Due to new coronavirus outbreaks, the prospects for international tourism are still cloudy. But Russians have additional incentives to travel around their own country and discover parts of it that usually remain out of sight of even seasoned tourists. Such trips promise new experiences, new knowledge and impressions - the main thing is why it is worth packing your suitcase from time to time, parting with your usual life. This time, Izvestia, as part of the Media Star project, organized by the Tutu.ru service, went to Ugra and found out how it could attract guests.
A mosquito won't hurt your nose
From Moscow to some large cities of the Khanty-Mansiysk Autonomous Okrug - Ugra, where there are airports, the flight takes a little more than three hours. But as soon as you step off the ramp, you realize that you have found yourself in some completely different space - temporal, cultural, social. It seems like everything is the same, but it’s not.
There is a completely different rhythm of life here - calm and measured, even in cities, not to mention villages. Local residents are never in a hurry, but they are never late for anything. And in general they are surprisingly punctual. In a word, an ideal condition, almost unfamiliar to a resident of a modern metropolis.
Visiting the Khanty
On the streets of Kogalym
Photo: IZVESTIA/Alexander Sidorov
There are long distances and few people, good roads with rare cars and oil wells that from a distance look more like specially designed picnic areas. Dark lakes and marshy swamps imperceptibly give way to slender pine forests and then lakes again. Only one thing remains unchanged - the indestructible midge, which seems to have managed to adapt to every conceivable repellent in the world. If you accidentally leave a piece of skin exposed, rest assured, it will be discovered by these tiny creatures and attacked with primal fury.
Visiting the Khanty
Mosquito Monument
Photo: IZVESTIA/Alexander Sidorov
Surgut, Kogalym, Langepas, Urai, Nefteyugansk - these and other important oil production centers are known to most Russians only by their names. Meanwhile, these are clean, quite cozy and very comfortable modern towns, inhabited by extremely hospitable people.
Visiting the Khanty
Kogalym pearl
Photo: Sergey Shandin
Siberian height
An unexpected look at the Khanty-Mansiysk Autonomous Okrug
Leading domestic oil companies are investing heavily in urban infrastructure, trying to do everything possible to ensure that local residents do not leave. And they don’t leave, except maybe a couple of times a year to go somewhere to the sea.
And so, walking, for example, along the quiet boulevards of Kogalym, you suddenly find a branch of the Maly Theater here, and in a spacious shopping center there is a garden of tropical plants and an incredible oceanarium, truly one of the best in the country.
Khanty-Mansiysk Autonomous Okrug - Ugra
Ugra is a very broad concept; it is not only a territory, it is also a special way of life, relationships and habits of those who live here.
Khanty-Mansiysk Autonomous Okrug - Yugra (hereinafter - KHMAO) occupies the central part of the West Siberian Lowland. It stretches from west to east for almost one and a half thousand kilometers from the Ural ridge to the Ob-Yenisei watershed and is located in the basin of the Ob and Irtysh rivers.
The territory of the district is a vast and sparsely settled plain with altitudes of about 200 m above sea level. Only in the north-west is the North Sosvinskaya Upland, and on the northern border of the district is the ridge of the Siberian ridges. A very interesting natural formation from a geological point of view is the Belogorodsky continent: a hilly area along the right bank of the lower Ob, so named for the light shade of the clays that make it up. In the west are the spurs of the Northern and Subpolar Urals, and on the border with the Komi Republic is the highest point of the district - Mount Narodnaya.
The climate here is continental, with long, harsh winters, which is even reflected in the coat of arms of Khanty-Mansiysk: at its head are three silver snowflakes, denoting belonging to the northern cities and a long snowy winter.
Almost the entire Khanty-Mansi Autonomous Okrug is located in the taiga forest zone, only in the extreme north-west, in the Urals, does it enter the forest-tundra and mountain tundra zone.
Among the natural attractions of the district is the Malaya Sosva Nature Reserve, which is home to both animals typical of the middle taiga of Western Siberia (brown bear, sable, ermine, elk), and species characteristic of more southern regions (for example, lynx) or northern regions (wolverine , reindeer).
Important historical and cultural sites are protected on the territory of the reserve: the Neolithic site of Belaya Gora, the ancient Khanty settlements of Tuzingort, Shukhtungort and Khangokurt, the Nikito-Ivdelskaya winter horse road of the 19th century, the shamanic place of the Holy Cape.
Around 15-10th thousand BC. e. the settlement of this territory began, mostly from the forest-steppe zone of Western Siberia - the most likely ancestral home of the Ugrians. In the 2nd millennium BC. e. Due to climate warming, the border of the steppes began to move north, and pastoral tribes began to move north, mixing with the taiga aborigines.
The beginning of Russian colonization of these lands is considered to be the 12th-16th centuries, when the Novgorod Ushkuiniki began to penetrate here. It was they who reported that beyond the Stone (Ural) the northern peoples of the Ugra live. Russians learned this very name from the Komi. The land on which these peoples lived was also called. Nowadays, this name has returned to use and is often used as the name of the Khanty-Mansi Autonomous Okrug. Since 2003, it received official status, and the name of the federal subject began to sound like the Khanty-Mansiysk Autonomous Okrug - Ugra.
Representatives of about 120 nationalities live in the district, the majority of the population is Russian. Representatives of indigenous peoples (Khanty, Mansi, Forest Nenets) make up a little more than 2% of the total population. But the entire district celebrates with them in June the international festival of crafts of the Finno-Ugric peoples “Ugra”. The Khanty and Mansi are two closely related peoples living in Northwestern Siberia. Their names are derived from the self-names of the Khante, Kantah and Mansi peoples. They were adopted as official names after the establishment of Soviet power; in the documents of the administration of Tsarist Russia, the Khanty were called Ostyaks, and the Mansi were called Voguls.
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To designate the Khanty and Mansi as a single whole, the term “Ob Ugrians” is used: the beginning indicates the main place of residence (the Ob River), the second comes from the word Ugra. In Russian chronicles of the XI-XV centuries. this was the name given to the territory in the Polar Urals and Western Siberia, as well as its inhabitants.
