Hi! My name is Bolot. I am a journalist. Based in Yakutsk. Ask me a question about the Republic of Sakha (Yakutia), Siberia / Russia, and get the answer.
A week or two ago, I received a message from Nikolay Pavlov (he is also known as Halan and Cyber Sakha). He is a very popular person on the Yakutian Internet. It’s him, who works hard together with his like-minded friends on Sakha Wikipedia.
He asked me about a favour. In his email, he said that in the early summer there was one of UNESCO conferences held in Yakutsk (Yakutia / Russia), and there were Japanese speakers Mikami Yoshiki and Tanaka Nakahira, who monitor the Internet in search of websites done in rare languages.
So, according to Nikolay, Mikami Yoshiki and Tanaka Nakahira said an interesting statement. They said that there were websites even in the Yukagir language, but the Sakha language was not represented online…
Nikolay and all other people, who do their best in promoting the Sakha language on the web, were confused a little. How come? There are many of such Internet resources. Maybe, they got words in a wrong way.
When they talked to Japanese speakers, the latter said that they monitored mainly websites in .com domain zone!
So, to render justice, Nikolay asked me to publish the list of the well-known Sakha language web resources. Proceed reading to check the top.
So happy that it became possible to help Russia Today TV Channel with meeting a shaman in Yakutia. How did it happen?
A few weeks before the New Year celebration, a Russia Today producer called me and asked how to meet a shaman in Yakutia, Siberia/Russia. I started to explain and tell exactly what I wrote in the previous post “How to meet shamans in Yakutia?“. Said that it was a bit hard task, if they wanted to make a story with a real one. Not so many of them left in the region… and all of them prefer to live at remote places, far from people.
They would need to travel to a shaman’s place in taiga. The nearest one, Fedot P. Ivanov, is located near the village of Vilyuisk, minimum 5 hours by a car from Yakutsk. Find him and ask him for letting them to do the interview with him, and it’s not guaranteed that he would express his wish to show up on TV, as he is tired of journalists’ attention and consider them pretty annoying.
Recommended to get in touch with Galina E. Shadrina (see her contact), who are considered as shamans’ assistant and eye in mordern civilization. Russia Today appeared to be really lucky. Galina managed to invite one of shamans to Yakutsk. It was Leonid Savin, who is based in the village of Zhigansk, North Yakutia. His flight from Zhigansk to Yakutsk was possible to one good person, who agreed to pay his flight.
Russia Today made a story. Watch the video above. Currently, Leonid Savin is stuck in Yakutsk. He is doing clarification rituals at people’s requests and this way he is trying to earn money for getting back to Zhigansk. Don’t know, if he would agree to come the next time for another TV crew… but who knows :)
Meanwhile, read RussiaToday’s story ofYakutian shamans. I like it much. Read more…
About exhibition
Through photography and mixed media, “On the Road of Bones” reveals the secret history and hidden landscape of Kolyma, formerly the land of Soviet labor camps and the coldest inhabited region on earth. Stunning new works by young native Siberian photographers Bolot Bochkarev, Nastya Borisova, and Ajar Varlamov trace the remains of the vast highway built across the taiga, tundra, and permafrost of North Asia by Stalin’s prisoners. The exhibition juxtaposes the tragic events of the past with the powerful natural beauty of the frozen land and the daily lives of northern people.
An Austrian traveler Hannes, who visited Oymyakon, the Pole of Cold, this past January, was so impressed with the Yakut folk music that he asked me to provide him links to online resources, where he could download mp3 files with Yakut songs and music or purchase CDs or mp3 files somewhere on the web.
By the way, Hannes created a very nice slideshow with his photographs taken in the course of his expedition to Oymyakon. Check his video and find hyperlinks I know. Read more…
Received a request from Jenanne, a Scotland University of Aberdeen PhD Student. Her major is Social Anthropology, so all her questions sounded accordingly. Mainly she wondered how popular the Sakha (Yakut) language was on the Internet. I said I had a friend of mine, who’s hobby was to write in his native language everything and everywhere in every corner of the worldwide net.
The person I recommended to torture with those questions was Halan (that’s how he prefers to call himself online), who stands behind Sakha Wikipedia. I reforwarded Jenanne’s questions to him. He answered and then Jenanne (currently she studies Russian, but speaks Ukrainian pretty good, cause her mother is originated from Ukraine) translated his text into English. Find Halan’s replies further: Read more…
One of the first questions I hear from new non-Yakutian friends of mine is “What are your traditional meals?” I started my answer from the short sentence “We love frozen horse meat and frozen Arctic fishes.”
Well, I decided to start publishing posts about traditional cuisine in Yakutia. The one is dedicated to stroganina.
Stroganina is the traditional cold dish in Yakutia.
Stroganina is the first traditional dish that will be offered you to try in Yakutia in winter. It is thin long slices of frozen fresh Arctic river fishes, i.e. broad whitefishes, whitefishes, and white salmons. Read more…
This question I hear very often from international website visitors. The last time it was a Turkish 4WD adventure traveler Ali Eric, who is making his world-around trip Istanbul2Istanbul. A few days ago, while seeping the Russian beer at a local grill house, he said to me:
“You know, before my start, I told friends that I plan to drive alone the Road of Bones through Yakutia to Magadan. And those, whom I shared my plans with, were astonished. Said like, My goodness, it is so cold over there in winter. Why do people live there? In my turn, I also wonder, Why do people live in Yakutia?”
Well. This question always sounds embarrassing. No, it’s not awkward. Read more…
Andrew I with a creative studio “A Novigator” announced a descent to the deepest well in the world, Shergin’s shaft, to take place in Yakutsk on October 20, 2009. Update, 21.10.2009: The even was postponed till November 04, 2009.
An exclusive speleological tour into the unique well, that is 116 meters deep, as long as a 40-store building,and surrounded with permafrost! Read more…
Actually, the question received recently from Frank, who is currently somewhere in the neighborhood, sounded this way:
I am very interested in contacting some of the wonderful khomus craftsmen from Yakutia, especially Innokenty N. Gotovtsev. It seems that NONE of these guys have email contact information. Do you have any advice for me?
I would like to meet him in order to purchase a khomus directly from him. If I have the opportunity to meet him in person, it would be great because i could see/play the khomus(es) before making a costly purchase.
Well, I found the answer by pure accident. Read more…
This summer Yakutsk’s Ysyakh (Ысыах), Yakut national holidays, will be held on June 27-28, 2009. Location is Ys Khatyn (Yс Хатынг), 20 minutes by car northward from Yakutsk, near the settlement of Zhatai (Жатай). The opening ceremony will take place on the first day, Saturday, at 12.00.
Note: Yakutsk Ysyakh takes place traditionally on the last weekend of June.
