BERICHTE UND M I T T E I L U N G E N
P O S T - S O V I E T C H A N G E I N A Y A K U T I A N F A R M V I L L A G E With 4 figures and 6 photos
BELLA BYCHKOVA JORDAN, TERRY G. JORDAN-BYCHKOV a n d ROBERT K. H O I . /1
Zusammenfassung: Veränderungen in einer jakutisehen ländlichen Siedlung in postsowjetischer Zeit
Die Autoren führten in Djarkhan, einer ländlichen Siedlung in der russischen Republik Sacha/Jakutien im östlichen Sibi- rien eine Fallstudie durch. Die Hauptaugenmerke richteten sich auf die Veränderungen der Landnutzung, der Bevölkerungs- und Siedlungsstruktur, der traditionellen Kultur und des Lebensstandards seit dem Zusammenbruch der Sowjetunion im Jahr 1991. Djarkhan ist entlegen, isoliert und urtümlich. Das Klima ist rauh und die Siedlung gehört in jeder Hinsicht zu den mar- ginalen Gebieten Sibiriens.
In nur sechs Jahren hat Djarkhan den Untergang seiner Sowchose, Aufstieg und Zerfall einer bäuerlichen Kooperative, den Tod der kommerziellen Landwirtschaft, eine Zunahme und darauf folgend eine starke Abnahme seiner Bevölkerung, den Abbruch aller Bus- und Flugverbindungen zur Außenwelt, das Wiedererstehen einer Klassengesellschaft, das Aufleben einer weitreichenden familiären Kontrolle, die wachsende Verfügbarkeit über verschiedene Konsumgüter und andere Veränderun- gen erlebt. Die Bewohner haben eine starke Verbundenheit mit ihrer Heimat beibehalten und sind stolz auf ihre Kultur.
Die Zukunft von Djarkhan und vergleichbarer Siedlungen ist ungewiß. Die bereits greifenden Elemente verschiedenartiger Anpassungsstrategien könnten es Djarkhan und ähnlichen Dörfern erlauben, die gegenwärtigen grundlegenden Veränderun- gen zu überleben.
Summary: The authors conducted a field-based case study of Djarkhan, a farm village in the Russian republic of Sakha/
Yakutia, in eastern Siberia, focusing upon the changes in land use, demography, settlement morphology, traditional culture, and living standards that have occurred since the collapse of the Soviet Union in 1991. Djarkhan is remote, isolated, and ethnic. Its climate is severe, and in every sense the village belongs to the "marginal lands" of Siberia.
In only six years, Djarkhan has witnessed the death of its sovkhoz, the rise and fall of a peasant cooperative, the demise of all commercial agriculture and reversion to private subsistence farming, an increase and subsequent major decrease of its population, severance of all bus and airplane links to the outside world, re-emergence of a class-based society, revival of extended family power, and increased availability of diverse consumer goods, among other changes. The villagers retain a deep attachment to place and pride in ethnic culture.
The future of Djarkhan and similar villages remains uncertain. A diversified adaptive strategy, most elements of which are already in place, could allow it and similar places to survive the profound changes presently underway.
Profound changes came to Russia in the wake of political liberalization, the disintegration of the Soviet Union, and the collapse of communism. These changes rather quickly penetrated into rural areas, reaching even peripheral ethnic republics such as Sakha/Yakutia in northeastern Siberia (Fig. 1). Within that republic the changes transformed rural life by revising land- use systems, restructuring settlement morphology, and modifying the socioeconomic order. A resurgence of ethnic culture added another dimension of change.
These transformations are part of an ongoing process with uncertain final results.
We present here a case study of change in one village in Sakha/Yakutia, a place representative of many. Such case studies at the village level remain almost non- existent for post-Soviet Russia, and particularly for Siberia (PROSTERMAN a. HANSTAD 1993, 149 189;
LOFFE a. NEFEDOVA 1997). Rural change has been
11 We dedicate this article to Professor Dr. ECKART EHLERS, on the happy occasion of his 60th birthday.
analyzed mainly at the regional and national levels, lacking the geographical perspective gained from in-depth local field research (O'BRIEN et al. 1992;
KRAUS a. LIEBOWITZ 1996). Insights gained from our particular farm village marginal in location, extreme in climate, and ethnic in population - help illustrate what is happening in isolated regions and republics of the Russian Federation and suggest where these changes may lead. O u r field research was carried out in
1996 and 1997.
1 fyarhhan village, Sakha
O u r case study village, Djarkhan (also known by its older name, Arylakh) lies on an interfluve within a broad bend of the River Vilyui, a m a j o r left-bank tributary of the great Lena, in a far corner of the Central Yakut Plain, the traditional heartland of the Turkic-speaking Yakut people. T h e village belongs to the administrative district, or ulus, of Suntar, the seat of
Fig. 1: Sakha/Yakutia: Terrain regions and selected general locations Sacha/Jakutien: Reliefstruktur und ausgewählte Landschaftsnamen
which is a town of 9,000 inhabitants also called Suntar.
Flanked by expansive plateaus, Djarkhan occupies a lowland site some 215 meters above sea level. Its loca- tion is both remote and peripheral, at the end of a dirt track, on the very outermost margins of the agri- cultural world, at 62°20' north latitude, in the midst of the boreal forest (Figs. 1, 2) (Informatsiya 1989).
The village lies some 13 degrees of longitude west of the republic's capital, Yakutsk, at 116°41' east longi- tude. To reach Yakutsk from Djarkhan by road requires a drive of 1,072 kilometers over unpaved routes, long stretches of which arc passable only in winter. Just to reach Suntar town, one must drive 90 kilometers on un- paved roads and tracks, and even it is isolated. While Suntar lies on the banks of the Vilyui, the river route to Yakutsk has no regular or reliable passenger boat service. Airline connections, expensive by any stand- ards, arc available from Suntar's dirt landing strip to Yakutsk and a few other places.
