#ARCTIC. #SIBERIA. THIS IS TAIMYR. The All-Russian Population Census will take place in the country from October 15 to November 14. This year statisticians are using more modern approaches to collecting information and processing data. That can seriously change the official number of indigenous ethnic groups.
Small indigenous peoples are peoples numbering no more than 50 thousand people. They remain in places of historical settlement, retain their language, customs and crafts, and recognize themselves as a separate people.
Three peoples – Nenets, Abazins and Evenks, whose traditional economic activities have changed significantly over the ten years since the last census, can exceed the limit of 50 thousand people.
According to the People of the North portal, there are several reasons for this: the legal literacy of the population has increased, therefore the number of communities in which family members and distant relatives, who previously considered themselves more Russian than indigenous, have now changed their opinion about their nationality, has increased.
In addition, the economic independence of indigenous families in Yamal and Yakutia provoked an increase in the birth rate in the families of tundra and taiga. Moreover, the large-scale work in Russia to promote the cultural values of the indigenous peoples of the North influenced the self-identification of a large number of young people who have come of age since the last census.
Already in 2002, according to the results of the census, 41 302 Nenets lived in Russia, of which about 27 000 lived in the Yamal-Nenets autonomous district. According to the 2010 census, the number of Nenets in the country was 44 640 people, an increase in comparison with the 2002 census is 3 338 people.
The 2010 census of the Russian population recorded 37 843 Evenks. Evenks are engaged in the restoration and strengthening of their cultural traditions more than other small nationalities.
According to the 2010 All-Russian Population Census, there are 46 indigenous minorities in our country, which include 316 000 people.
The largest of the small peoples are the Nenets, Abazins and Evenks. The smallest are Kereks living in the Beringovsky region of the Chukotka autonomous district. During the 2010 census, only four people identified themselves as Kereks, and ten people in the country spoke Kerek.
Only population censuses can collect unique data on the number of indigenous small-numbered peoples, their sex and age structure, language skills, education, the number of children and living conditions.
Earlier, we reported that a legal portal was created for the indigenous peoples this year.
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Text: Dmitry Belov and Ekaterina Maksimova, Photo: Vitas Beneta, Marina Peshkova, Denis Gaskov
