No. 11, 2003
29.12.2003
SEASONS’ GREETINGS
WISHING THE ENTIRE OKRUG A HAPPY NEW YEAR
“Yasavey” “The Association for Nenets People” wishes you, your family and your loved ones a Happy New Year in 2004!
We sincerely wish you the residents of the Okrug a peaceful, healthy and successful New Year and may all your wishes come true!
And let the New Year usher in peace, prosperity, faith, hope and justice for all.
With my sincerest wishes,
President of the Public Movement
“Yasavey” “The Association for Nenets People”
V.V. Peskov
THE ETHNO-CULTURAL CENTRE, NENETS AUTONOMOUS OKRUG (NAO)
Wish a Merry Christmas and a Happy New Year to all fellow-villagers, participants, and the Board of the Public Movement - the Association “Yasavey”!
Is grateful for the cooperation and support you have provided for all our cultural projects this year. May the warmth of these festive days bring you joy and may hospitality fill your home.
And hopes that the coming year may grant you creative success in abundance. May your wishes come true, and we wish you the best of health and happiness!
Sincerely,
The Staff of the NAO Ethno-Cultural Centre.
To the Residents of the Okrug!
We wish you all a Happy New Year 2004.
May the coming year be successful and bring you happiness and peace, prosperity and fill your hearts with joy. Let goodness, warmth, harmony and mutual understanding surround you. May wise decisions guide you and life’s energy accompanies you through life.
Sincerely,
The Exhibition Centre Group
SHALL WE START LIVING DIFFERENTLY?
The new year 2004 has arrived. Looking back, it seems like only yesterday that the 21st century dawned upon us. Yet we have lived in the new era for three years already and that is also time. What has happened during this time in the Okrug and in the country itself? Plenty. We elected a governor, a president, recently a deputy to the State Duma, R.F., in any case, too much has happened to remember it all.
Who can evaluate whether life has become easier or more difficult? Everyone has a different answer to this question. Somebody lives better than before that is good news, and somebody lives worse, and there are those whose situation has not changed at all. Somebody has been cheated and somebody had a stroke of good luck. The veterans of World War II did not have a stroke of good luck, they have been forgotten once again! In spite of the order issued by President Putin to all subjects of the R.F. to reinforce their attention on World War II veterans as the 60th anniversary of the Great Victory approaches. For us it was a feather in our hat and we made promises for housing needed for the veterans, and this was even carried out officially. Cheated yet again. Somehow, one feels uneasy when veterans are taken advantage of but let that be on the conscience of the perpetrators. Let us forget the sad things, maybe there will be some changes in the New Year. And yet the majority of the people in the Okrug will see with their own eyes what it means to live in a region that has black gold.
SOME WORDS ABOUT THE NELMIN NOS SETTLEMENT
Alexandra Fomina
Nelmin Nos is the most northern settlement of the Pechora, located about 60 kilometres from the Okrug centre Naryan-Mar on the bank of the Golodnaya inlet. Primarily the settlement comprises a Nenets population, resettled here and forced to lead a settled way of life back during the Soviet era. This is also the reason for some of the problems today.
The settlement similar to other villages in the NAO has enough problems they include water supply, since the river water is not suitable for consumption and there are hardly any other water sources in the area, dilapidated housing resources and also the absence of a secondary school. However, the most depressing sight is the excess drinking rampant among most of the inhabitants. This is particularly noticeable when payday comes and subsidies are paid out. It is quite clear that the wages for most of the people are below the minimum wage. There are no jobs available, those working at a kolkhoz do not even get paid but are issued food products instead, work in the city is not possible since there is no housing. And communal housing is not offered. All in all life is difficult. But still this does not excuse nor does it warrant such dissipated behaviour. A person must be able to fight for a better life and the most important thing to remember is that we ourselves are responsible for what is happening to us. We must help ourselves because no one else will do it for us. The saddest thing is that there are such talented people in Nelmin Nos but unfortunately they do not use their talent for useful purposes but throw it away. Yet they could do so much for their part of the world. Many villagers today earn their living by fishing or sewing buraks (type of jacket), and then all that is lost in a “black hole”, where many people have lost their money and their fate. The state of inebriation is promoted by numerous outlets for selling alcoholic beverages at home. By the way it is mainly industrial alcohol which is sold and speeds up dependency on alcohol. In addition, those affected are the younger generation our future. At the moment I am reflecting on whom I shall be working within the future among the younger generation. For the sake of some drink people literally carry everything out of their homes that can be exchanged for alcohol and this happens day and night. There have been cases when the parents have sold the beds of their children and these beds were bought by someone. At the same time these so-called “merchants” don’t even think about the fact that they are taking advantage of a person’s weakness and promote even further degradation of their fellow-villagers. But as the proverb says “you can’t build your happiness on someone else’s misfortune”.
Of course there are other people in the settlement. There are those who want a better life and think about the future, take care of their families and relatives, find a way to earn money to live on. There are a sufficient number of such examples as well but the stereotype portrait of the people living in Nelmin Nos is engraved in the consciousness of people not related to the settlement. This is enough to tilt the scales and the negative reputation which have been created about the settlement greatly inconveniences the respected citizens living there. In the town it is embarrassing to speak about the settlement you come from because the reaction will be the same.
