Fishing Nenets. A story of one letter

In the summer of 2009, I was migrating with Brigade number 2 near the Mordy-Yakha River with brigadier Vasilii Serotetto and his family. Vasilii and his sons had a herd of 10,000 reindeer. Such a large number of reindeer could not survive long in one place, as they need plenty of food and good pasture. Therefore travelling to the summer pastures was quite intensive: migrating one day and resting the next day, all the way to the North. Altogether I joined this Brigade for one month of migration from winter to summer pastures, which went near places with extractive industry fields and along the Gazprom railway on the Yamal Peninsula. The railway line actually marks a symbolic borderline between tundra people and extractive industry territories. Even though tundra dwellers say that they have many positive benefits from the railway, like a mobile telephone connection and the possibility to get petrol from the railways stations, at the same time, the same Nenets families confirmed that since the railway appeared in the tundra, they have had more problems and difficulties in their reindeer herding work⁴. In some places, the Gazprom workers have destroyed the most important fishing lakes. In the summer, the Nenets eat mostly fish, their main food ration. Destruction of the fishing lakes by railway workers caused a great disaster for many Nenets families. One day in the middle of

4 This railway goes across the migration routes of many Nenets families. It goes through precious reindeer pastures and has created many limitations and difficulties for nomads to do their seasonal migrations in the tundra. Some groups of Nenets reindeer herders have even changed their routes, while others have continued to follow their old ways of roaming in the tundra, but with many difficulties and limitations (see Degteva and Nellemann 2013; Golovnev and Abramov 2014; Forbes 2013).

July, around 20 reindeer herders came for a meeting to Vasilii’s camp. After a long discussion, they wrote this letter to Alexander Miller, the director of the Russian Gazprom company.

Dear Mister Miller,

We, private reindeer herders of the Yarsalinskii enterprise of the Yamal’skii District, inform you of the following problem and ask you to assume the measures of it. On the territory of our migrations, the land usage agreement between the Yamal’skii District and your company was broken. The Gazprom workers from the Bovanenkovo area made a sand pit for building a road and fished illegally on the territories that are being used by the reindeer herders. It is down the Nadykin flow channel and within two kilometres of the Lake Wibiko; this lake was rich with fish, but now it is empty. Moreover, railway workers were stunning fish with dynamite. This way of fishing has not only polluted the whole ecosystem of this area, but it is also the cause of fish extinction in the surrounding lakes and rivers.

As a result, we have lost the ability to obtain fish, which is the main source of food for us and our families in the summer.

Signatures of 50 reindeer herders.

(FM 2009).

The local department of the indigenous people in Salekhard did not accept this letter. Later it was given to a local representative of the Yamal Reindeer Herders Association, but after reading it, he returned it, saying, that it was written correctly.

The copy of this letter was sent to Gazprom, but there was no reply. However, the reindeer herders were quite active in talking openly about their problems. As a result, the Gazprom Company made new rules for extractive industry workers prohibiting them from conducting illegal fishing in the tundra (Kumpula et al. 2010).

In 2010, the Gazprom Company paid compensation to a few Nenets families for the destruction of their fishing lakes in the tundra. A few expensive Japanese boat motors were given to Nenets families from the Yuribey River. The first family to get such compensation was the Puiko family, while other Nenets from the same area did not get anything. People were rather disappointed and disagreed with such a limited number of motors, given only to selected families. They did not make any statements to official authorities about this; they did not complain and were silent. However, they started to tell the story of how the Puiko family came to the Yuribey River, which had been silenced for many years and was almost forgotten by other Nenets.

This story was told to insinuate that the Puiko family should not have received this compensation. It also reveals that people remember the Puikos to be newcomers on the Yuribey River, even though they came there almost one century ago.

The largest rivers of the Yamal Peninsula are the Ob (Обь), the Shchuchie (Щучье), the Mordy-Yakha (Морды-яха) and the Yuribey (Юрибей) (Figure 5.1.).

Almost all tundra rivers and lakes are rich with freshwater fish like Siberian white salmon (нельма), whitefish (муксун), broad whitefish(coregonus nasus) (чир), peled (coregonus peled) (сырок), and small white fish known as vendace or Europian cisco (ряпушка). There are special fish such as Siberian sturgeon (сибирский осетр), pike and burbot, which are considered to be sacred and which women are not allowed to cut.

0 - 50 50.1 - 100 100.1 - 250 250.1 - 500 500.1 - 1,000

>1000m

The red line is the 2010 administrative boundary Ob

Figure 5.1. Map of the Yamal Rivers. Made by Frits Steenhuisen.

Knowledge about good fishing places has developed among Nenets people over decades. However, there is not so much literature about the fishing Nenets (Zuev 1999; Golovnev 1997). As Stammler (2010:222-223) describes, reindeer herding Nenets have a good knowledge of tundra lakes and rivers on their routes of seasonal migrations that are rich with different types of fish. Fishing lakes as well as fishing rivers are very valuable, and people try to take care of them. Reindeer herders put out nets there to catch some fresh fish whenever they can. Of course, eating fish saves them from the need to eat their valuable reindeer.

Figure 5.2. Fishing Nenets. Near the Mordy-Yakha River. Summer 2017. Photo. Roza Laptander.

According to the Tundra Nenets’ traditional economic rules, everybody could fish in the tundra and take as many fish as they needed for their daily consumption.

However, fishing is usually the occupation of settled or semi-nomadic Nenets. In the Nenets language, they are called nyadena” (нядэна”), which means ‘people who do not migrate’. They have a small number of reindeer or they are pensioners who cannot follow long-distance migrations. Usually they give their reindeer to other Nenets who go far to the north to the summer pastures. Nyadena” do fishing throughout the summer. In the autumn, when herders bring reindeer back, they give fish as a payment for their work.

The Yuribey River—historically and even today—is famous for its good fishing.

Even nowadays reindeer herders and fishing Nenets go there just to fish. Local people have many stories about fishing on the Yuribey River. Every personal story, along with people’s narratives, together represents the history of fishing on the Yuribey River in connection to people who live nearby it. During my first visit to the Yuribey River, among other stories about the history of this place, I collected a story about the Puiko family.

5.3. The story of the Puiko family tragedy