Kamchatka Struggles to Keep Traditions (fwd)

[phil cash cash]

Kamchatka Struggles to Keep Traditions

By Olesya Dmitracova
Reuters

The St. Petersburg Times
Issue #1289 (55), Tuesday, July 17, 2007
http://www.sptimes.ru/index.php?action_id=2&story_id=22373

Folk performer Lidia Chechulina in the forest near her village, Pimchakh, in
July.

PIMCHAKH, Russia — Listening to enigmatic Koryak-language songs and eating
traditional salmon soup and cutlets in this village, it is easy to imagine
that indigenous cultures still thrive on Russia’s Kamchatka peninsula.

In fact it is only the sheer tenacity of local Koryaks, Itelmens, Evens and
other aborigines, that keep centuries-old customs and languages from dying
out in Russia’s wild Far East after much was eroded by Soviet rule.

“Native people must live on. Without them this land will be poor and it will
be impossible to bring meaning to this land,” said Vera Koveinik, who heads
the ethnic community of Pimchakh, 40 kilometers from regional capital
Petropavlovsk-Kamchatsky.

When Russians began settling in Kamchatka — a volcanic region 12,000
kilometers and nine time zones east of Moscow — in the second half of the
17th century, up to 11,000 Koryaks lived here fishing, herding deer and
hunting whale and walrus.

Three centuries of pervasive Russian and Soviet influence and intermarriage
have left an indelible mark on Kamchatka’s Koryaks, who now number around
7,300 — by far the largest indigenous group on the peninsula.

“Everyone of my generation speaks the Koryak language, knows the customs,
dances and dishes like in the ancient times. But some of our children don’t
know anything at all,” said folk performer Lidia Chechulina, slightly
breathless after dancing to the beat of a deer-skin drum and the music of
her own voice.

Her songs, sung in a guttural language reminiscent of Chinese, describe the
beauty of the tundra, volcanoes and the sea, she explains. She adds that
songs, one for each person, accompany Koryaks all their lives and act as a
charm.

“Our parents preserved everything as it was before the (Bolshevik)
revolution,” added Chechulina, a small, bubbly woman in her 50s.

Probably the most effective Soviet assimilation policy was that of forcibly
putting Koryak children in state-run boarding schools to teach them the
Russian language and customs.

“The Soviet culture was imposed on them,” said Andrei Samar, a researcher at
the Institute of History, Archaeology and Ethnography of the People of the
Far East.

Since the children came back home only once or twice a year, he adds, they
knew very little about their native culture let alone traditional skills
such as the difficult and dangerous trade of hunting at sea.

Some of those children, now adults, and their parents are actively working
to revive indigenous cultures.

Many schools offer classes in Koryak and other aboriginal languages as an
extra-curricular activity, and families observe ancient holidays. There are
also efforts to expand deer herding in regions where it is dwindling
rapidly.

The Pimchakh community organizes summer camps in the village where children
learn about ancient traditions and do crafts.

The regional government says it runs cultural programs and provides
financial aid for ethnic communities.

But Koveinik says there are no signs in Kamchatka in any of the indigenous
languages and no monuments to celebrate the aboriginal culture and history.

“The government probably helps somehow. I don’t know, I wouldn’t say so,”
said Chechulina, wearing a traditional suede-and-fur overcoat, a headdress
made of beads and soft leather boots meant to protect from moss and
mosquitoes in the tundra.

Hardly any aborigines wear such costumes every day and many are
university-educated, but the way they talk retains traces of their ancient
spirituality rooted in still practiced shamanism.

Pimchakh leader Koveinik, an Itelmen, told the audience after the community
ensemble’s performance they were privileged.

“You are today the richest people, you’ve received so much power and
energy,” she said.