This state of affairs does not only apply to Nelmin Nos but also to the entire territory of the NAO. And the question is asked why? Somerset Maughan, a famous writer once said: “if you choose only the very best then more than likely that is what you will get”. For this reason it depends on ourselves what future we will have and the future of our nation. Our happiness is only in our own hands and no one else’s! You may think that I am being very critical of my own settlement. Maybe somewhere along the line I am not exactly right in shedding light only on the negative side. It cannot be that everything is bad. There must be some positive points somewhere. For example with the arrival of Mihail S. Taleev as the head of the administration of the settlement, and Natalia D. Pyrerko as a specialist, the settlement is receiving a large amount of assistance in solving legal problems. One feels that they are not indifferent to the future of our settlement. More events have started to take place in the Ethno-Cultural Centre. Another factor to be mentioned is that with the assistance of Yasavey mainly the president Vladislav Peskov and the executive Board, the founding and development process of family-tribe communes of indigenous minority peoples of the North is taking place. At present this applies to “Neruta” and “Tobseda” who are planning to enter the fishing business. This could offer new jobs for the unemployed and ensure a living for them. The family-tribal commune “Ilebc” has existed already for more than two years and is engaged in reindeer husbandry and fishing. The work of this commune is one of the positive examples for the residents of the settlement.
For this reason I ask all the residents of our settlement to have patience and to continue moving forwards as they say “the road is conquered by the one who walks on it” and may the new year 2004 be better. Happy New Year! Here’s wishing you luck and renewed hope!
MONITORING RELATIONS
Based on a report by I.S. Semenova
A seminar on “Regional legislation and indigenous minority groups of the North” was held from the 3rd to the 5th of December in Naryan-Mar. The seminar consisted of a two-day part on legislature and one day was used for an excursion to the settlement Krasnoye.
This seminar was the continuation of the Round Table meeting held in May 2003 at which the people were offered two concepts for draft laws with a main theme on “monitoring and defending the interests of the indigenous population leading - a traditional way of life (fishing, hunting, reindeer husbandry). One of the laws is aimed specifically at the interests of reindeer husbandry since the main statutes of this law directly defend the traditional land users and who at this moment are suffering uncontrollable alienation pains due to the fact that their pastures, in the central and eastern parts of the NAO, are being exploited by oil drilling companies.
The opening of the meeting took place on the first day and invitations had been sent out to the deputies of the NAO-Assembly, associates of the NAO administration, representatives of the federal structures for the NAO, representatives of the oil companies operating in the Okrug, representatives of the “Yasavey” Association’s structural divisions, communes, and the community. Unfortunately, most of those invited did not attend the seminar and this makes one wonder who needs these laws? For many years in a row, both the Okrug officials and the oil people complained about the absence of laws that monitor the relationship between the primary land users and the prospectors. Yasavey as a guarantor and defender of the rights and interests of the Nenets people and having seen all the disorder going on, used this opportunity to take the legislative initiative, granted by the Okrug charter, and elaborated legislative acts with the help of specialists from the State Duma. All parties concerned were warned well in advance, back in May. We were under the impression that this would be a joint and constructive effort for the benefit of the Okrug. However, the proposals for the concepts transmitted were not presented and we came to the result that in the Okrug no one had any interest in the reindeer herders’ problems even though it was proclaimed from the housetops that reindeer husbandry is one of the rare gems in the Okrug and therefore it should be supported. But in reality this is not the case. And the Association must do everything by itself without anybody’s help. It was our luck that some of the managers of these enterprises understood the situation and began together with the Association to demand their rights. For example the union of reindeer herders requested our assistance in carrying out an independent evaluation for a project to build an all-year-round embankment road between Pizhma and Varandei. That was only the beginning.
Representatives from companies such as “Bovel and “Danao Engineering” were present but the remaining companies chose to ignore the entire affair. Work with the representatives present, had to be repeated. The experts once again began to explain what objective the laws were made to meet and whose rights were being defended. The strong - from an economic point of view - entrepreneurial subjects in Russia, do not want to be addressed as equals by those, whom they had regarded for being disposable.
Working material was handed out to all who came and then we started to work. V.V. Peskov, the president of Yasavey presented the results of the working groups, the compilers of the laws.
On the second day of the seminar a study tour was made to the Krasnoye settlement. Legal advice was given to the local residents and a meeting took place with the representatives of the reindeer enterprises “Erv”, “Harp”, and the head of the municipal formation. The local residents did not show much initiative.
On the third day of the seminar, a meeting was arranged with representatives from OOO “Naryanmarneftegaz” the biggest owner in the Okrug of oil extraction licenses and a subsidiary of OAO “Lukoil”. They were surprised at the lack of enthusiasm in inviting them to this event and furthermore, their management did not receive the informative material. But this was the company’s own fault and that of it’s associates. Once again an explanation had to be given to this company’s representatives as to the laws Yasavey was planning to introduce for deliberation by the NAO Assembly of Deputies, whereby the insight and vision of the associates should be praised for finally realizing what belongs to what, following a general presentation. It is unfortunate but must be uttered that it is not easy to work with the “Lukoil” structures in the Okrug. The reason is that just when the management of one structure begins to grasp the reality of the Okrug, it is suddenly replaced and work must be repeated with the new team. The same positions must be reviewed once again from the beginning.