Isolation is not Djarkhan's only problem. The local climate, classified as "dry microthermal," exhibits
extreme continentality, with a frost-free period varying from 50 to 85 days. In winter the thermometer can fall as low as 58°C, and the entire region is underlain by thick permafrost (Agroklimaticheskiye 1973, 7-9;
WEIN 1991, 196).
Djarkhan consists of a loose cluster of log houses, scattered through a gridiron street pattern, and is home to over 600 people (Fig. 3). The villagers are almost all ethnic Yakuts, the titular group in Sakha/Yakutia.
While a farm village, Djarkhan also has a school complex, a council hall, a sawmill, several shops, an infirmary, and a few other service facilities. Most notably, perhaps, the village is a place caught up by profound changes, as a comparison of Figures 3 and 4 reveals.
2 Village history
Recent changes cannot be addressed without some understanding of the trajectory of settlement history.
Fig. 2: The Vilyui Bend region of western Sakha/Yakutia, showing both Soviet and post-Soviet land units
Sources: Atlas Sel'skogo, 48, 51,55: manuscript maps in the village council hall, Djarkhan.
Die Vilyui Bend Region im westlichen Sacha/Jakutien, sowjetischc und postsowjetische Landaufteilung
Djarkhan is not an ancient, immutable Asian village with origins going back to prehistoric times. On the contrary, it is largely a phenomenon of the Soviet era, and the village was founded in 1932, during Stalin's collectivization of agriculture. Over the subsequent decades, the villagers obeyed diverse Soviet produc- tion directives, while enjoying services and subsidies provided by the government.
At the same time, Djarkhan perpetuated many centuries-old Yakut rural ways. Its site on the shores of fish-rich Oybon Lake, at the edge of a series of interconnected, grassy, thcrmo-karstic depressions, or alahses, has been occupied by Yakut cattle and horse breeders at least since the 1600s (WEIN 1997, 123). A census taken of the district in 1860 revealed a Yakut herding hamlet on Oybon's shore, consisting of six wooden huts and 39 inhabitants. A few kilometers away, beside Lake Arylakh (or Ebe), stood a larger settlement, with 19 huts and 127 people (MAAK 1994, 53-56,516).
Soviet reorganization of the rural settlement pattern caused several such native lakeside hamlets to be drawn
together into the more sizable village of Djarkhan, where the government could impose administrative control and central planning. The concentration of the rural population also made possible provision of schools, transport facilities, mcdical services, and even- tually such amenities as electric power. By 1939 the village had 71 houses and 292 inhabitants. In almost every subsequent decade, settlement consolidation con- tinued. Smaller collective farming villages proved un- economical, and many were abandoned. Djarkhan grew in such a manner, by absorbing the population of nearby smaller villages, as well as by natural increase, enhanced by the new medical services and improved sanitation. In the late 1960s alone, in a major wave of village consolidation, Djarkhan grew from 380 to 541 inhabitants. By the close of the Soviet era, in 1991, the village had 197 households and 671 inhabitants, nearly all of whom lived in their own private homes (Demograficheskiye dannye 1936-1983, 1984-1997).
As the village grew in population, it went through a series of changes in its organizational structure.
In the 1930s, nine collective farms, or kolkhozy were established in the vicinity, including "Budyonny" at Djarkhan. These proved too small to be economical, and consolidation left only two surviving kolkhozy by
1951. By the end of the 1950s the large, 7-village
"Lenin" kolkhoz had been created, incorporating Djar- khan and most other villages in the Vilyui River bend.
Restructuring into state farms, in the middle 1960s established the 6-vilIage "Toybokhoyskiy" sovkhoz.
Djarkhan and its lands formed a peripheral part of this state farm, subsidiary to the larger village of Toybokhoy, some 30 kilometers by road to the south (WEIN 1991, 194; Atlas Sel'skogo 1989, 55, 55; Ekspli- katsiya 1996; Arkhivy 1932-1997; PAKHOMOV 1997a).
Prior to the creation of the sovkhoz, times had been hard in Djarkhan. Subsidies and commodity prices remained low. Salaries rose significantly in the late 1960s, when the Soviet government substantially in- creased its investment in agriculture, and villages were no longer bled to support industrialization. State price subsidies for agricultural commodities rose 17-fold between 1965 and 1989, and Djarkhan, as a favored
"marginal land" village, received extra subsidies. If the place ever enjoyed a golden age, it was then (BATER
1996, 189-191; Arkhivy 1932-1997).
Even in the kolkhoz decades the accomplishments of the village's farmers were often impressive. Ordered by Stalin's decree to grow grain, Djarkhan's farmers had placed 113 hectares of dark-soiled grassland under cultivation by 1940 and later sent sheaves of their boreal wheat to a great exposition in Moscow. Grain cultivation persisted into the 1960s, though yields remained low. In 1965, a good year, the harvest from Djarkhan's grain fields amounted to only 8.2 centners per hectare. In 1940, 2 hectares of potatoes were also cultivated, all presumably in kitchen gardens (Demo- graficheskiye dannye 1936-1983).
to Suntar
kms.
~ 1 Dr\ * ™ JVCotter 1 Post Office
2 Community Hall 3 Store 4 War Memorial
6 School Complex ° 1 0 0 0
8 S ^ T '5 ° « 0 200 meters
9 Bakery 10 Coal Yard 11 Diesel Tank 12 State Farm Office Street
Dwelling Outbuilding Garden Public building -
line State
farm Area for village
expansion
Fig. 3: Plan of Soviet Djarkhan, about 1985. The sovkhoz complex dominated the eastern end of the village. The checker- board plan was typical of villages created during the collectivization of the 1930s
Source: manuscript map in the village council hall, Djarkhan
Plan des sowjetischen Djarkhan um 1985. Die Sowchose dominiert den östlichen Teil der Siedlung. Das Schachbrettmuster war typisch für Siedlungen, die während der Kollektivierung in den 30er Jahren entstanden
Local farmers also continued the ancestral Yakut enterprises of raising horses and cattle and har- vesting large amounts of hay. In 1941 the village had 508 cattle, 70 percent of which were privately owned;
165 horses, 75 percent belonging to the collective and used principally as a source of meat; and 21 reindeer.
