Deer Region

• Deer edge

Yamal is called the land of deer, though translated the name means "end of the world." It is home to the representatives of the ancient people who keep the tradition for centuries.

The basis of the population of these territories - Nenets, their life depends on the deer herds. Deer for the residents of the tundra - an object of worship, as well as the main source of food, income and vehicles in difficult environmental conditions. It is here, on the Yamal Peninsula, live the largest herd of these animals in Russia. They move together with their masters, the Nenets, the tundra over very long distances.

When the rule of Stalin, Nenets divided into many teams. They were forced to live in collective farms and pay taxes deer meat, as with monetary relations were problems.

The Yamal Peninsula is located in the Kara Sea in the north of Western Siberia and is part of the territory of the Yamal-Nenets Autonomous District of the Russian Federation. It covers 700 km in length and about 240 km wide. Nature Peninsula - is mostly tundra and many pristine lakes. On the large natural gas field discovered Yamal, which will undoubtedly affect the movement of nomadic Nenets. Their migration is now linked to the infrastructure of gas production. Due to mining in the region, there were many Hotspots.

Nenets live in conical tents called plagues and made of deerskin. This is one of the main types of dwellings in Siberia. In winter cover plague can take up to 80 skins. In general, the territory inhabited by the Nenets people, is home to around 700,000 deer - that's a rather big herd. Nenets call these animals of their home, transport, heat and food. The whole life of the inhabitants of the Yamal-Nenets district built around the reindeer herds, their habits and seasonal migrations.

Eat the indigenous inhabitants of Siberia reindeer meat in any form - sometimes boiled, harvested in the winter, sometimes even eaten raw. In venison contain B vitamins as well as vitamin A (carotene) and vitamin C.

After the collapse of the Soviet Union, young Nenets increasingly have sought to city life. But after education and development in the tundra it is not easy to get used to civilization. In an urban environment, they start to hurt, hard drink, get a mental illness, and can not find work.

Moving to a new location, the Nenets family packs their belongings and folds tent. And they live in the tundra. Tundra - a territory that covers the soil with permafrost. Is marshy, peaty and rocky tundra. To the south of these territories - the edge of the Arctic.

That Yamal concentrates contained approximately 20 percent of the natural gas reserves of the Russian Federation. The company "Gazprom" together with the district administration has opened the "Yamal" project in 1990, which will begin its work in May 2012. The project will supply gas to Western Europe - several billion cubic meters annually, providing a high-quality fuel to foreign countries. However, the Nenets are unhappy with this development. According to one of the locals, the people of the tundra can not survive technologizing edge.

Today, scientists and residents of the Yamal-Nenets autonomous region concerned pollution of water bodies, which also occurred because of human intervention in nature. Tundra today is rapidly changing under the influence of progress. So, here it laid the northernmost railway in the world length of 520 kilometers.

A few years ago in the tundra shepherd-Nenets found the corpse of a mammoth, which is perfectly preserved thanks to the eternal mezlote on the peninsula. Toddler died about 42,000 years ago. Interestingly, the Nenets call mammoth "earth ox", and its tusks are also assigned to Mother Nature. Shepherds-herders are changing every season habitats, moving thousands of kilometers or more. Winter in tundra temperature may reach 50 degrees cold, therefore in a time shepherds sent to the forest, southern forests.

For many thousands of years in the Arctic people and deer are inextricably linked strands. The word "deer" is translated as "life-giving" from the Nenets. But do the indigenous inhabitants of the tundra they call themselves "children of the deer"