GENERAL INFORMATION
- Location: Western Siberia.
- Admin. belongs to: Tyumen region, Ural Federal District, Russian Federation.
- Admin. division: 13 mountains districts, 9 municipalities district
- Administrative center: Khanty-Mansiysk - 96,936 people. (2016).
- Cities: Surgut - 348,643 people, Nizhnevartovsk - 270,846 people, Nefteyugansk - 125,368 people, Kogalym - 63,476 people, Nyagan - 57,120 people, Megion - 55,854 people. (2016).
- Founded: 1930
- Languages: Russian, Khanty, Mansi.
- Ethnic composition: Russians - 68.11%, Tatars - 7.61%, Ukrainians - 6.39%, Bashkirs - 2.48%, Azerbaijanis - 1.82%, Khanty - 1.33%, Belarusians - 1.03 %, Kumyks - 0.97%, Chuvash - 0.95%, Lezgins - 0.93%, Mansi - 0.77%, others - 7.61% (2010).
- Religions: Orthodoxy, Islam, shamanism.
- Currency: Russian ruble.
- Rivers: Ob, Irtysh, Vakh, Agan, Tromyogan, Bolshoi Yugan, Bolshoi Salym, Northern Sosva, Konda, Sogom.
- Lakes: Tursuntsky and Levushinsky Tumans, Vandemtor and Trmemtor.
- Neighboring subjects of the Federation: in the north and northeast. - Yamalo-Nenets Autonomous Okrug, in the east - Krasnoyarsk region, in the south-east. - Tomsk region, in the south - Tyumen region, in the south-west. — Sverdlovsk region, in the north-west. - Komi Republic.
NUMBERS
- Area: 534,801 km².
- Length: from 3. to E. - approx. 1400 km, from North to South - approx. 800 km, border - 4750 km.
- Population: 1,646,078 people (2017).
- Population density: 3.1 people/km².
- Urban population: 92.33% (2017).
- Highest point: 1895 m, Narodnaya (Subpolar Urals).
- Rivers: total number - more than 2000, total. extended — 172,000 km.
- Lakes: total number - about 300,000, the deepest are Kintus (48 m) and Syrkovy Sor (42 m).
- Distance (Khanty-Mansiysk): 2050 km to the north-east. from Moscow.
CLIMATE
- Temperate continental. Winters are harsh and long, summers are short and relatively warm.
- Average t in January: -21 °C.
- Average temperature in July: + 18 °C.
- Average year amount of precipitation: approx. 500 mm.
- Average year relates, humidity: 70-75%.
ECONOMY
- GRP: 3136.8 billion rubles. (2015), per capita - 1.937 million rubles. (2015).
- Minerals: oil, natural gas, gold, iron, bauxite, copper, zinc, lead, niobium, tantalum, quartz, rock crystal, brown and hard coal, sapropel, peat, mineral and thermal springs.
- Industry: oil and gas production, electric power (Surgut State District Power Plant-1 and State District Power Plant-2, Nizhnevartovskaya State District Power Plant), forestry, woodworking, construction, food (fish processing).
- Agriculture: crop production (vegetables, potatoes), livestock breeding (reindeer husbandry, fur farming). Fur trade, river fishing.
- Services: tourism, transport (oil and gas pipelines, river navigation), trade, resort.
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SACRED FIRE OF THE EARTH
The Khanty and Mansi have the most reverent and respectful attitude towards fire. Nowadays, fire is everywhere here, wherever there are flares of associated petroleum gas.
The religion and folklore of the Khanty and Mansi are closely intertwined and permeated with belief in spirits or animism. The universe of these peoples is divided into three zones: the sky (torum), the earth (muv or ma) and the underworld (kali-torum or hamal-ma). Accordingly, people worship three gods, and the most important of them is the heavenly god Num-Torum, or “high god.” He is the creator of the earth, the giver of daylight, the guardian of world order. It also determines the life span of each person. His name is associated with the “sacred flood”, which is also present in these beliefs. His brother Kul lives in the underworld and takes into his kingdom those people whom Torum doomed to death. All three worlds are connected by a staircase.
Strangely enough, the Khanty and Mansi are rather indifferent to the moon, sun and stars, but fire and everything connected with it occupy a significant place in their faith. Just like the forest spirit Unt-tonkh: he lives in the thicket and helps in hunting, sacrifices should be made to him in spring and autumn.
A special group of spirits are family ones: they belong to an individual or family, they help the owner, and happiness, success and health depend on them. True, the power of the household spirit is not too great, and if help is needed in an important life situation, they turn to spirits of a higher rank for it.
Khanty-Mansi Autonomous Okrug is an important and large oil production area (Samotlorskoye, Mamontovskoye, Fedorovskoye, Krasnoleninskoye fields) and natural gas (Igrimskoye and Pungimskoye fields). Pipeline transport has been developed (oil pipelines, gas pipelines). Agriculture is traditional in nature; reindeer husbandry, fur farming, and fur farming are developed. Due to climatic conditions, crop production is almost non-existent.
The district's population lives in both large cities and approximately 700 camps: small seasonal national settlements associated with traditional activities of the indigenous population.
Khanty-Mansiysk, the administrative center of the joint-stock company, is located on the Irtysh River. In 1582, the Cossacks of Ermak came here. In 1635, the Samarovsky pit was created to service postal routes, which became the Samarovskaya Sloboda, at the intersection of important trade routes. At the turn of the XIX-XX centuries. Samarovo is a wealthy village, and also a place of exile. People were resettled here during Soviet times, from dispossessed people to deportees. In 1950, the village of Khanty-Mansiysk received city status.
Surgut, one of the first Russian cities in Siberia, was founded in 1594 as a fort on the site of an Ostyak fortress. It got its name from the name of the nearest channel of the Ob. In the XVII-XVIII centuries. it became one of the centers of Russian colonization of Western Siberia in the 19th century. was a place of political exile, including the Decembrists. For a long time it was in decline, until in the 1950-1960s. Rich oil and gas deposits were not discovered nearby. Today Surgut is a major center of the oil production industry.