By the end of the Soviet period, Djarkhan villagers possessed 530 cattle and 862 horses, as well as 65 pigs and 38 poultry. Bovine dairy products became the local specialty. A milk-processing plant operated in the village, and samples were flown regularly to a Sun- tar laboratory for testing (Demograflcheskiye dannye
1936-1983, 1984—1997)!
Over the decades, Djarkhan developed an impres- sive service economy. The village, at the close of the Soviet era, had schools through the tenth grade; a post office; a store selling food, clothing, and other supplies;
a bakery; fuel depot; community hall and clinic. As early as 1942, the village had 36 persons employed by
the state in various service capacities, mainly teachers, and this contingent grew over the years to reach 90 by the late 1980s, all supported by state funding (Demo- graflcheskiye dannye 1936-1983, 1984-1997).
3 Post-Soviet demographic changes
The village of Djarkhan well represents post-Soviet Russia's demographic instability (DEMKO 1998). Its population has fluctuated disconcertingly since 1991.
Initially, the village grew, as it absorbed contingents of native pensioners and jobless persons from the cities of Sakha (PAKHOMOV 1995, 59). By 1993 Djarkhan had increased to 721 inhabitants. Since then, the migration flow has reversed, and by 1997 the village retained a population of only 635, a decline of 12 percent in only four years and 5.4 percent just since 1996 (Demogra- flcheskiye dannye 1984-1997).
1 New Post Office/Pharmacy JVCotter 2 Cooperative Slaughterhouse
3 Store 4 Council Hall 5 Community Hall
6 Gym 0 500 1000 feet 7 Schools } i ' i i' 8 Kindergarten 0 100 200 300 meters 9 Apartments
10 Cooperative Garage 11 Cooperative Bath House 12 Gasoline Tanks 13 Cooperative Barn 14 Bakery 15 Coal Yard 16 Diesel Tank 17 Sawmill - Street
Dwelling Outbuilding Garden Public building
line or fence Cooperative
farm
Fig. 4: Plan of post-Soviet Djarkhan, 1997. A new school complex has been built and the state farm complex has fallen into ruins, among other changes. Most new houses were built with subsidies from the Republic
Source: on-site observation
Plan des postsowjetischen Djarkhan 1997. Errichtet wurde ein neuer Schulkomplex, neben anderen Veränderungen ist der Komplex der Staatsfarm zu Ruinen verfallen. Die Mehrzahl der neuen Häuser wurde mit Unterstützung der Republik erbaut
Clearly, Djarkhan has begun to experience, belatedly, the net emigration from rural areas that has charac- terized Sakha/Yakutia for at least a decade. In the republic as a whole, rural areas experienced a net loss of 107 persons per 10,000 population in the period 1989 to 1994, and rural emigration has intensified in subsequent years. By 1997, about 10 empty dwellings could be detected in Djarkhan (Demografichcskiy ezhegodnik 1995, 430; IVANOV 1997). Births continue to outnumber deaths in the village, but the vigorous natural increase evident as recently as 1994 has ended.
Births fell from a high of 21 in 1993 to only 7 by 1995 (Demograficheskiye dannye 1984-1997).
Preponderantly, it is the younger people who leave, seeking greater economic opportunity in cities such as
Mirny and Yakutsk (Fig. 1). Young women emigrate in greater numbers than men, and the population of Djarkhan in 1997 was 53.2 percent male. The num- ber of weddings fell from 12 in 1992 to only one in
1995. As a consequence, Djarkhan's population is in- creasingly elderly (Photo 1). Pensioners, which include all men over the age of 55 and women over 50, grew in number from 105 in 1988 to 170 in 1997 (Demogra- ficheskiye dannye 1984-1997).
Still, the village remains full of children. Kindergar- ten and school enrollment stood at 200 in 1997, almost one-third of Djarkhan's population, a legacy of very high birthrates in the 1980s. Near the end of that decade, fully 19 percent of the inhabitants were under the age of 7, and Djarkhan well reflected Sakha's high
Photo 1: Increasingly, Djarkhan's population is elderly. Twen- ty-seven percent of the inhabitants were pensioners in
1997
Photo: T. G. JORDAN-BYCHKOV (9. 7. 1997)
Die Bevölkerung in Djarkhan überaltert zunehmend.
27 Prozent der Bevölkerung waren 1997 pensioniert
rural total fertility rate (TFR) of 3.210 for 1990. While the rural TFR for the republic declined to 3.028 by 1994, the most recent year for which data have been released, this still reflected vigorous natural popula- tion growth (Demograficheskiye dannye 1 9 8 4 - 1 9 9 7 ;
Demograftcheskiy Ezhegodnik 1995, 87). Throngs of well-behaved teenagers "hang out" in front of the village council hall during the "white nights" of sum- mer.
4 Agricultural changes
The demographic turmoil in Sakha is rooted largely in agrarian change, including the abolition of the state farm system, as required by recent Russian laws, and the shift to a market economy. The "Law of the Peasant Farm" in 1990 encouraged privately-owned agricul- tural enterprises, and Yeltsin's 1991 decree demanded
that all farmland be converted within several years to some form of peasant ownership. Sovkhozy such as the one encompassing Djarkhan could become privately- owned cooperatives, joint-stock companies, partner- ships associations of separate peasant farms, or fully independent individual family enterprises. All govern- ment ownership of state farms ended (CRAUMER 1994, 3 3 3 - 3 3 4 , 342; BATER 1996, 177, 2 0 3 208). In t h e
Sakha Republic as a whole by January 1994, 97 percent of the sovkhozy and kolkhozy had been restructured to end state ownership and control (CRAUMER 1994, 333, 345).
