by Farley Mowat
I gave him the gun and he cocked it and pushed the barrel down the hole. It went off with a rumble like an earthquake – then there was a roar that made my skin go tight all over my body. My grandfather scrambled off the mound and we ran back to the edge of the wood while he reloaded his gun.
We waited but there were no more sounds from the house of the bear. After a while my grandfather uncoiled the halter rope he carried around his shoulders and tied a noose in one end of it.
“Now,” he said, “we have another choice. We can go back to the village and get the strong young men to come here tomorrow and pull out that bear, or you can crawl down the tunnel yourself and tie the rope around him so we can pull him out together.”
It was hard to make up my mind. I was very frightened. I asked him to make the decision.
“That I cannot do,” he said. “I am an old man and my life means nothing. You are young and your life means much, but it will mean very little if in the long run you cannot decide when to take risks with it.”
He was telling me I could become a man on this day if I chose. I put the knife between my teeth and took the rope and crawled down the tunnel, pushing the snow out of the way with my shoulders.
It was too dark to see anything. I moved as slowly as I dared, but I knew if I stopped I would not start again. It stank in that tunnel and I could hardly breathe. There was no sound except the drumming of my blood in my ears.
My hand touched something warm and I died a little. It was the paw of the bear. I lay there in the darkness for a long time and when I came to my senses I was stroking the bear’s paw as if it was the head of a good dog. The paw never moved so I tied the loop around it and crawled out into the daylight. We pulled and we dug and we pulled and we dug for an hour before we got him out. Then we cleaned him and skinned him, and hung the meat in a tree out of the way of the foxes. Finally we put his skull on the end of a long pole and set it up above his house to honour his spirit and to calm his anger.
Then we went home. I was no longer a boy. I had become a man of the taiga, like all those who had gone before me.
As we drove toward the city that night through the endless cone of swirling snowflakes pinned in our headlights, Nikolai was silent. But when we reached the hotel and I was saying goodnight, he got out of the car and gave me a tremendous hug.
“Through many hundreds of years the taiga fed us, kept us warm, shaped our lives. It is the home of my people. I am so glad we could take you into the home of the Yakut.”
In most areas of the world the impact of twentieth-century machine culture has shattered earlier and simpler cultures, forcing their people to abandon the old patterns of existence. Fishermen, hunters and small agriculturalists have either suffered a traumatic transformation into industrial workers, or they have been left to huddle on pathetic remnants of their own lands, despised and scorned for their inability to realize that the ways of industrial man are the God-given ways pointing to the heaven of ultimate progress.
Yakutia seems to be something of an exception. Leonid Popov, son of a horse breeder from the Namcy region, and a fine Yakut writer, gave me this description of what took place amongst his people when the industrial revolution came to Yakutia.
“At that time the remaining Yakut lived dispersed in small groups, often at great distances from one another. Our houses were mostly domed felt tents called yurti. In winter we travelled through the forest paths on foot or astride our ponies, and in summer we rowed our boats upon the moving waters. We were often out of physical touch with one another, but we were still one people although our ranks were sadly thinned.
“We had small herds of cattle, of horses and, in some areas, of reindeer. We cut hay in the natural meadows around the taiga lakes. There was trapping for fur and hunting for wild meat. Nevertheless, these things did not sustain us as they had sustained our forefathers. We could no longer work as hard as one must work in the demanding taiga. In my father’s time almost everyone had tuberculosis, or some even worse disease, and the Yakut people were perishing.
“Then Soviet Power came to Yakutia. The tax collectors, the merchants, the soldiers, the officials of old Russia were replaced by a different sort of Russian – mostly young men and women who said they had come to help us build a better world for ourselves. At first these newcomers were not trusted. We had learned very well not to trust white men. But they endured our suspicions, and in time we trusted them. I think this came about because they gave us no orders. They did not tell us: ‘You must give up all the old ways and leave the taiga, where men live like animals. You must learn to build cities and factories and learn to live like us.’
“No. They understood we had the right to shape our lives to suit ourselves. And there was one thing in the heart of every Yakut – we did not want to leave the taiga. We told the new Russians this and they went to work to help us make the taiga life a better one.
The majority of our people live in the taiga still. They are not forced to do so. Many young men and women leave to become doctors and scientists or anything they choose, but most return to us. They come back to the forests, the mountains, the rivers of our land.
“But Yakutia now has many modern towns, mines, power stations and industries. People who prefer town life and factory work come to us as citizens of our Republic from all parts of the Soviet Union, and we welcome them. Their work in the mines and plants helps to make a better life for all. And our work in the taiga, providing food as breeders of animals and husbanders of the soil, makes it possible for them to live in the new towns. It is a sensible division of labour.
“By using the new technology to strengthen the old ways of life we have developed a modern ‘taiga culture’ that is strong and durable. The Siberian taiga has not become a human desert, as you tell me has been the case with comparable regions in your country.”
One day in mid-November Claire and Moisie and I visited Leonid’s birthplace, a hundred-and-fifty miles north of Yakutsk. We drove there in Leonid’s car, a black Volga, of which he was inordinately proud.
