Life On The Edge

In the Chukotka Autonomous Okrug, in the remote northern Russian Far East, indigenous ethnic groups like the Chukchi and the Yupik live in the most extreme conditions, hunting seals in their traditional kayaks as they have for millennia

- Bohdana Vashchenko

“We have never believed that people are separated from Nature. Walruses are the walrus people, whales are the whale people, and the orca is our most honourable animal. When a hunter dies, his soul passes into the killer whale.”

Igor Makotrik speaks slowly, measuredly, as if every word carries considerable weight. He is 62, but like many Yupik, he looks younger. Igor heads the Novoye Chaplino community of sea hunters. There are about 400 residents in the village, and a community of 15 hunters provides the entire village with food.

It’s still mid-August, but the yellow and red colours of the tundra make it clear that winter is very close. Gloomy rain clouds crouch over hills decorated with stripes of the previous year’s snow. For hundreds of kilometres around, there is not a single tree, nothing that is a barrier to the piercing cold wind. The air temperature during the day is about five degrees Celsius; the water temperature is a degree above freezing. This is what summer in Chukotka is like.

A diesel generator hums continuously at the edge of Novoye Chaplino, producing electricity for the entire settlement. There is a boiler on the opposite side of the village.

According to northern custom, heating mains are not buried but run along the ground, parallel to the streets, in concrete boxes. In the alleys, wooden walkways are built across these concrete elevations. The heating is never turned off here, even in summer.

CRAFTING KAYAKS THE TRADITIONAL WAY

There is no heating in the workshop of Timofey Ayanto, a master carpenter. Everybody in Chukotka knows Timofey; he has long since forgotten how many baidarkas and sleds he has made for the hunters.