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The urban-type settlement of Berezovo is a regional center on the banks of the Northern Sosva, a tributary of the Ob. Back in 1593, it was founded as a Berezov fortress; it received its name from the Ostyak settlement Sumatvosh, or the city of birches, located on this site. Berezovo was a place of exile for disgraced dignitaries of the 18th century, the most famous being the closest associate of Peter I, Alexander Menshikov, and diplomat Vasily Dolgorukov, the author of the forged “will” of Peter I.
FUN FACTS
The territory of the Malaya Sosva reserve is located in the basin of the river of the same name, which belongs to the Ob basin. The river has an extremely winding channel with numerous boulder and pebble rifts. Some river loops almost meet at their ends, forming narrow isthmuses, as, for example, on the Holy Cape. Here you need to travel along the river for about 30 km, and along the isthmus, or, as they used to say, “drag,” to travel only 900 m.
Linguists introduced the word “Ugra” into the scientific classification, calling the Khanty and Mansi languages Ugric (Ugra). This group also includes the related language Hungarian. The Ugric languages, along with the Baltic-Finnish, Volga, Permian and Sami languages, make up the Finno-Ugric group of the Uralic language family (in addition to the Finno-Ugric, it includes the Samoyed languages spoken by the Nenets, Selkups, Enets, Nganasans).
It is common for the Khanty and Mansi to eat raw reindeer meat and blood. A piece of meat from a freshly killed deer is dipped in still warm blood, grabbed with the teeth and with a quick movement of the knife cut from the bottom up right at the lips. Raw deer meat and warm blood contain a large amount of vitamin C, and such food also serves as an antiscorbutic remedy.
At the beginning of the Iron Age (VI-IV centuries BC), the southern part of the Ugric tribes was in close relationship with Iranian-speaking nomadic pastoralists. It is likely that the ancestors of modern Hungarians later emerged from this group, moving west and settling on the Danube. And the ancestors of the Ob Ugrians (Mansi and Khanty) settled respectively on both sides of the Ural ridge and the basin of the lower and middle Ob.
Among the Nenets, there are two ethnic groups: the Tundra Nenets and the Forest Nenets, which differ in their family composition, dialect, and some features of their culture. Only forest Nenets live on the territory of Khanty-Mansi Autonomous Okrug; there are about 2 thousand of them. A few decades ago, they used nets tied from willow bast for fishing, and mammoth ribs and deer skulls served as sinkers. They always had few domestic reindeer; the forest Nenets preferred hunting upland and waterfowl, and fur-bearing animals. The Forest Nenets believe in spirits, their main sanctuary is Lake Numto: here on the island of Ngo-yah, sacrifices were made to the pagan gods and wooden figures of the spirit of the kakha stood.
Touch the depths
Along the roads almost everywhere, sometimes on the edge of a forest or right in the middle of swamps you come across small, neatly filled with sand and fenced with a mesh area with different-sized pipes and low buildings. These are the so-called bushes - oil wells, diverging underground in bunches in different directions to a depth of more than 2 km. No rocking chairs for you, like in Hollywood films about Texas cowboys, everything is clean and orderly, completely silent and very technologically advanced. If you don't know what it is, you'll never guess.
Visiting the Khanty
oil bush
Photo: IZVESTIA/Alexander Sidorov
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It is not forbidden to approach the fence, so if you wish, you can see everything, even at a distance of a hundred meters. But it’s also quite possible to get inside - to do this, you need to arrange a visit in advance through a local travel agency that offers such services. You will need a passport and at least a PCR test. But you will be able to see how a sample of that same black gold is taken directly from the well.
At the moment, industrial tourism in the region is practically undeveloped, but in the near future it may well become one of the growth points. Surely there are many people who want to see with their own eyes how oil is extracted and processed.
On a note. Those who are interested in the history and technology of development of the Ugra mineral resources should definitely look into the Museum of Geology, Oil and Gas in Khanty-Mansiysk, where an exceptionally high-quality and carefully selected thematic exhibition is collected. Among other things, here you can touch a real meteorite and feel the oil by sticking your hand into a special rubber sleeve.
Mountains, oil, deer and a two-headed bird. 10 facts about Ugra in honor of the district’s birthday
Tomorrow, December 10, Ugra will celebrate its 89th anniversary of its formation, although the history of the region as a cultural and political entity is much richer and began more than 900 years ago. In honor of the almost anniversary date, SIA-PRESS prepared 10 facts about Ugra.
Yugra used to be “closer to Moscow”
In old sources, Ugra was the name given to distant lands northeast of Moscow along the Northern Ocean - where the Nenets Autonomous Okrug and the Komi Republic are now. It is believed that our “relatives” in language came from there – the Hungarians, who were previously called “Ugrians”. But then, in 1606, the toponym “Yugra” was forgotten and was not used for a long time; it returned to circulation in the modern history of Russia, when it became the name of the Khanty-Mansi Autonomous Okrug.
Novgorod actively communicated with Ugra before Ermak made it “mainstream”
The first Russian voivode who came to Ugra to collect tribute was the representative of Veliky Novgorod Yadrey . True, his detachment was almost completely killed, but in the end the invaders achieved their goal, and Ugra became a colony of the northeastern principality of Rus' until the 1470s. In Novgorod, they even established a special “enterprise” to oversee the collection of taxes from those lands - “Yugorshchina”. However, at the end of the 15th century, as Moscow strengthened, the future capital of Russia interrupted the influence of its competitor in Ugra (in its old sense, but partially included the current territory of the district) and took this region into its own. This happened almost a century before the legendary campaign of Ermak .
Ugra in size could take a high place in Europe
The area of Ugra is 535 thousand square kilometers. For comparison, France (if you count its European possessions) is located on 547 thousand square kilometers, and it is the third largest country in Europe. Our region is larger than Spain (498 thousand sq. km.), Sweden (449 thousand sq. km.) and Germany (357 thousand sq. km.). In general, to obtain a territory comparable to the Khanty-Mansiysk Autonomous Okrug, you need to add up the areas of the 22 smallest countries in Europe. In the world, Ugra would take an honorable 49th place in terms of the extent of its possessions.
