#ARCTIC. #SIBERIA. THIS IS TAIMYR. Only Dolgans and Nenets are listed in the name of the district, because they are the most numerous of the small North peoples. According to the last all-Russian census, there are more than 5 thousand Dolgans in Taimyr, almost 3.5 thousand Nenets, 747 Nganasans, 266 Evenks, and only 204 Enets (also because in Soviet times, passport officers, without understanding the difference, mixed the Nenets and Enets nationalities in their passports).
The Nganasan are called the descendants of the Neolithic reindeer hunters, they are the most ancient representatives of the indigenous peoples of Taimyr, living here for thousands of years. And of course, the Nganasans living in Norilsk, on the day of the celebration of the 90th anniversary of Taimyr, went to Dudinka, where a festival took place, albeit truncated by the pandemic. A little reindeer Ayakli was brought from Norilsk in a minibus.
A concert was shown on the Dudinka Embankment square. It began with the traditional fire of friendship. After the concert fireworks thundered in the sky.
At the same time, an ethno-city developed on the Embankment square. Five tents of the indigenous ethnic groups of the peninsula were installed there, in each of them one could warm up, drink hot tea and taste national dishes. Everyone could take a photo in a special area with festive illumination.
“We didn’t notice the frost. In any chum, we were greeted cordially, treated with hot fish soup, and fish cakes, sugudai, reindeer liver, butugaz – Dolgan reindeer soup, hot tea”, Valeria Bolgova, chairman of the Nya Tansa community (Nya Tansa is translated as ‘big family’), shared with This Is Taimyr. “We definitely attend all holidays. We have no division – Norilsk or Dudinka, we live as one big family”.
Representatives of the community met with their elders living in Dudinka: craftswoman Svetlana Aksenova, poetess Zoya Arepyeva, daughter of a well-known rich reindeer breeder from the Avam tundra Tatyana Kuzenko.
“For us, this holiday is primarily a chance to see each other”, explains Valeria Bolgova.
Recall that the Taimyr’s 90th anniversary celebration’s main events were postponed to the spring of 2021.
Text: Tatiana Rychkova, Ekaterina Maksimova, Photo: Nikolay Shchipko
