. You can not throw garbage into the hearth or touch it with sharp objects so as not to injure its inhabitants.

In one of the legends of the khants, a man chopped off the flame with an ax, angry with the bonfire. He could not make fire anywhere else until he sacrificed his daughter. The place for the new camp is determined by a man, and a woman puts the first sheet at the base of the plague. Responsibilities in the family are clearly divided: while Misha monitors the herd and goes for firewood, Maya is engaged in plague, warmth and cooking.

When we met, the family spent more than two weeks here, and around the plague we saw the compressed cleared area in a small area of ​​the forest -tundra. Around the plague - sledges of the sled, on which nomads store things during parking. During wandering, this is the main means of transportation.

They hang in the neighborhood with deer skins, which shows the gradual penetration of modern technologies into the traditional lifestyle of the Khanty. Also, reindeer herders use snowmobiles, generators, phones and walkie -talkies, which greatly simplifies labor in the tundra. Thanks to this, they can contact other nomadic families and agree on the route. It used to be more complicated: if two herds of deer are mixed up when nomadic, for each family, sad consequences can occur.

Misha said that many household items in the family are over a hundred years old and there is no need to change them. They do not need mountains of things for life, but to the fact that they serve for a long time, they are especially reverent. There is a sacred meaning in this: objects are associated with departed relatives, so even a small chair can be so important.

Only the tundra remains, storing polar days and nights, legends and secrets of the northern peoples. We said goodbye to the reindeer herders, taking with us a raw frozen fish and wisdom about life in movement. For a long time I thought that, most likely, I would never see them in the same place again, in the same plague - as if they were outside my understanding of space and time. They have no bindings, but there is a whole tundra - their northern land on which they will continue to live, loving and respecting its will.