Kamchatka – Esso Village

We had another long journey (about 5hrs) to Esso village to experience some of the ‘native’ Even people of Kamchatka, we started by driving through the forest and then to the same interesting river crossing, luckily the last crossing before the lunch break was running late so we managed to catch it.

When we arrived to Anavgai it turned out the Native dancing show on the outskirts of this village were not in town so we had a drive around the village before carrying on to Esso Village to the hotel.  Lou and I were staying in a chalet outside the main hotel which was much nicer than any of the other places, but still not great, mainly due to the whole hotel having run out of hot water so showering wasn’t possible, the pool had also just been drained earlier on that day and was being filled with hot spring water.

The next day we went to the ethnic museum all about the Eveny and had an interesting tour around what is actually a very small location, but the lady was fascinating and our interpretor had to work for her money by interpreting on the fly into English.  As part of the tour they also took us into a mock-up of a winter shelter complete with reindeer fur rugs which were very thick and heavy furs.  The Eveny were traditional reindeer herders, killing only when necessary for food and/or warm clothing, both of these to help them survive the cold winter.  Although they are traditionally nomadic, in Soviet times the people went through a period of forced settlement, and forced education in the Russian language.  This marked the end for the most part of their traditional nomadic lifestyle and especially for the shamanistic religious beliefs, the latter was still practiced unofficially in these times but has now apparently been lost.  Another interesting thing about the ‘ethnic’ tribes of Even and Koryak is that they mainly stayed in Siberia until the last couple of hundred years when the nature of their lifestyle took them south into Kamchatka, the most ancient tribe of Kamchatka is actually the Itelmen who have lived there for thousands of years, but there are only a few hundred of these people left.  These tribes are believed to be the ancestors of the Native American tribes, who are believed to have migrated to the Americas across the Bering Strait, they are so closely related there is a genetic link between the two peoples.

Walking through the village was fascinating, the building are almost exclusively wooden, with a fantastic spray of colour from amazing flowers in their gardens, however I felt a little like I would be intruding if I took photos of people’s gardens, especially when they were in them.

That afternoon we also had a visit from the Nulgar dancing troupe consisting mainly of Even people, they were formed in 1985 and have been reviving their national dance routines ever since, introducing new danceers at a young age as you can see from the photos.  Unfortuantely they came to the hotel and performed in the bar but it was a little dark to get and sharp shots, but I think the ones I took give a sense of movement in their dancing.

The next day we had a trip to what was described as a ‘handicrafts’ studio, instead it was a guy who was a qualified hunter, he described why they hunt, how best to react to a bear if you come across one, and the likely behaviour of the bear.  It turns out you are best to hold your ground even when it walks away as it is likely about to turn round and charge at you, and again best to stand your ground, and preferably not soil yourself! One of the things he described was the need to cull the bear population in order to keep them away from populated areas, I took this at face value as I have no idea about such things, however when he described the unscrupulous methods employed by some. Essentially scaring hibernating bears into waking and then throwing balls of grass or cloth soaked in urine into the bears hibernation den to entice them out then shooting them, hardly fair or sporting even for the most pro-hunting person.  The guy did however make interesting things out of elk horn (they shed these each year and grow new ones), and any mammoth tusk they find, they were pretty expensive though so we didn’t buy anything.

That afternoon we left Esso for the journey south to Malki village to begin our rafting trip, but more about that in the next post.

As usual please click the thumbnail through to the full photo in the gallery below.

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This entry was posted on Friday, August 13th, 2010 at 2:11 pm. It is filed under Blog, Photography, Travel and tagged with Bear, Dancing, Esso, Ethinic, Even, Eveny, Hunter, Kamchatka, Museum, Nulgur, Reindeer, Russia. You can follow any responses to this entry through the RSS 2.0 feed.