Djarkhan's villagers participated in these events.
Sovkhoz "Toybokhoyskiy" disbanded in 1993, and each of its constituent villages went its own way. The people of Djarkhan harbor resentment against the farmers of Toybokhoy village, who, they claim, seized more than their fair share of the sovkhoz livestock in the breakup.
By contrast, the drawing of borders between the various villages went amicably. Surveyors were still at work delimiting Djarkhan's lands in 1997, but it was clear that the village would receive essentially its tradi- tional territory, which stretches largely northwestward from the settlement (Fig. 2) (IVANOV 1997; YAKOVLEV
1997).
A locally-owned village cooperative at once replaced the state farm in Djarkhan, retaining much of the local administrative structure of the deposed system.
Initially, 135 villagers joined the cooperative, which assumed ownership of most of the machinery, live- stock, and milk processing facilities that had belonged to the local division of the sovkhoz. The cooperative retained also the traditional specialization in bovine dairy products (Zapisi 1 9 9 3 - 1 9 9 7 ) .
The Djarkhan cooperative failed within a few years, in part because government subsidies decreased. In late Soviet times, the sovkhoz had received not only regular agricultural subsidies, but also extra funds because of its location in agriculturally marginal lands. By con- trast, Djarkhan's post-Soviet subsidies do not exceed those given to villages in the environs of Yakutsk, which enjoy good access to market (PAKHOMOV 1997 b). The post-Soviet subsidies, amounting to 2.2 new rubles per kilo of milk, proved inadequate to sustain commercial dairying. In fact, the milk subsidy payments often failed to reach Djarkhan (IVANOV 1997).
Another of the problems the cooperative faced was lack of sufficient milk-processing capability and the absence of cold storage facilities. In July weather, the peak of the milking season, preserving milk became impossible. When we interviewed the cooperative leader in 1996, he complained that much of the milk spoiled every day (MYREYEV 1996). The poor condition of the cooperative dairy was clearly evident in that year at the summer herding camp called Tyattir, a settlement of three log dwellings built around a courtyard. A large, decaying shed nearby housed two lethargic attendants using machines to milk 30 cows. The milk had to be
transported daily to the processing plant in Djarkhan, about five kilometers away, but only horse-drawn wagons were available for the purpose. The modern age had slipped away at Tyattir. It had been abandoned by 1997.
Earlier in the 1990s, the Swedish government had built a milk-processing factory at Krestyakh, not too far west of Djarkhan, to convert milk into a durable fluid in cardboard containers (Fig. 2). Djarkhan's milk could conceivably have reached this factory, but the workers at Krestyakh proved unable to cope with the sophisticated machinery and technology. The plant closed, and with it probably any hope for commercial dairying in the Vilyui bend region (IVANOV 1997).
Similarly, local beef production could not be made competitive in the market economy. Beef subsidies also proved inadequate and unreliable. The cost to produce a kilogram of beef in the Djarkhan coopera- tive in 1996 was about 25 new rubles, while beef subsidies amounted to only 2.07 new rubles per kg, and the going price of beef at stores in the republic could not by law exceed 7 new rubles per kg (IVANOV 1997).
Djarkhan's remote location also contributed to the failure in marketing beef, just as it had in the demise of commercial dairying. The opening in 1997 of a beef-processing plant in Toybokhoy, 30 kilometers distant, came too late to rescue Djarkhan's commercial meat production (PAKHOMOV 1997 b). In that same year the cooperative dispersed its 60 remaining cattlc to private ownership among its members and went completely out of the milk and beef businesses (IVANOV
1997).
Part of the cooperative's difficulties also stemmed from the steady withdrawal of the more ambitious and diligent workers, who became frustrated with the inability of the leadership and members to adjust to new conditions. Too much of the old Soviet mentality persisted in the cooperative, combined with a lack of entrepreneurial expertise. Membership fell to 42 by 1996, and to 30 by 1997, leaving behind mainly a hardcore residue of "slackers" and heavy drinkers.
Those who withdrew took with them much of the live- stock, as well as the right to use certain parcels of land
(IVANOV 1997).
The rump cooperative shifted entirely to horseflesh production, based on a herd that numbered 549 in
1997, down by 244, or 28 percent, from the 1991 sovkhoz herd (Demograficheskiye dannye 1984—1997).
Because the hardy Yakutian horses require little winter feed, foraging for themselves in the coldest conditions, the cooperative also reduced hay production. The members do not even selectively castrate stallions, leaving breeding to Darwinian dictates (SlVTSEV 1997).
In spite of the labor-extensive nature of the restruc- tured enterprise, horse raising has proven economi- cally marginal. Dietary preferences differ ethnically, and horsemeat can only be marketed among Yakuts.
The large, dominantly Russian mining city of Mirny,
Photo 2: Ruined barn in the old sovkhoz complex in the eastern end of Djarkhan. Commercial agriculture no longer exists in the village
Photo: T. G. JORDAN-BYCHKOV (10. 7.1997)
Verfallene Scheune in der ehemaligen Sowchose im öst- lichen Bereich von Djarkhan. Kommerzielle Landwirt- schaft existiert in der Siedlung nicht mehr
west of Djarkhan, offers no outlet (Fig. 1). Only the Yakut-populated administrative seat, Suntar, serves as a market. However, the dealers there who contracted for Djarkhan's horsemeat often failed to pay after delivery was made. Another factor that worked to the disadvantage of the cooperative is that the horseflesh production is highly seasonal. In the absence; of a meat processing and storage plant, villagers have to wait until early November, when the temperatures fall below freezing, to start operations at the village's slaughter shed. This period extends until mid-March (IVANOV
1997).
