Kaiettyn, named after the river along which it is situated,
does not officially qualify as a village in Chukotka, and so you won't
find it on a map. You will be able to find the villages of Omolon (on
Chukotka's
southwest border with Magadan Province) and Chuvanskoe (north of
Chukotka's
border with Kamchatka Province), and Kaiettyn lies about midway between
the two, near the Oloi River. |
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Kaiettyn used to be nothing more than a distribution point, a base serving the reindeer brigades that moved about in the surrounding territory. In fact, residents of Kaiettyn still refer to it as baza -- "the base." But it is taking on more and more of the characteristics of a full-fledged village, even if Chukotka's administration does not recognize it as such. Moreover, in 1993, Kaiettyn was registered as an obshchina. |
| The word obshchina is tough to translate -- it literally means either "community" or "commune," but it doesn't function quite like either of those concepts, as we understand them in English. An obshchina in the Russian North implies a group of people, usually blood relations, living together on a shared territory, often engaging in a shared economic activity that relies on the resources of that territory. The people of Kaiettyn actually don't even think of themselves as an obshchina -- for them, it is just a concept written on paper somewhere. |  |
| Having the status of an obshchina in the Russian North is supposed to give residents a special kind of status that helps them govern themselves in ways that make the most sense to them. The problem in Chukotka is that the former governor, Aleksandr Nazarov, opposed the idea of obshchina, and Chukotka's few obshchiny got no support from him. Now there is a new Russian federal law on obshchiny, just signed by President Putin in July 2000, and Chukotka has a new governor -- Roman Abramovich. So things may start to change for the obshchina Kaiettyn. | |
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| Here is one of several young families who live at Kaiettyn: Oleg Shcherbakov and Mira Pananto, with their son Egor. Oh, and their dogs, of course. Mira's father is one of the most respected reindeer herders at Kaiettyn. | In the center you see two of Kaiettyn's grandmothers, or babushki. On the left is Daria Kutynkeva, and on the right is Akulina Etynkeva (who is the mother of Vladimir Etylin, a well-known Chukchi activist). They are surrounded by some of their many grandchildren. | Moms know how to keep their kids warm. This one was waiting while his parents packed up to move to their winter camp along a river. He's tightly swathed, and when he fell over he was stuck like a flipped-over turtle, but notice the clever design for quick changing of diapers. |
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| Mikhail Pananto (father of Mira, above) poses with his grandson Zhenia. Pananto sadly passed away in the summer of 2001, but he led the brigade as its brigadir for many years. | Here is Zhenia again, but now with his mom and dad: Pananto's son Boris and his wife Larisa. | One of the resident babushki, Lidia Itliachan, stands at the entrance to her winter tent with her grandchildren. |
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| Here are Vitalii Etynki, his wife Svetlana Sleptsova, their two children Katia and Valentin, and a nephew Aleksandr. | Evgenii Sleptsov was just visiting, but he managed to take out a duck with his uncle's rifle. |
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