This seminar illustrated quite clearly how difficult it is to work in the Okrug in a comprehensive and precise manner. There are those who are interested but do not seek to make contact. The passive attitude of the residents is what is most disturbing. When the heat is switched off and the lights go out, people start to complain about life. Very little is needed to avoid such situations. The people in the Okrug must elect honorable and dignified people, participate in public activities and lend each other a helping hand.
*EVENTS * VENUES * SUMMARY*
* In SPK “Harp”, the slaughtering operation of the northern reindeer came to an end. This year 1017 heads of reindeer was slaughtered, and the fatness of the reindeer according to SPK specialists was average.
* A meeting to hear reports and elect new officials will take place in February 2004 at the SPK “Harp”. A new chairman of the enterprise will be elected at the assembly. At the present time the enterprise is in a state of impending crisis. The main line of interest is cattle breeding and reindeer herding.
* The unfavourable situation at the educational establishments for children took a turn for the better, with regard to heat supply, in the Krasnoye settlement. The boiler installation remained on the balance sheet of the kolkhoz, but the gas plant was transferred to “Okrgaz”. Two of the three boilers had a seal on them (state of emergency) and licenses were not issued for them. Only one boiler was in operation. The consequences: the kindergarten was not running at full capacity, and the temperature did not rise above +10 C. A similar situation exists in all schools with the result that many children fell ill. Now the boilers are on-line again at full capacity and the rooms have warmed up. But how long before they are out of order again because the aging factor is critical.
* On the 13th of December, in the Ethno-Athletic Complex, an Okrug venue was taking place entitled “My Genealogy”. The organizers were the Naryan-Mar Ethno-Cultural Centre. “My Genealogy” attracted representatives among all the indigenous residents in the Okrug: the Nenets, Komi, Russians, all those whose roots go back many centuries. In their investigation on ancestry, some of the participants managed to find ancestors from the 18th century, which is quite important because they all lived in the Pechora North. It was interesting to hear about the internal arrangement within Nenets families. This was used to tell the story, for example, of the distinguished Nenets family in the past, Pahanzede, which gave rise to families like Ledkov, Yavtys and other Nenets families.
* On the 15th of December in the building of the municipal House of Culture, an artistic evening was arranged in honour of the famous Nenets poet Vasilij Ledkov. The Okrug library organized this event. Friends and familiar poets put in an appearance with their memories during the evening program. The “Ilbec” theatre presented “Sneva v arcane” a story by a writer with the same name V. A. Ledkov.
* From the 17th through the 19th of December, a seminar was held in Naryan-Mar on the topic “Safe oil processing and ecological management” organized by the associates of the Norwegian State Ecology Service. Taking into consideration today’s increasing oil shipments by water in the northern seas on Russia’s side, Norwegian specialists are on their guard because the fleet of tankers from Russian companies, as well as the responsibility for and competence of the personnel, give reason to be concerned. This is quite understandable. The standards on ecology vary in our countries and the fact that we spill a few tons is considered to be normal but in Norway it is a catastrophe. In Norway they just shut the companies down, but until now there have been no precedents. They are probably afraid, in contrast to what the companies working in Russia feel.
* The following financial aid taken from the Okrug budget for 2003, has been allocated for the support of reindeer husbandry:
- subsidies to compensate for production losses and marketing of the entire venison production amounted to about 78 million roubles. A large part of this sum was transferred for the support of the reindeer husbandry branch. In accordance with this statute, the amount of 39,5 to 44,9 roubles is paid out for one kilogram of venison handed over;
- subsidies for compensating the cost of transportation of meat products amounted to 18.7 mln. roubles. The enterprises cover 20% of the cost for transportation. The remaining amount is taken from the Okrug budget.
- funds for social and technological building needs in the territory (construction of houses along the roads, saunas, the building and transport of carrels). In accordance with this statute, it was planned to spend 20 million roubles this year.
- for events of a comprehensive program “Stabilization and further development of reindeer husbandry in the NAO during the years 2002 2005”, this year 10 million roubles have been transferred. The program includes the acquisition of techniques, wireless radio sets, (3 million roubles), insurance for reindeer against illnesses and natural disasters (2,2 mln. Rbls.) and the guarding of reindeer from predators (3,5 mln. Rbls.).
The overall amount of reindeer per capita in 2003 was equal to 128231 units. In comparison to the year 2002, the per capita rate increased by 3606 heads.
http://www.regnum.ru/allnews/151478.html
* The students from neighbouring settlements completed a 6-month study period at the Usinskij Oil College (the course is for one year, the first half are theoretical studies and the second half is practical). This is the result of cooperation between Yasavey and the oil company “Severnayaneft”. This cooperation is in it’s second year. Upon completing the study, the young people are employed by the company at an oil deposit.