“I was a tank driver in the war but not many tanks could survive what my Volga does – the beauty! She’s as tough as one of our Yakut horses!”
The Volga is the middle-priced Soviet car, although it costs about 5,000 rubles. It functions equally well in any climate and in any terrain. In Siberia a Volga is expected to last six years without requiring major repairs. During very cold weather special batteries are installed; kerosene is mixed with the engine oil; low temperature grease is used; winter tires made of a soft, ultra-flexible rubber replace normal tires, and a double windshield with a sealed air space between the two areas of glass is fitted to prevent frosting and fogging.
Although hardly a thing of beauty, and not renowned for the softness of its ride, the Volga is one of the most sensible automobiles to appear since the unfortunate demise of the Model A Ford.
We drove for many miles along the flat alluvial plain of the Lena valley, banging over frozen ruts and meeting many trucks bound for the city. Some were laden with coal from nearby mines and many bore macabre cargoes of whole, skinned carcasses of horses and cows.
There were herds of long-haired little horses pawing through the snow in unfenced roadside fields. These were “eating” horses. They are never worked because that would make their meat too tough. All year they forage for themselves except perhaps in March when the snows are deep and hard; then they come to the farms and are given hay and grain.
We drove for almost an hour across the broad expanse of the Yakut State Farm, owned and operated by the Yakutsk City Soviet. State farms are really farm factories. Their workers are hired in much the same way, and on much the same terms, as workers in any other kind of factory. They are highly mechanized and, so I was told, are more efficient than the collective farms; but the man who told me this was a state farm manager and his opinion was hotly contradicted by the collective farmers I met. Collective farms are true cooperatives, with the land, equipment and stock being held in common by
the people who do the work. Some years ago the Moscow bureaucrats mounted a campaign to replace collectives with state farms. The campaign has not had much success in Yakutia, nor do I think it is likely to.
“If I want to work in a factory I will go to the city and work in one,” a young farmer told me. “But I’ll be cursed before I’ll be a factory farmhand living in a concrete apartment house in the middle of the country and not even be able to step behind a tree to have a private piss!”
Indeed the square blocks of masonry apartments set in the middle of an open field, which form the centre of the Yakutsk State Farm, did not look particularly prepossessing, however efficient they may be. A troglodyte existence in the midst of the uncrowded taiga seems something of an anomaly.
We left the valley, climbed an ancient river escarpment, and plunged into the true taiga. It was no longer golden because, although larch is a conifer, it loses its leaves when winter comes. Flocks of ptarmigan, pure white except for the tips of their tails, exploded from the roadsides and bombed into the intricate tracery of the naked tree tops. The taiga seemed almost devoid of human works, but every now and again we passed a hitchhiker heading the other way. They are called “voters” because of the way they hold up their hands to ask for a ride. They seldom have long to wait. It is considered unforgivably selfish to pass one by if there is any possible way he, or she, can be squeezed into or on top of a car or truck.
About every ten miles we passed a little clearing containing three or four log houses and as many low-built barns heavily plastered with mud against the winter’s cold. Lenit explained that these were the homes of “forest farmers.” Paid by the state, it is their job to cut fire-breaks; fight small fires (or give the alarm in case of a major outbreak); carry out systematic reforestation; and detect and combat insect infestations.
“In the old days,” Leonid explained, “people thought the taiga would last forever and could not be harmed by men. Now we know better. Now it is not allowed to cut a single tree unless two seedlings are planted in its place. Even in areas where there are no people and the taiga is thin and not much use for timber, pulp or even firewood, it is guarded against fire and insects. This is very costly for us, but we believe it necessary if the taiga is to survive.”
Siberia contains the most extensive forests in the northern hemisphere. Having seen quite enough of the fantastic wastage caused by forest fires in northern Canada, I was particularly interested to discover if similar catastrophes were of such routine occurrence here. My Yakut companions denied it. After having flown more than twenty thousand miles over Siberia without seeing a single fire, and having seen only a very few burns of any significant size, I am inclined to believe them. I was told that, apart from an extensive airborne forest protection service, massive use is made of military aviation and of troops to fight any fires which may develop.
“Why not?” Moisie asked when I expressed mild surprise. “We have to feed all those soldiers who are doing nothing anyway. Besides, it gives them pleasure since they are helping to protect what is their own.”
A hundred miles from Yakutsk we entered the Namcy district and began passing village collectives; cosy clusters of single family log houses with blue smoke standing straight above the chimneys in the sub-zero air. Occasionally we also passed small cemeteries sited on top of treeless knolls. Most of the graves were marked with the traditional double-barred cross of the Russian Orthodox faith.
I drew Moisie’s attention to one such cemetery and asked if the Yakut were still Christians.
“Not now,” he said. “In fact, not really ever. Russian priests came here almost three hundred years ago and we soon learned it was wise to kiss the cross and take the name of a saint. For generations the priests thought we were true believers – some people were, no doubt – but most Yakut kept secretly to the old beliefs. The shaman was stronger than the priest right to the end of their struggle, although few priests ever knew it. After the Revolution both lots went out of power. We bear no grudges. We have kept some of the traditional things brought us by the priests, just as we have kept the traditional things belonging to our own forefathers.”