Yugra is richer than half the world
If we talk about money, then the domestic regional product of Ugra in 2021 is expected to exceed the level of 4 trillion rubles for the first time, or approximately $62.5 billion at the current exchange rate. If we compare this with the GDP of the countries of the world (may economists forgive us for such an incorrect comparison - GRP, although similar to GDP, is still different, we just want to show the scale), it turns out that Ugra would be in 74th place in the world, beating, for example, Croatia, Uruguay, Slovenia, Lithuania and more than 100 other countries.
Another billion tons of oil is on the way
In 2021, it is expected that the 12th billion tons of oil will be extracted from the depths of Ugra. The district celebrated the previous billion in March 2021, and the tenth billion anniversary was in February 2012, that is, one entry for the number of tons with nine zeros takes approximately four to five years. In 2021, by the way, production increased for the first time in a decade (by one and a half million tons, but still) and amounted to 236 million tons.
We have mountains. And even the biggest one in the Urals!
In the popular imagination, Ugra is a country of swamps. There are really a lot of them, but besides them there are also real mountains, and the highest mountain of the Urals - Narodnaya (1895 meters) - is located in Ugra. True, on the border with the Komi Republic, but still. In general, if you are interested in hiking to the peaks, then you can go not only to the Sverdlovsk and Chelyabinsk regions or Altai, there are the circumpolar regions of Ugra nearby.
The most severe frost in Ugra occurred in our lifetime
The negative temperature record set in the entire history of weather monitoring in Ugra was recorded quite recently. Thus, on the night of December 20-21, 2021, the air in the region cooled to minus 62 degrees. This is provided that January is considered the coldest month in our region - the average temperature in the north of the district at the beginning of the year is minus 22.8 degrees, and in the south - minus 18.1 degrees.
We have a lot of deer (in a good way)
It is no secret that in Tyumen some drivers call owners of cars with region numbers 86 and 89 (Yugra and Yamal) “reindeer herders.” This is partly true - there are really a lot of deer in Ugra; in 2020, their number is expected to grow to 46 thousand. This is still less than it was at the end of the Soviet Union (50 thousand), but much better than in the early 2000s (25 thousand).
Ugra is prolific with sports stars and KVN
Among the natives of Ugra, the largest number of federal and international celebrities are concentrated in sports. The brightest star, perhaps, is tennis player and businesswoman Maria Sharapova from Nyagan. The list of cool athletes includes: biathletes Alexey Volkov (Raduzhny) and Svetlana Sleptsova (Khanty-Mansiysk), boxer Ruslan Provodnikov (Berezovo).
Two of the strongest KVN teams emerged from our district - “Kefir” from Nyagan (reached the semi-finals of the Major League twice) and “Wrestlers” from Surgut (won awards at the “Voting KiViN” and were twice in the finals of the Major League). In the cultural sphere, we can also highlight the singer Vera Kondratieva (Lyantor).
The most important “political” star to emerge from Ugra is Moscow Mayor Sergei Sobyanin (Nyaksimvol).
If we suddenly missed a native of Ugra who achieved all-Russian or international fame, write in the comments, we will definitely add it.
In Ugra - the only coat of arms, besides the Russian one, with a two-headed bird
Few people know that even the current coat of arms of Ugra depicts the two-headed bird “Kat Ukhup Howl” - in the new versions of the coat of arms it is proposed to draw this bird more clearly.
All other regional coats of arms do not have this, except that the Kostroma region has a double-headed eagle - but it is depicted on the ship’s flag, and, in fact, is a copy of the national double-headed eagle from the country’s coat of arms.
By the way, you can see the entire list of festive events in honor of Ugra’s birthday on a special website.
Places of memory
The history of most Khanty-Mansi cities is very short and begins, in fact, from the second half of the last century - along with the discovery of huge oil fields in the region. However, even those cities that were founded earlier, before the era of big oil, retained almost no traces of their former appearance. But what has survived is surrounded by touching care. Thus, in Surgut, one of the oldest cities in Ugra, there is only one historical building - the house of the merchant Klepikov of the late 19th century. Today it houses a museum of merchant life.
Visiting the Khanty
Interior of the house of merchant Klepikov
Photo: IZVESTIA/Alexander Sidorov
However, you can get some idea of the historical appearance of the city. In the central part, on the embankment of the Saimaa River, there is a historical and ethnographic complex “Old Surgut”, where 14 wooden houses of the 19th–20th centuries are collected, recreated from drawings and photographs. Each building has a small thematic exhibition dedicated to different aspects of the history of the city and region.
Visiting the Khanty
Open air museum "Torum Maa"
Photo: IZVESTIA/Alexander Sidorov
In Khanty-Mansiysk - the current regional capital received city status only in 1950 - for obvious reasons this cannot be found. All the more reverently here they treat the more ancient history. The Museum of Nature and Man has an excellent collection of fossil fauna and flora, including the world's only complete skeleton of the steppe elephant. And the open-air museum “Torum Maa” presents, perhaps, the best collection of dwellings and household items of the Khanty people: plagues from birch bark boiled in fish broth, winter and summer wooden houses, sacred, hunting and food storage sheds, boats, traditional fishing gear, outdoor ovens, animal traps, clothing, weapons, dishes, jewelry, and finally, a sanctuary. It is, by the way, active - rituals are regularly held here on the waxing Moon, because the Khanty remain pagans to this day, they just don’t advertise it very much.
Visiting the Khanty
Photo: IZVESTIA/Alexander Sidorov
Khanty and Mansi: the most interesting facts.
Many people believe that in order to uncover the unknown secrets of civilization, it is necessary to go to other continents: to plow the seas, cross deserts and climb through the jungle. Meanwhile, in Russia there are peoples whose way of life, traditions and views on life can surprise or even shock. For example, the Mansi and Khanty, who have lived in the vast expanses of Ugra since ancient times, have posed many questions to historians and ethnographers, the answers to which have not yet been found.
