The Reindeer People

The Chukchi reindeer breeders are peculiar people. They are nomads. Reindeers are their welfare, the purport of life. The mother-reindeer is the main divine being; it protects the Chukchi from misfortune and troubles. Nature is not friendly towards people here. Only Chukchi can survive in Tundra. They manage to pack their simple baggage on a sleigh and, guided by reindeers, roam from place to place around the boundless expanse of the northeast region of Russia. A rush period for the Chukchi reindeer breeders comes in winter, when the temperature drops to minus 50C at night and in the sunlight of the day it doesn’t exceed minus 40C in tundra: they should separate young deer from the rest of the herd, the weak from the strong. Moreover, the herds of the Chukchi reindeer breeders number thousands of heads.