We passed through the broad, cleared fields of the Lenin Collective Farm and finally reached the town of Namcy. It is the home of about three thousand of the 14,500 people inhabiting a district of 28,000 square miles which, until a few decades ago, consisted almost entirely of virgin taiga.
The district is pure Yakut, and although it lies only 250 miles south of the arctic circle in one of the coldest regions in the world, it has one state farm and five flourishing collectives. Prior to the Revolution its scattered inhabitants owned less than a thousand scrubby cattle and about two thousand horses. There was no cleared land other than natural forest clearings, and no field husbandry of any sort. At the time we visited Namcy it boasted 22,000 cattle; 11,500 horses; about 2,000 pigs and 14,200 hectares of cleared land planted to new varieties of hardy northern wheat, barley, oats and vegetables.
The town was constructed entirely of wood and its buildings (which included several multi-storeyed structures as well as several hundred single family dwellings) were laid out in a well-planned pattern in an elegant grove of pines and birch trees. Each house had its own garden containing ornamental trees and was surrounded by a picket fence. All were beautifully built of squared logs, meticulously dovetailed. Even in this modern era of streamlined construction techniques, the builders had taken time to add ornamental shutters and the decorative fretwork which is so characteristic of Old Siberia. I once thought the Finns built the finest log structures in the world; but the Yakut have nothing to learn from them, although a mere fifty years ago most of them were still living in simple yurti.
We stopped at the district administration building and were given an exuberant welcome by Vladimir Pesterov, a warm, stocky Yakut who is the elected Chairman of the district. Our arrival sparked a walk-out as secretaries and staff members abandoned work to catch a glimpse of the first foreign visitors to reach Namcy. Vladimir made a path for us to the boardroom and seated us at the familiar table. Twenty or thirty of the senior staff members, both men and women, joined us for a question and answer session. I was much impressed by the robust and stalwart look of the men, most of them in their thirties or younger, and by the dark glory of the Yakut women. Claire was spellbound by the décor of this boardroom in the taiga. An immense oriental carpet covered the floor almost wall-to-wall. The large windows were hung with heavy velvet drapes, and a flamboyant geometric design had been painted right around the room just below ceiling level. In each corner stood a potted cherry tree. In her notes, Claire defined the décor as: “Persian-Japanese-Taiga Modern.”
The desire of these people to tell us all there was to know about their district was so untrammelled that poor Kola was driven frantic trying to interpret. There was indeed a lot to tell. Notwithstanding my distaste for statistics, it is impossible to avoid using some of them in an attempt to describe Namcy.
There were no schools in the district prior to the Revolution. Now there is no illiteracy and there are more than six thousand students attending elementary and secondary schools, a teacher’s college and an agricultural institute.
In 1917 there was neither doctor nor nurse in the district. Now there is a one-hundred-bed district hospital; four cottage hospitals and twelve nursing stations; staffed by twenty-four doctors and 184 medical workers.
The veterinary service provides four doctors in Namcy settlement and one for each of the state and collective farms. Each doctor has a staff of seven veterinary technicians. The cattle and pigs of Namcy would seem to get better medical attention than do the people of many rural communities in North America.
There are twenty-two community halls in the district (a community hall normally houses a cinema, library, reading rooms, gymnasium, games rooms, and a display centre). The central library at Namcy has a monthly circulation of 17,000 volumes. We visited the community centre and found there a travelling art exhibit co
nsisting of several hundred prints and paintings, many by Yakut artists but some from Moscow, Leningrad, Armenia and Poland. Although it was the middle of the day, the gallery was crowded with men, women and children. The district also has its own daily paper and a monthly cultural magazine.
Everything is bought and sold through consumer co-ops. Profits from the co-ops are either returned to the members or, by a vote decision, may be used for community projects. All goods and services are paid for in cash and the co-ops do seven million rubles worth of business each year.
The average income for a farm worker doing an unskilled job is one hundred to two hundred rubles a month. Skilled workers, such as animal breeders in charge of the cattle and the horses, average two hundred rubles. In addition all workers get a share of the products of the farms (meat, grain, eggs, milk, butter, etc.) which is sufficient for the family needs. They also keep privately owned livestock and have their own gardens or small farms. They receive the usual benefits including free medical care, pensions, subsidized living quarters (rental for a family dwelling, including electricity and heating, averages eight to ten rubles a month), paid vacations with travel allowances, etc.
For those who wish to build their own homes – and most rural Yakut insist upon doing so – the State provides one hundred per cent of the cost on ten year, renewable and interest-free loans. Hard consumer goods such as guns, radios, refrigerators, washing machines are also sold on credit with no interest or carrying charges, and Namcy did not seem to be suffering any marked shortage of these or related goods.
As we wandered about the town visiting schools, the hospital and private homes, I asked Vladimir if the district had experienced many serious problems in adjusting to the new system. He replied that there had been many difficulties in the past and some still existed. The prime problem during the initial stages of collectivization (this was begun in 1929-1930 and was not completed until 1937) was in persuading the independent-minded Yakut farmers of the value of working cooperatively.