These are two different peoples
Despite the unconditional kinship, which is expressed in the similarity of languages and many rituals, the Khanty and Mansi are different peoples. But it just so happened that the colonialists of Western Siberia, representing the interests of the Russian Empire, had no time to identify ethnographic differences. Residents of Ugra were mentioned in droves both in official documents and in scientific research. This approach led to the emergence of the Khanty-Mansiysk Autonomous Okrug.
The common name that scientists came up with to justify the unification of the two peoples sounds like “Ob Ugrians.” Since these people live in the Ob basin and belong to the Finno-Ugric peoples. By the way, their closest relatives, according to linguists, are the Hungarians (Magyars). Khanty, Mansi and Hungarian are part of the Ugric group of the Uralic language family.
It is believed that the ethnogenesis of the two indigenous peoples of Western Siberia occurred in the Urals as a result of the mixing of local residents who lived on these lands since the Neolithic era and Finno-Ugric tribes that came from the south. Then both the Khanty and the Mansi were forced out to the northeast by their warlike neighbors.
The main difference between the two above-mentioned peoples is their way of life. Mansi (Voguls) are nomadic reindeer herders inhabiting the tundra. Their life corresponds to their main occupation. Although they also hunt, the production of fur-bearing animals has never been their main source of income.
The Khanty (Ostyaks) live in the taiga and along the banks of the Ob, Irtysh, and their tributaries. They are skilled hunters and fishermen. Initially, these people lived only by fishing, and also collected what the forest provided. Therefore, among the Khanty, the cult of worshiping the spirits of trees is no less developed than the veneration of totem animals. However, starting from the 19th century, many Khanty took up reindeer herding.
The habitat and main activity of the Voguls and Ostyaks, as they were called before, are different, and therefore their way of life is different.
According to the 2010 Russian population census, the number of the Khanty people exceeds 30 thousand people, the Mansi are much smaller - only about 12 thousand representatives.
Sacrifices to icons
Traditionally, the Khanty and Mansi adhered to pagan beliefs. They worshiped gods, nature spirits, totem animals, trees, and deceased ancestors. The shaman was the indisputable authority for them. And although the Ob Ugrians officially adopted Christianity, their worldview surprisingly combines animism, zoomorphism and Orthodoxy.
These people continue to follow their traditions. True, with the massive settlement of Siberia by Russian colonists, they began to practice their cults secretly, moving idols to special places that serve the pagans as sanctuaries. There they bring various offerings to their gods and spirits, which they worship.
Sometimes the Khanty and Mansi smear the blood of sacrificial animals on the lips of saints depicted on Orthodox icons, which are found in almost every home, because they perceive these faces as pagan gods. Thus, the supreme god, called Num-Torum, is associated here with Nicholas the Pleasant, because it is to him that believers turn if they need help in a specific matter. For example, in moose hunting. And the earth goddess Kaltas-ekva is perceived by local believers as the Mother of God. So far, Orthodox priests cannot do anything about such religious syncretism, because in words the Mansi and Khanty are Christians.
Celebrating the killing of a bear
Many peoples of Siberia consider the bear to be their ancestor, including the Khanty and Mansi. But religious worship does not prevent them from killing this animal, skinning it and eating the meat. On the contrary, every “master of the taiga” caught by taiga hunters is a reason to organize a holiday for all residents of the settlement. Moreover, if the victim is a bear, then the general fun lasts 4 days, and the killing of the bear is celebrated a day longer.
Ritual actions accompany the cutting of the animal carcass. They skin him solemnly, in front of a large crowd of people. The head is placed between the front paws, they are left untouched. Silver coins are placed on the nose and eyes of the killed male, and a muzzle made of birch bark is placed on the mouth. The female is decorated in a different way: a woman's scarf is thrown over her head, and beads are placed around her.
If we consider that every local family has a bear skin, and even more than one, then we can assume that the hunt for the “masters of the taiga” in Western Siberia was carried out regularly. At the festival, people not only treat themselves to fresh bear meat and other dishes of national cuisine, they sing ritual songs, dance, and stage comic performances. Moreover, the actors are exclusively men who perform female roles, dressed in the clothes of their relatives.
The Bear Festival is an alternative reality, a kind of looking glass where the world of spirits intertwines with reality.
Allows adultery
Representatives of the indigenous peoples of Ugra do not strictly monitor the behavior of their daughters, because premarital relations are not considered something reprehensible among them. Having a child from another man does not in any way prevent a girl from deciding to get married. From the groom’s point of view, this is a positive thing, because his chosen one has proven that she is able to bear and give birth to healthy offspring.
But infertility is a real tragedy in the eyes of the Khanty and Mansi. They even allow adultery if a woman cannot get pregnant from her husband. In case of infertility of the first chosen one, the man is allowed bigamy.
These people believe that a difficult birth indicates the lady’s infidelity, because this is how the gods themselves punish her - when she gives birth to a child not from her official spouse, she experiences much more suffering and pain than a decent woman. And the affairs of the gods do not concern mere mortals. And every child is greeted with joy.
Castrating deer with teeth
Muncie, as a rule, keep large herds of deer. The meat of these animals is eaten, traditional clothing is made from the skins, and the horns and bones are used to make various tools and household utensils. Sometimes deer are used to pay with each other.
In a large herd, one (less often two) male breeder is left. He inseminates females during the rutting period. Most grown-up male animals are castrated: otherwise they will begin to fight fiercely for the fawns, which is fraught with losses for the owners. In addition, after castration, former males gain weight better.
In the old days, not having the necessary tools and fearing infection of animals, the Mansi would bite the eggs of young deer to be castrated... with their own teeth. This became a tradition that some livestock farmers still follow today.
