The Mansi, Russian people of the tajga, risk disappearance

They live in the north of the country and number a total of 12,000. Few still speak their native language. The greatest threat comes from damage to forests and woodlands. For them, the land must be respected and exploited as needed.

Moscow (AsiaNews) - A new film by the director Vladimir Sevrinovsky, "Winter in Letnaja Zolotitsa", about the life of the inhabitants of a small village on the shores of the White Sea, 180 kilometres from the nearest city of Arkhangelsk, which in winter can only be reached by motorised sleighs or by plane, on the old An-2 transport for small groups of passengers, is arousing rather passionate reactions in Russia.

This extreme area of the northern Tajga is home to the Mansi, a small Finno-Ugric people, who, according to statistics, number no more than 12,000 in all. Less than 200 of them live in Letnaja Zolotitsa, a name meaning 'Golden Summer', and only a few dozen still speak their native language and preserve their original traditions, linked to life in the forests.

The Mansi are in danger of disappearing, especially in the ever more controversial prospect of a break-up of the Russian Federation, which in its own way tries to protect the small local ethnic groups with special protection laws, which in turn are increasingly sidelined. The life of these people has always been linked to hunting and fishing, but now in the tajga they cut down trees and dig for minerals and energy sources, poison the rivers with the residues of their work and drive tourists away, as well as exterminate wild animals.

State programmes to support the 'native peoples' have not been cancelled, but money is invested in the land without taking into account the opinion of the inhabitants, and most Mansi refuse to make public demands for compliance, for fear of losing even what is now guaranteed by officials or businessmen.

One of the few to raise her voice is the activist Natalia Gridneva, a mother of five who lives in the village of Polunočnoe ('of Midnight') in the Sverdlovsk region of the Urals, and demands that the Mansi be allowed to retain control over their original lands, and to administer the allocated funds themselves, before they disappear into the rooms of the state and regional apparatuses. Natalia is supported by the woodcutter Valerij Anjamov, who lives in the even smaller village of Ušma, and holds great moral authority among the Mansi population.

Natalia says, 'my father had a sister who lived in the Komi region, and even though the Mansi gods were against it, we moved in with her; the local deer brought him home unconscious, and he died a few days later, within a week of moving in. My mother also died early, and I grew up in the orphanage, among the Russians.

The orphans would climb the tall poplar trees to watch the thaw, dreaming of returning to their ancestors: "Of the native language I only remembered a few words, but I never forgot the tajga. The children ran away from the school to live in the woods 'in the Mansi way', hunting and fishing all day long, 'when there was still plenty of prey around'.

Gridneva dreams of the restoration of the traditions of the northern Urals, 'when civilisation here had not yet come to destroy everything', and the Mansi were still proud men and always in action, 'today they have made us all drunkards'. Since the deer and reindeer were assigned to the state in the 1990s, their presence has almost disappeared, along with that of many other wildlife species. Anjamov sends a letter every month to the Ekaterinburg administration, which is regularly sent back to him.

The Mansi are men of the land, which according to their conception cannot be the property of anyone, individual or community, but must be respected and exploited as needed, only by those who inhabit it constantly. Inhabitants are allocated health services, transport and supplies of basic necessities, but the Mansi demand the 'rodovye ugodja', the distinctions of 'native lands', in order not to lose their identity.

• russia
• mansi
• ethnicity
• taiga
• environment
• economy