Nani torova! That's 'hello' in Nenets.

My name is Oxana Kharuchi, and I am living in Iqaluit for two months. In Moscow I work for the Russian Association of the Indigenous Peoples of the North (www.raipon.org), and here I am working as an intern with the Nunavut Government's Department of Executive and Intergovernmental Affairs.

I am Nenets. The Nenets are an indigenous people whose homeland is the Yamal Peninsula in western Siberia. My home town is Salekhard.

Some Nenets live in towns and villages, but many still live 'on the land' in their traditional nomadic way. For example, my grandmother and some other members of my family live a nomadic life far from the nearest settlements.

I made this simple webpage in order for people here to see pictures of Nenets life today. They were taken by my parents, and friends of my parents.

This is a Nenets summer camp. The tent is called a 'chum' (choom). A group of tents is called 'stoibizhe'.

These are photos of a typical summer day in a 'stoibizhe'...

Here are photos of a boy and a girl in their Nenets national dress. Note the reindeer ears on the boy's bonnet!

A 'chum' is very warm in winter thanks to wood-burning stoves. This picture shows a family warming bread -- a bread very much like your 'bannock'.

We often go looking for nice clean snow with which to make good tea.

And we need to collect firewood.

There are more photos on page 2!