Reindeer Blog

The new railway line connecting the Yamal Peninsula with the rest of the Russian railway grid has been declared open to regular traffic. Regular operation of the 572 km long railroad to its terminal point – the Karskaya station – was launched in February 15. The line connects major regional installations like the Bovanenkovo gas [...]

Interesting article and superb photography displaying Nenets herders coping with oil and gas installations on their migration routes in the ‘Russian Photo Blog‘. The photographer spent quite some time with herders that migrat through the Bovanekovo filed and was also allowed access to the contstruction site itself. View all the photos here and the article [...]

A Russian film has picked up the top honors at an international film festival in Bulgaria highlighting the best work on extreme sports, adventure and mountains. The award-winning documentary about reindeer herders in the Polar Urals beat 80 films from 27 other countries. “Nyarma” by Edgar Bartenev focuses on the Nenets people, their customs, family [...]

A film based on the Yamal Peninsula (with a strong connection to reindeer husbandry) PUDANA – LAST OF LINE was recently released to acclaim at the directed by the husband-and-wife pairing of Markku Lehmuskallio and Anastasia Lapsui, has been awarded the Grand Jury Award for the best fiction feature film at the 32nd Festival International [...]

By Amie Ferris-Rotman,  67 N LATITUDE, 71 E LONGITUDE, Russia, Oct 6 (Reuters) – The Nenets tribespeople of Russia’s frozen Yamal peninsula have survived the age of the Tsars, the Bolshevik revolution and the chaotic 1990s, but now confront their biggest challenge — under their fur-bundled feet is enough gas to heat the world for [...]

  (Source: BarentsObserver) Gazprom’s construction of the 1100 km long pipeline between the Bovanenkovo field in Yamal to Ukhta in the Komi Republic is violating environmental legislation, local environmentalists say. The critics are joined by several company employees, who say that the pipeline construction is harming the Arctic nature in the area, Regnum reports. Garbage is dumped [...]

Yuri Khudi, and Kirill Seretetto during microsurgery on Lyuba, a baby mammoth discovered on the bank of a remote Siberian river in May 2007. Pic© Pierre Stine.  Over a year ago, the discovery of a baby mammoth, that has since been named Lyuba (after the wife of the herder that first found the remains), in [...]

The following article appareared in the Washington Post and was by Andreas Viestand. He was accompanied on his trip by International Centre for Reindeer Husbandry Director Anders Oskal and World Reindeer Herders Association President Dmitry Khorolia arranged the visit to the tundra. SCHUCH’YE, Western Siberia — Of all the cowboy towns in this part of Siberia, this [...]

(Photo: Mette Randem) International Centre for Reindeer Husbandry Director Anders Oskal accompanied Lars Kullerud (University of the Arctic) and Dagbladet journalist Andreas Viestad and photographer Mette Randem to Salekhard, the capital of the Yamal Nenets Autonomous Okrug. One outcome was the below article on Nenets, reindeer husbandry and food. See below for a Reindeer inspired [...]

ICR Director Anders Oskal was interviewed by NRK Sami Radio on January 29th about the impacts of oil and gas development on Nenets reindeer husbandry. Oskal pointed out that there were a great many actors on the scene, some of whom are not willing to negotiate with reindeer herders. Oskal also said that on his recent [...]