These problems led to bankruptcy. As of mid-1996, the cooperative's debts, owed mainly to a bank in Sun- tar, stood at just over one million new rubles, including
3 1 8 , 0 0 0 new rubles previously spent on cattle feed.
At that same time, the cooperative had 2 4 2 , 0 0 0 new rubles in uncollected debts owed to it, mainly by meat dealers, leaving an operating deficit of nearly 8 0 0 , 0 0 0
new rubles, which can never be recovered. By 1997, the debts had mounted. In addition, the cooperative owed millions of new rubles to Sakha's government to repay long-term loans. The situation in Djarkhan was typical for Sakha, where extremely high levels of debt, among the highest in all of Russia, characterize socia- lized farming units (LOFFE a. NEFEDOVA 1997, 165;
Zapisi 1 9 9 3 - 1 9 9 7 ; SlVTSEV 1997). The Russian federal budget offers no chance for relief, because it recently stipulated a 39 percent cut in allocations for agricul- ture (Premier 1997, A8). All commercial marketing of produce has apparently now ceased at Djarkhan.
Striking visual evidence of the demise of both the sovkhoz and the cooperative can be found in the utter ruin of the huge, elongated barns that once dominated the state farm complex in the eastern end of Djarkhan (Photo 2). These formerly housed the dairy herds
Photo 3: Vladimir Kondratiev, independent peasant farmer, at his place in Alexci-Maara Alahs
Photo: B. B.JORDAN (25. 7.1996)
Vladimir Kondratiev, unabhängiger Landwirt, auf seinem Feld in der Alexei-Maara-Alasse
during the long winter and contained storage for the huge amounts of hay required to carry the cattle through the seven-month winter. The ruins cast a depressing pall of decay over the entire settlement.
Similarly, Djarkhan's farm machinery has deterio- rated. In 1988 the villagers had 14 tractors, four large trucks, and six mowers, but difficulty obtaining replacement parts, coupled with high prices for fuel, caused a profound decline in the use of machinery. The
1997 village possessed only four remaining tractors, and the cooperative cannot afford a new motor for one of these. In the village streets traditional horse-drawn wagons now rival the tractor (Mashinno-traktorny
1 9 8 8 - 1 9 9 7 ; IVANOV 1997).
5 Privatefarms
A few of those who withdrew from the cooperative established independent peasant farms, as allowed under post-Soviet legislation. In the Republic, more
Photo 4: A Djarkhan cowshed, built in the manner of the ancestral Yakut dwelling, or balagan. All cattle in Djarkhan are now privately owned
Photo: B. B.JORDAN (27.7.1996)
Ein Kuhstall oder balagan in Djarkhan, in traditioneller jakutischer Bauweise errichtet. Der Viehbestand in Djark- han befindet sich heute in Privatbesitz
than 2,700 such farms had been established by the end of 1993, averaging 42 hectares in size (CRAUMER 1994, 333, 345). Only two of those independent peasant farms exist in Djarkhan (PAKHOMOV 1997 b;
IVANOV 1997). Of these, the most successful is the Vladimir Kondratiev farm, operated by a man in his early sixties (Photo 3). Kondratiev left the cooperative in 1993 and claimed a piece of good-quality grassland northeast of the village at an alahs called Alexei-Maara.
He took an interest-free government loan for the purchase of a tractor and other needed items, and now operates a livestock farm with 50 cattle, including 20 milk cows. Kondratiev produces a substantial hay crop to feed his herd. He markets beef largely through barters at Suntar. The government owes him subsidies but has so far not paid. Even so, the farm supports 20 members of the extended Kondratiev family, which includes 10 adults. The family lives on the farm year round in several large log houses, avoids purchasing items at the village store, and produces much of its own food (KONDRATIEV 1996). The chances for long-term success remain in question, though according to official statistics only 3.5 percent of peasant farms in Sakha failed in the period 1992 to 1993 (CRAUMER 1994,
333). In any case, Kondratiev is an old man by local standards, having already surpassed the average male lifespan.
The second private farm, named "Development", is operated by the interrelated Potapov and Simyonov families, working together. They claimed lands in the Soppon Alahs, site of the pre-Soviet hamlet where their ancestors once lived (IVANOV 1997). This extended family, consisting of two households, built traditio- nal palisaded Yakut dwellings, which they recently insulated for year-round residence, as well as barns and sheds. They, too, specialize in cattle raising. Their
enterprise is guarded by vicious dogs, who make any approach to the farmstead hazardous.
Interestingly, nobody in Djarkhan challenges the right of these people to reclaim the lands owned by their pre-Revolutionary ancestors. Remarkably, the know- ledge concerning who owned which alahses survived six decades of Soviet control, from collectivization in the
1930s to the present day.
6 Subsistence
The remaining, far larger part of Djarkhan's agricul- tural population has reverted to part-time subsistence farming. These villagers now own most of the local cattle, which total at least 897, a surprising increase of 69 percent in numbers since 1991 (Demograficheskiye dannye 1984-1997). Most families possess several milk cows, continuing a tradition that survived intact through Soviet times. In summer the animals drift largely with- out supervision from pastures near the village during daytime to the streets at night, where dung fires are lit to protect them from insect swarms. Hay cut from surrounding meadows provides winter fodder, and some families reside during the haying season in camps at a distance from the village. In the autumn many of the fattened cattle are slaughtered for beef. During the cold months, from September to April, the remaining cows, heifers, bulls, and calves are housed in small barns of traditional design, located on each farmstead (Photo 4). These villagers also own at least 72 horses, some of which are work animals, and it now seems probable that the cooperative's horse herd will also be distributed to private ownership. Because privately- held livestock are taxed, the villagers underreport their numbers, so that the actual totals may be as much as 40 percent higher than reported in the annual censuses.
