Siberian Village: Land and Life in the Sakha Republic

by Bella Bychkova Jordan

A fascinating portrait of the history and landscape of this remote settlement.The village of Djarkhan is in the heart of Russia’s Sakha Republic, on the Central Yakut Plain. The world around Djarkhan, with its extreme subarctic climate and intractable permafrost, seems an unlikely place to look for a rich, historic, and exotic efflorescence of human life, and yet this is precisely what the authors found. Their book is a remarkable account of how the people of Djarkhan have created their own distinctive place through their unique relationship with a severe and demanding land.This book traces the way of life of the village’s Turkic inhabitants, the Yakuts, from their arrival in the 1600s through czarist times and the Soviet era to the present day. As a native of the village, geographer Bella Bychkova Jordan enjoyed unparalleled access to its people and their stories, myths, humor, problems, and folklore. Viewed through the prism of cultural geography, this material forms the basis of a remarkable portrait of a people wresting a living from the land in one of the coldest and most isolated spots on Earth. Published in collaboration with the Center for American Places.

Genres: Russia, Nonfiction, History

160 pages, Paperback

First published January 1, 2001

Reviews

[Logan Streondj]

Was a pretty good overview of both the yakutsk region and an in depth look at one of the villages in the region.

They only have a few months of summer, during which they spend most harvesting hay for feeding their bovine during the winter. They also pick berries when they are ripe.

They also have ponds they fill with fish from the river during summer months, and then they do ice fishing through the winter. Typically with nets. Sometimes they fish out all the fish in a pond before spring, but they usually have other supplies such as meat to get by on.

At some point they switched from cattle to yakutsk horses (really a kind of pony) which needed less maintenance since they can forage all winter so much less hay needs to be cut in summer. Then they subsist on horse meat in winter, mares only give milk in summer.

I'd be interested in reading a more traditional reindeer herding people book also.

[Jessup Kim]

Was very glad to have this look into how life is in Sakha and its history, in particular because there are so few resources on the place in English out there! I had a great time reading it and it was very informative for me. Hopefully I can visit someday!