“Eating Hay”: The Ecology, Economy and Culture of Viliui Sakha Smallholders of Northeastern Siberia

Abstract

Contemporary rural Viliui Sakha of northeastern Siberia, Russia, are a Turkicspeaking people practicing horse and cattle breeding in the subarctic. This article details their story of survival in the north as one not only of adapting a southern subsistence to an extreme climate but also to the effects of Russian colonization, Soviet collectivization, and post-Soviet decentralization. In the post-Soviet period a majority of rural Viliu Sakha adapted to the loss of a centralized agro-industrial state farm system by developing a smallholder food production system relying on cattle husbandry supplemented with other subsistence sources including fish, game, forage, other domesticates, and garden products. In the twenty-first century, this "cows-and-kin" system represents a resilient smallholder adaptation based on reviving pre-Soviet production knowledge, recalling ecological knowledge, and relying on kin. The article concludes with a discussion of the future of cows-and-kin by exploring issues of alienated youth, accessing land and the overwhelming concern of inhabitants about the local effects of global climate change.

Arctic Social Indicators

“…There is a wide range of wildlife and plant species in the Arctic used for food, especially by indigenous populations but also by non-indigenous residents (Crate, 2006a;2008b;Forbes and Kofinas, 2000;Klein, 2005). Dietary and cultural changes in the last century have decreased the proportion of wild food that Arctic communities consume.…”