Poultry and swine are also found in some farmsteads, but these animals are never kept through the winter.
Rabbit-raising on a modest scale began in Djarkhan in 1994, but they, too, are slaughtered before cold weather sets in (Demograficheskiye dannye 1984-1997; IVANOV
1997).
Kitchen gardens, both in the open air and in greenhouses, form another component of subsistence farming in Djarkhan, yielding mainly potatoes, cucum- bers, tomatoes, and radishes. Occasionally one finds unexpected exotic vegetables such as chili peppers.
These private gardens represent a survival from Soviet times.
Together, all such private subsistence enterprises provide a substantial part of Djarkhan's food supply.
In fact, 12 of these farmers, who were among those who withdrew from the village cooperative and repre- sented the harder-working, more ambitious element, formed their own, rival cooperative. This allows them to acquire subsidies and equipment they could not claim as individuals. Still, they do not market their
produce - largely beef, milk and butter - outside the village (IVANOV 1997).
The village does not and will not survive on subsist- ence farming alone. Djarkhan today relies heavily upon nonagricultural government funds, including wages and pensions. Each month in 1997, about 90,000 new rubles were paid to the people of Djarkhan as pensions and welfare stipends. An additional 70,000 new rubles was due monthly as salaries for the village's 114 service sector employees, but these funds have been arriving late. Altogether, 313 of the village's residents, almost precisely half of the total population, receive govern- ment payments. These funds allow the village to survive
(IVANOV 1997; Demograficheskiye dannye 1984-1997).
7 Living standard
The economic troubles of the village have been accompanied by changes in the standard of living, though by no means has the trend been universally downward. One of the best indices is provided by health standards. The entire Sakha Republic was cha- racterized in 1996 as having a "poor state of popula- tion health" (MALKHAZOVA 1997, 11). Doctors in Suntar report that health conditions in the administra- tive district have deteriorated since 1990, due in part to spreading malnutrition and vitamin deficiencies
(PETROV 1997). The infant mortality rate in rural areas of the Sakha Republic rose from 21.1 per thousand in 1990 to 24.9 in 1994, and in the same period life expectancy dropped from 65.9 to 63.3 years. Male life expectancy in rural Sakha fell to only 58.2 years by the latter date (Demograficheskiy Ezhegodnik 1995, 98, 234). By 1996 medicines were no longer available at Djarkhan's infirmary and had to be purchased instead in Suntar, with patients bearing the expense. A new pharmacy and infirmary, manned by one doctor and a paramedic, opened in the village in 1997, remedying part of the problem, and a new hospital was established at nearby Toybokhoy. Moreover, Djarkhan's residents now have access to a medical evacuation helicopter, which can transport the sick to the larger, better- equipped hospital at Suntar (IVANOV 1997).
In general, however, the transport links between Djarkhan and the outside world have seriously dete- riorated. In Soviet times, small propeller-driven air- planes offered one or two inexpensive flights weekly from the village to Suntar, but these bush pilot connec- tions have been discontinued, due to the high price of aviation fuel and removal of a supporting subsidy.
Djarkhan's dirt airstrip has vanished beneath pasture grasses, and the airplane now stands "mothballed" at the Suntar airport.
Similarly, all bus service to Djarkhan has recently been terminated. To reach Suntar or even Toybokhoy today, one must own a motor vehicle or hitch a ride from someone who does. The first 15 kilometers of the
Photo 5: Motor vehicle ownership in Djarkhan is a post-Soviet phenomenon and confined to a small number of villagers.
This man's jeep is his pride and joy. The mixture of alahs grassland and boreal forest is typical of the area
Photo: T. G. JORDAN-BYCHKOV (10. 7. 1997)
In Djarkhan ist der Autobesitz ein postsowjetisches Phäno- men und ist begrenzt auf eine geringe Anzahl der Bewoh- ner. Der Jeep dieses Mannes ist sein Stolz und seine Freude. Die Kombination von Alassen und borealem Wald ist für die Region typisch
dirt road leading out of the village are in poor condi- tion and can become impassable dui ing wet weather in the summer or early autumn. In order to live beyond the subsistence level, villages in Sakha "are totally dependent on transportation lines", which in post- Soviet times "operate under constant threat of disrup- tion", mainly from simple deterioration (BROWNSON
1995, 77; WESTCOTT 1997, 29). Djarkhan has never, in its seven decade history, been more isolated and remote than at present. It remains to be seen whether the Sakha Republic will invest some of its abundant mineral wealth in rural road infrastructure, in the absence of any such initiatives at the level of the Russian government.
Offsetting these transport problems is the rise of motor vehicle ownership. Motorcycles, many with passenger sidecars, are the most common vehicles, numbering 97 in 1997, up from 23 in 1988. Owner- ship of automobiles and jeeps also increased, from none in 1988 to 15 in 1996 and 20 in 1997 (Photo 5) (Mashinno-Traktorny 1988-1997).
Electricity first bccamc available in 1954, but as recently as 1970 it was still available only for certain periods each day, when the diesel generator operated.
Today electricity is cheap and abundant in Djarkhan, thanks to a large hydroelectric plant on the Vilyui River near Mirny (IVANOV 1997). Electrical appliances such as television, radios, washing machines, and refrigera- tors are common, and Djarkhan receives television signals from two different towers. Satellite dishes even grace a few local homes, and some people have tele- phones with long-distance connections. Videocameras
have become a village fad, and the foreign visitor at times sees two or three pointed in his direction. Dis- continuation of the Soviet era practice of showing movies at the Community Hall is not viewed as a hard- ship, given the spread of VCRs and rental movies.
Djarkhan even has its own radio station, which broad- casts local news and music.