They eat the contents of deer stomachs
Many peoples of the world can surprise you with their national dishes. And the indigenous people of Siberia are no exception. They eat not only the insides of deer, but also the contents of their stomachs. This delicacy is called “kanyga”; in winter it usually consists of semi-digested reindeer moss, and in summer - from the leaves of shrubs, grass, lichens and mushrooms exposed to the gastric juices of a deer.
It is believed that kanyga is very useful; it promotes the digestion of animal food. To enrich it with vitamins and microelements, this dish is consumed together with northern berries: lingonberries, blueberries and others.
In addition, Mansi and Khanty drink the blood of a freshly slaughtered deer, and also eat bone marrow from the legs of the animal, breaking them with the butt of an ax. Raw meat, while it is still warm, according to the natives of Ugra, helps against many diseases, strengthens a person’s immune system, gives him strength and warms him from the inside, which is important during severe frosts.
Blood feud
The tradition of blood feud is widespread among the Khanty. Sometimes families have been at odds with each other for generations. For the murder of a relative, it is customary here to take revenge on the family of the perpetrator of the crime.
Interestingly, this custom also applies to bears. If the “owner of the taiga” takes the life of a hunter who came to the forest for prey, then the relative of the deceased must go to the taiga and punish the clubfooted criminal. Moreover, the corpse of such a killer bear is supposed to be burned, and no holiday should be held in his honor.
Play 27 instruments
The musical culture of the Ob Ugrians is much richer and more diverse than that of most of their neighbors. Thus, the Khanty and Mansi have long learned to make a variety of stringed instruments. Researchers have counted 27 species, each of which is associated with some kind of totem animal or pagan ritual. For example, a seven-string harp is a swan. And there is also the tumran, nars-yuh, nonryp, kugel-yuh, nin-yuh and many other musical instruments.
Air burial rite
One of the oldest funeral traditions is air burial. Although the word “burial” is clearly not suitable here, because during the funeral the body of the deceased is hung on a special crossbar or left on a high platform in a special place. Some peoples who adhere to pagan beliefs do this so that a person’s soul can fly through the air to another world for the next incarnation.
Not only individual Khanty and Mansi people bury their dead in this way, but also some Nenets, Nganasans, Itelmens, Yakuts, Tuvinians, Altaians and others, including the Iroquois of North America.
Orynganym Tanatarova
—
https://russian7.ru/post/khanty-i-mansi-samye-shokiruyushhie-fakty/
On the bank of a very quiet river
Part of the Khanty people - several dozen families - still lives in remote camps, where, despite some benefits of modern civilization in the form of transport, a gasoline generator, cell phones and books, they lead a very traditional way of life. Some settlements are accessible to tourists and are definitely worth getting to. Their beauty is that these are not specially created tourist sites, but a real space for the lives of real people.
Visiting the Khanty
Photo: IZVESTIA/Alexander Sidorov
On a note. The visit must be arranged in advance, since the camps themselves are often located on lands leased from the Khanty by oil companies and therefore protected. And considering the distances that have to be covered, including off-road, it makes sense to set aside a whole day for the visit.
Visiting the Khanty
Visiting the Kanterovs
Photo: IZVESTIA/Alexander Sidorov
Near Surgut, in the wilderness, on the right bank of the Pim River, the Kanterov camp was located. This family, open, cozy and incredibly hospitable, is well known in Ugra and beyond. Its head is Valery Yakovlevich, a hunter, gatherer and fisherman, a very charismatic, charming and well-read man. Despite the fact that he has only six classes behind him, Kanterov can easily carry on a conversation about the history of Ancient Egypt and quotes poems by Russian poets from memory, and on his windowsill lies a volume of Aristotle’s works.
Visiting the Khanty
Head of the family Valery Yakovlevich
Photo: IZVESTIA/Alexander Sidorov
A corner of untouched nature: how tourists explore Kuzbass
Southern Siberia gathers guests
Valery will show you how to properly harvest wild plants, camouflage animal traps, block channels and place wicker “muzzles” in them, and he will certainly catch something and immediately fry the prey at the stake. His wife and mother take care of the housework - butchering game, preparing deer skins, cooking a simple stew from venison and flour, baking bread in traditional clay ovens. They will willingly let you into their home, where everything is extremely simple and... correct. Because for them, people who came to the camp from distant places are not tourists, but guests.
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Many people believe that in order to uncover the unknown secrets of civilization, it is necessary to go to other continents: to plow the seas, cross deserts and climb through the jungle. Meanwhile, in Russia there are peoples whose way of life, traditions and views on life can surprise or even shock. For example, the Mansi and Khanty, who have lived in the vast expanses of Ugra since ancient times, have posed many questions to historians and ethnographers, the answers to which have not yet been found.
These are two different peoples
Despite the unconditional kinship, which is expressed in the similarity of languages and many rituals, the Khanty and Mansi are different peoples. But it just so happened that the colonialists of Western Siberia, representing the interests of the Russian Empire, had no time to identify ethnographic differences. Residents of Ugra were mentioned in droves both in official documents and in scientific research. This approach led to the emergence of the Khanty-Mansiysk Autonomous Okrug. The common name that scientists came up with to justify the unification of the two peoples sounds like “Ob Ugrians.” Since these people live in the Ob basin and belong to the Finno-Ugric peoples. By the way, their closest relatives, according to linguists, are the Hungarians (Magyars). Khanty, Mansi and Hungarian are part of the Ugric group of the Uralic language family. It is believed that the ethnogenesis of the two indigenous peoples of Western Siberia occurred in the Urals as a result of the mixing of local residents who lived on these lands since the Neolithic era and Finno-Ugric tribes that came from the south. Then both the Khanty and the Mansi were forced out to the northeast by their warlike neighbors. [С-BLOCK] The main difference between the two above-mentioned peoples is their way of life. Mansi (Voguls) are nomadic reindeer herders inhabiting the tundra. Their life corresponds to their main occupation. Although they also hunt, the production of fur-bearing animals has never been their main source of income.
