A U.S. scientist wrote, “I found a newspaper reference to a 1929 Soviet expedition in search of a village in Yakutia which had not changed since the 1500s. Do you have any information about this expedition and what happened to it?”
Then he sent me a scan copy of the newspaper story.
My reply below.
The settlement described in the story is called Russkoe Ustje (translated as the Russian outfall). Located in the area of the Indigirka River. That’s the North-East of the Republic of Sakha (Yakutia), in the Arctic zone. The village has still the same name.
Mentioned Russians were Old Believers exiled, actually moved to Siberia under the pressure of the Orthodox Church in the 17th century. Old Believers still live in the area.
The expedition was ethnographic and lead by the Travins. It was the first one in the region after the 1917 Revolutionary. Researchers managed to collect huge folklore and language data dedicated to Russian Old Believers. If to be more precise, they brought 886 items from the expedition. In 1934 the whole collection was given to Leningrad Academy of Ethnography.
Actually, in the 19th century Zenzinov wrote about another northern settlement. It was region researcher A.Chikachev, who dedicated much his work to Russian Old Believers in the described village of Russkoe Ustje.
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