The village store provides another index of the local standard of living. Imported items such as Gerber Baby Food, Uncle Ben's Rice and "Bavaria" beer from the Netherlands can now be purchased, in addition to basic canned and dry foods, and locally baked bread.
A small selection of clothing and hardware is also available. Clerks usually ignore the new digital cash register in favor of the abacus, but clearly the store has become modernized and offers a much larger selection than in Soviet times.
Djarkhan has excellent schools. In very late Soviet limes, a large new educational complex was built, and the modern village continues to enjoy the benefits (Fig. 4). The official school photograph for 1994 shows 31 employees. A new village Council Hall and Community Hall were also constructed about 1990.
These attractive new building complexes, coupled with new two-storied houses, offset the image of decay presented by the ruined sovkhoz barns. A subsidy from the Sakha government is available to anyone building a new house (PAKHOMOV 1997 b).
Well-stocked store shelves and western style con- sumerism mask the fact that many Djarkhan residents are financially unable to make such purchases. Pensions cannot cover the rising prices of food and medicines.
Wages often arrive four to six months late, causing additional problems. As in Russia at large, a minority has prospered under the new system, but most people have experienced a decline in their living standard. A class-based society is emerging, even in this remote place (IVANOV 1997).
8 Yakut village culture
The increased isolation of villages like Djarkhan, combined with the collapse of pervasive central author- ity and planning, have prompted a revival of traditio- nal Yakutian rural culture. The increased autonomy of the Sakha Republic further facilitates this devel- opment. Even in czarist times the Yakut people were only superficially Christianized. The nearest church stood in Suntar (MA\K 1994, 516-525). Traditional shamanism, rooted in a remarkably sophisticated Yakut cosmology which had fused with indigenous animism, remained vital until Soviet times, when the authorities made a concerted effort to eliminate it. Even so, a few shamanistic traditions survived the Soviet period in rural Sakha, and at least five well-known shamans have surfaced in the republic lately (BALZER 1997, 38-39).
A revival of folk medicinal practices is occurring,
especially along the Vilyui. In Djarkhan, one woman healer - a white, or benign, shaman plies this trade today.
Linguistically, the village has become almost entirely Yakut-speaking. In the population of Djarkhan in
1997, only three of the 635 residents were not Yakut, including only one Russian. Thus Yakuts now form 99.53 percent of the village population (Demogra- ficheskiye dannye 1984—1997). The Russian language is hardly ever heard in the streets and homes of Djarkhan, and many inhabitants are functual mono- glots. At the entrance to the school, a placard in Yakut greets the pupils, and the few Russian signs, as at the store, have peeling paint and date from Soviet times.
The flag of Sakha flies alone above the village Council Hall.
Interest in genealogy and pride in one's ancestry, suppressed in the Soviet era, have revived. Djarkhan's extended Tikhonov family provides a good example.
Members do not hesitate to tell outsiders that "ours was once a rich family", and a venerable tricolor Tikhonov clan chieftain's sash, hidden for seven decades, is once again displayed with pride. The family claims descent from a runaway Russian exile, Seluyan Tikhonov, who married a local Yakut woman in the late seventeenth century, and started the clan. A shrine commemorating the family's origin was recently erected near a small grove outside the village. Every summer the extended family gathers there for a celebration.
The greatest Yakut folk festival, Tsyakh, held around midsummer's in June, is also experiencing a revival.
Soviet authorities had restricted the festival to a few days and obliged every village to hold the event on the same week in an attempt to diminish the overt ethnicity of Tsyakh and the substantial inroads it makes on the rural work schedule. Now the dates have been staggered, allowing itinerant musicians and athletes to perform at multiple celebrations, in the ancient manner. Celebrants, too, can now attend more than one Tsyakh each summer.
9 Djarkhan's future: abandonment?
Given these diverse changes, can Djarkhan and scores of other isolated villages in the marginal lands of Russian survive? Three scenarios seem possible, and one of these is clearly abandonment (IOFFF, a. NEFEDOVA
1997, 1 2 5 - 1 2 8 ) . Today, in some parts of Siberia,
"villages dissolve into ghost towns of the elderly and immobile," and even along the Lena River, in the heart of Sakha, recently abandoned settlements can be seen
(BROWNSON .1995, 77; WESTCOTT 1997, 27). Large parts of rural Russia could become a "demographic desert" (IOFFE a NEFEDOVA 1997, 280). The best and brightest young villagers continue to leave Djarkhan, and even the head of the village council fears that the place will be nearly dead within 10 to 25 years
unless circumstances change (IVANOV 1997; PAKHO- MOV 1997 b).
Some very high governmental ministers in Sakha favor supporting only those villages close to Yakutsk, where commercial agriculture has a good chance of profitability. One such minister, who grew up in rural Sakha, wants to abandon all agriculture and draw the rural population into cities and towns, rather than having his people "live as in the times of Ghengis Khan" (ARTAMONOV 1997). While some experts speak of "sustainable development" in the Russian Arctic lands, Djarkhan and many other villages face a more basic task - achieving "sustainable habitation"
(VIL'CHEK et al. 1996, 2 4 9 - 2 6 6 ) . Clearly, a "chaotic and unknown" future awaits those who live beside Lake Oybon, and the settlement could perish (BROWNSON 1995, 77). The judgment of history could well be that Djarkhan, a Soviet creation, did not long survive the demise of the system that gave it birth.
Village abandonment, in fact, became a well-estab- lished trend in Soviet times. A 1974 decree ordered the
"liquidation of unpromising villages," but in fact the process was dccades older than that (DENISOVA 1995,
2-3). Indeed Djarkhan owes its creation and sub- sequent growth largely to settlement consolidation. For example, nearly all of the 160 inhabitants of Kuosan, a village 7 kilometers to the east were relocated to Djarkhan between 1966 and 1980. Villages died in many parts of Russia in late Soviet times (Demogra- ficheskiye dannye 1 9 3 6 - 1 9 8 3 ; DENISOVA 1995, 97).