The Khanty (Ostyaks) live in the taiga and along the banks of the Ob, Irtysh, and their tributaries. They are skilled hunters and fishermen. Initially, these people lived only by fishing, and also collected what the forest provided. Therefore, among the Khanty, the cult of worshiping the spirits of trees is no less developed than the veneration of totem animals. However, starting from the 19th century, many Khanty took up reindeer herding. The habitat and main activity of the Voguls and Ostyaks, as they were called before, are different, and therefore their way of life is different. According to the 2010 Russian population census, the number of the Khanty people exceeds 30 thousand people, the Mansi are much smaller - only about 12 thousand representatives.
Sacrifices to icons
Traditionally, the Khanty and Mansi adhered to pagan beliefs. They worshiped gods, nature spirits, totem animals, trees, and deceased ancestors. The shaman was the indisputable authority for them. And although the Ob Ugrians officially adopted Christianity, their worldview surprisingly combines animism, zoomorphism and Orthodoxy. These people continue to follow their traditions. True, with the massive settlement of Siberia by Russian colonists, they began to practice their cults secretly, moving idols to special places that serve the pagans as sanctuaries. There they bring various offerings to their gods and spirits, which they worship. Sometimes the Khanty and Mansi smear the blood of sacrificial animals on the lips of saints depicted on Orthodox icons, which are found in almost every home, because they perceive these faces as pagan gods. Thus, the supreme god, called Num-Torum, is associated here with Nicholas the Pleasant, because it is to him that believers turn if they need help in a specific matter. For example, in moose hunting. And the earth goddess Kaltas-ekva is perceived by local believers as the Mother of God. So far, Orthodox priests cannot do anything about such religious syncretism, because in words the Mansi and Khanty are Christians.
Celebrating the killing of a bear
Many peoples of Siberia consider the bear to be their ancestor, including the Khanty and Mansi. But religious worship does not prevent them from killing this animal, skinning it and eating the meat. On the contrary, every “master of the taiga” caught by taiga hunters is a reason to organize a holiday for all residents of the settlement. Moreover, if the victim is a bear, then the general fun lasts 4 days, and the killing of the bear is celebrated a day longer. Ritual actions accompany the cutting of the animal carcass. They skin him solemnly, in front of a large crowd of people. The head is placed between the front paws, they are left untouched. Silver coins are placed on the nose and eyes of the killed male, and a muzzle made of birch bark is placed on the mouth. The female is decorated in a different way: a woman's scarf is thrown over her head, and beads are placed around her. If we consider that every local family has a bear skin, and even more than one, then we can assume that the hunt for the “masters of the taiga” in Western Siberia was carried out regularly. At the festival, people not only treat themselves to fresh bear meat and other dishes of national cuisine, they sing ritual songs, dance, and stage comic performances. Moreover, the actors are exclusively men who perform female roles, dressed in the clothes of their relatives. The Bear Festival is an alternative reality, a kind of looking glass where the world of spirits intertwines with reality.
Allows adultery
Representatives of the indigenous peoples of Ugra do not strictly monitor the behavior of their daughters, because premarital relations are not considered something reprehensible among them. Having a child from another man does not in any way prevent a girl from deciding to get married. From the groom’s point of view, this is a positive thing, because his chosen one has proven that she is able to bear and give birth to healthy offspring. But infertility is a real tragedy in the eyes of the Khanty and Mansi. They even allow adultery if a woman cannot get pregnant from her husband. In case of infertility of the first chosen one, the man is allowed bigamy. These people believe that a difficult birth indicates the lady’s infidelity, because this is how the gods themselves punish her - when she gives birth to a child not from her official spouse, she experiences much more suffering and pain than a decent woman. And the affairs of the gods do not concern mere mortals. And every child is greeted with joy.
Castrating deer with teeth
Muncie, as a rule, keep large herds of deer. The meat of these animals is eaten, traditional clothing is made from the skins, and the horns and bones are used to make various tools and household utensils. Sometimes deer are used to pay with each other. In a large herd, one (less often two) male breeder is left. He inseminates females during the rutting period. Most grown-up male animals are castrated: otherwise they will begin to fight fiercely for the fawns, which is fraught with losses for the owners. In addition, after castration, former males gain weight better. In the old days, not having the necessary tools and fearing infection of animals, the Mansi would bite the eggs of young deer to be castrated... with their own teeth. This became a tradition that some livestock farmers still follow today.
They eat the contents of deer stomachs
Many peoples of the world can surprise you with their national dishes. And the indigenous people of Siberia are no exception. They eat not only the insides of deer, but also the contents of their stomachs. This delicacy is called “kanyga”; in winter it usually consists of semi-digested reindeer moss, and in summer - from the leaves of shrubs, grass, lichens and mushrooms exposed to the gastric juices of a deer. It is believed that kanyga is very useful; it promotes the digestion of animal food. To enrich it with vitamins and microelements, this dish is consumed together with northern berries: lingonberries, blueberries and others. In addition, Mansi and Khanty drink the blood of a freshly slaughtered deer, and also eat bone marrow from the legs of the animal, breaking them with the butt of an ax. Raw meat, while it is still warm, according to the natives of Ugra, helps against many diseases, strengthens a person’s immune system, gives him strength and warms him from the inside, which is important during severe frosts.
Blood feud
The tradition of blood feud is widespread among the Khanty. Sometimes families have been at odds with each other for generations. For the murder of a relative, it is customary here to take revenge on the family of the perpetrator of the crime. Interestingly, this custom also applies to bears. If the “owner of the taiga” takes the life of a hunter who came to the forest for prey, then the relative of the deceased must go to the taiga and punish the clubfooted criminal. Moreover, the corpse of such a killer bear is supposed to be burned, and no holiday should be held in his honor.
Play 27 instruments
The musical culture of the Ob Ugrians is much richer and more diverse than that of most of their neighbors. Thus, the Khanty and Mansi have long learned to make a variety of stringed instruments. Researchers have counted 27 species, each of which is associated with some kind of totem animal or pagan ritual. For example, a seven-string harp is a swan. And there is also the tumran, nars-yuh, nonryp, kugel-yuh, nin-yuh and many other musical instruments.