The failure of commercial agriculture strongly suggests that Djarkhan, in its turn, has now also become an
"unpromising" village.
Abandonment is the easy and perhaps logical prediction to make for Djarkhan and similar villages.
Undoubtedly, it is the prediction political economists would choose. To the cultural geographer, however, the issue is not so simple. Djarkhan is more complicated than sterile economics. Spiritualism, emotions, and ethnicity must also be considered, as well as alternative economic strategies.
10 The Future: economic viability?
Djarkhan could survive as an economically viable settlement, making its way in the market economy. The head of the village council feels that, in order to survive, the village must develop some commercially viable enterprise, and he regards agriculture as an unlikely candidate. He mentioned a sawmill as a possibility, enlarging the present facility which produces lumber only for local consumption. Commercial-quality tim- ber grows abundantly in the forests around Djarkhan.
However, nearby Toybokhoy already has a sawmill, and another, much larger operation recently failed in the town of Suntar. The village head man is pessimistic.
He knows that Djarkhan's chief attributes arc high-
quality p a s t u r e s a n d m e a d o w s , u n d e r l a i n by fertile black soils, w h i c h best suit it for t h e very a g r i c u l t u r a l enterprises t h a t are n o l o n g e r viable (IVANOV 1997).
Small-scale cottage industries offer some hope.
Small-scale souvenir manufacture was underway in 1997, and the traditional Yakut talent for woodworking and jewelry-making could conceivably provide a basis for future cottage industries. On a less skilled level, one villager now collects manure and sells it to gardeners in the city of Mirny. Small-scale retail capitalism has also made a beginning. One resident, who spends the winter in Moscow, imports clothing to Djarkhan for sale in his shop. Others bring gasoline in canisters from Suntar. Retailing, of course, can thrive only if the vil- lagers have money to make purchases (IVANOV 1997).
One might imagine that fur trapping in the extensive village lands stretching northward from Djarkhan could provide a viable industry (Fig. 2). That is unfor- tunately not the case. Large commercial fur farms, located in northern Sakha, already flood the market with an oversupply of pelts, and these furs from the colder areas are of higher quality (PAKHOMOV 1997 b).
Cognizant of the fact that traditional Yakut culture resides in the villages, the government of the republic could use its mineral revenues to subsidize places like Djarkhan, much as is done in Norway. One high governmental official warned, however, not to count on such funding. More plausible is a quasi-touristic economy. Most people who emigrate from Djarkhan retain ownership of their house and lot, returning seasonally for summer vacation and eventually for per- manent residence upon retirement. In this scenario, then, Djarkhan survives as a village of dachas and pen- sioners. A permanent resident population would be required to provide services for these people, and almost everyone agrees that the schools must be kept open if Djarkhan is to survive (PAKHOMOV 1997 b).
Where "there is a school, there is a future" (DENISOVA
1995,92).
The villagers, both resident and absent, exhibit a strong attachment to place. They enthusiastically sing a song extolling Djarkhan's virtues at festive occasions.
We should never, as geographers, underestimate the power of loyalty to place or, as Yi-fu Tuan called it, topophilia (TUAN 1974). The heartfelt cry, "don't vanish, my village," defies sterile economics and must be taken seriously by those who wish to prognosticate (Photo 6)
(DENISOVA 1995, 155).
11 A neotraditionalistic future?
The emerging body of theoretical literature on neo- traditionalism suggests another possible scenario for the future of Djarkhan (PlKA a. PROKHOROV 1994). Many of the "little peoples" of Arctic Russia seem to be responding to the collapse of the Soviet system by reverting to their traditional subsistence way of life, as
Photo 6: Djarkhan street scene. "Do not die my village!"
Photo: 15. B. JORDAN (30. 7. 1996)
Typische Dorfstraße in Djarkhan. „Stirb nicht, mein Dorf!"
if Russian culture and Marxism-Leninism had never been imposed on them (VLTEBSKY 1989; SLEZKINE
1994). The question is whether the Yakuts would revert to a pre-Russian way of life. Yakuts are emphatically not among the "little peoples". They number 400,000 and have thrived during the nearly four centuries of Russian rule, trading and mixing with their rulers while vigorously retaining their ethnic identity.
This ethnic factor must not be overlooked in pre- dicting Djarkhan's future. W'hen villagers migrate to the cities of Sakha/Yakutia, they make not only a rural-to-urban transition, but also enter an alien world of Russian culture. Cities such as Yakutsk or Mirny are essentially Russian places. Small wonder that the displaced villagers often return to the village, either seasonally or permanently. Their deep attachment to Djarkhan is bound up in ethnic identity and pride.
But could such an ethnic group revert to the an- cestral >lalahs economy" of horse and cattle semi- nomadism, dispersing back to lake-side hamlets and subsisting from their herds, hunting, fishing, and gath- ering (PAKHOMOV 1995, 18)? That seems highly im- probable, if for no other reason because even rural Yakuts have forgotten how to live that way. In any case, the pastoral Yakuts of old often suffered hunger and deprivation, and one would not wish that way of life upon a modern people. Nor would Yakuts accept such a standard of living.
More likely is that many elements of the older sub- sistence economy could be incorporated into a more diverse way of life, which also included cottage indus- tries, government salaries and pensions, and perhaps modest subsidies. One could envision, for example, a school teacher whose family also kept milk cows, mowed hay, fished in the lake, hunted in the forest, gathered wild berries, and gardened in a small green- house. In fact, many such families already exist in Djarkhan today. This, then, could be the future of the village - a diversified adaptive strategy that is at once
ethnic, topophilic, commercial, subsistent, subsidized, neo-traditionalistic, and modern or even post-indus- trial.
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