Air burial rite
One of the oldest funeral traditions is air burial. Although the word “burial” is clearly not suitable here, because during the funeral the body of the deceased is hung on a special crossbar or left on a high platform in a special place. Some peoples who adhere to pagan beliefs do this so that a person’s soul can fly through the air to another world for the next incarnation. Not only individual Khanty and Mansi people bury their dead in this way, but also some Nenets, Nganasans, Itelmens, Yakuts, Tuvinians, Altaians and others, including the Iroquois of North America.
Rambler reports this.
Further:
https://weekend.rambler.ru/read/41497169/?utm_cont...d_more&utm_source=copylink
Initially, the Mansi people lived in the Urals and its western slopes, but the Komi and Russians forced them out into the Trans-Urals in the 11th-14th centuries. The earliest contacts with Russians, primarily with Novgorodians, date back to the 11th century. With the annexation of Siberia to the Russian state at the end of the 16th century, Russian colonization intensified, and already at the end of the 17th century the number of Russians exceeded the number of the indigenous population. The Mansi were gradually forced out to the north and east, partially assimilated, and in the 18th century they were formally converted to Christianity. The ethnic formation of Mansi was influenced by various peoples. In scientific literature, the Mansi people together with the Khanty people are united under the common name Ob Ugrians. In the Sverdlovsk region, Mansi live in forest settlements - yurts, in which there are from one to 8 families. The most famous of them are Yurta Anyamova (Treskolye village), Yurta Bakhtiyarova, Yurta Pakina (village of Poma), Yurta Samindalova (village of Suevatpaul), Yurta Kurikova, etc. The rest of the Ivdel Mansi live dispersedly in the villages of Vizhay (now burned down), Burmantovo, Khorpiya, on the territory of the city of Ivdel, as well as in the village of Umsha
There is no consensus among scientists about the exact time of formation of the Mansi people in the Urals. It is believed that the Mansi and their related Khanty arose from the merger of the ancient Ugric people and the indigenous Ural tribes about three thousand years ago. The Ugrians inhabiting the south of Western Siberia and the north of Kazakhstan, due to climate change on earth, were forced to migrate north and further to the northwest, to the region of modern Hungary, Kuban, and the Black Sea region. Over several millennia, tribes of Ugric herders came to the Urals and mixed with the indigenous tribes of hunters and fishermen.
The ancient people were divided into two groups, the so-called phratries. One was made up of the Ugric newcomers "Mos phratry", the other - the Ural aborigines "Por phratry". According to a custom that has survived to this day, marriages should be concluded between people from different phratries. There was a constant mixing of people to prevent the extinction of the nation. Each phratry was personified by its own idol-beast. Por's ancestor was a bear, and Mos was the Kaltash woman, manifesting herself in the form of a goose, butterfly, and hare. We have received information about the veneration of ancestral animals and the prohibition of hunting them. Judging by the archaeological finds, which will be discussed below, the Mansi people actively participated in hostilities along with neighboring peoples and knew tactics. They also distinguished the classes of princes (voevoda), heroes, and warriors. All this is reflected in folklore. Each phratry, for a long time, had its own central place of worship. One of which is the sanctuary on the Lyapin River. People gathered there from many pauls along the Sosva, Lyapin, and Ob rivers.
One of the most ancient sanctuaries that has survived to this day is the Written Stone on Vishera. It functioned for a long time - 5-6 thousand years, during the Neolithic, Chalcolithic, and Middle Ages. On almost vertical cliffs, hunters painted images of spirits and gods with ocher. Nearby, on numerous natural “shelves”, offerings were placed - silver plates, copper plaques, flint tools. Archaeologists suggest that part of the ancient map of the Urals is encrypted in the drawings. By the way, scientists suggest that many names of rivers and mountains (for example, Vishera, Lozva) are “pre-Mansi,” that is, they have much more ancient roots than is commonly believed.
In the Chanvenskaya (Vogulskaya) cave, located near the village of Vsevolodo-Vilva in the Perm region, traces of Voguls were discovered. According to local historians, the cave was a temple (pagan sanctuary) of the Mansi, where ritual ceremonies were held. In the cave, bear skulls with traces of blows from stone axes and spears, shards of ceramic vessels, bone and iron arrowheads, bronze plaques of the Permian animal style with an image of a moose man standing on a lizard, silver and bronze jewelry were found. The Mansi language belongs to the Ob-Ugric group of the Ural (according to another classification - Ural-Yukaghir) language family. Dialects: Sosvinsky, Upper Lozvinsky, Tavdinsky, Odin Kondinsky, Pelymsky, Vagilsky, Middle Lozvinsky, Lower Lozvinsky. Mansi writing has existed since 1931. The Russian word mammoth supposedly comes from the Mansi “mang ont” - “earthen horn”. Through Russian, this Mansi word entered most European languages (in English: Mammoth).
https://www.colors.life/post/510394/
Attachment: 5971441_hantuymansi.txt
Brutal emotions at their best
In the vicinity of Surgut there are at least two more places that are definitely worth paying attention to. They are completely different in nature, but equally strong emotionally. The first is husky, with a whole pack of desperately cheerful dogs and experienced instructors. In winter they go sledding here, and in summer they organize bike joring or just long walks with huskies. Close communication with these animals is incredibly positive.
Visiting the Khanty
Husky
Photo: IZVESTIA/Alexander Sidorov
The second is Borovaya airfield, where the Barsov air group, the only all-female team in the country, is based. Charming girls confidently hold the steering wheels of the YAKs in their gentle hands and, without ceasing to smile sweetly for a second, in 10–15 minutes they will roll any tourist so hard that it will not seem too much. A go-pro camera is usually placed in front of the passenger, so that he can then look at himself from the outside and evaluate his own reaction at the moment, for example, of going into a loop or performing some other aerobatic maneuver. Usually people learn a lot of new things about themselves.
Visiting the Khanty
Bird's eye view of the Ob River
Photo: IZVESTIA/Alexander Sidorov
