Snezhnoye (, lit. snowy; Chukchi: , Ḳèèḷivtyn, lit. snowfieldV.V. Leontev and K.A. Novikova, Топонимический словарь северо-востока СССР (Toponymic Dictionary of the Northeastern USSR) (1989) Magadan. p.329) is a rural locality (a selo) in Anadyrsky District of Chukotka Autonomous Okrug, Russia,Directive #617-rp located southwest of the selo of Ust-Belaya. Within the framework of municipal divisions, Snezhnoye is incorporated within Snezhnoye Rural Settlement of Anadyrsky Municipal District.Law #148-OZ Population: The results of the 2010 Census are given for Snezhnoye Rural Settlement, a municipal formation of Anadyrsky Municipal District. According to Law #148-OZ, Snezhnoye is the only inhabited locality on the territory of Snezhnoye Rural Settlement. 350 (2011 est.).Official website of Anadyrsky District. Information about Snezhnoye
It was founded by Soviet planners as a part of the first selsoviet in Chukotka and was at one time a major center for reindeer herding. There is also evidence that the site of the modern locality and the surrounding areas have been inhabited since the Neolithic. However, since the dissolution of the Soviet Union, the local economy has suffered significantly, both in terms of the viability of the reindeer herds, essential to the locality, as well as an exodus of Russians, due to repeated delays in salary payments and an overall decline in living conditions.
History and economy
Prehistory Even though the site for modern Snezhnoye was not decided upon until 1929,Gray (1997a), p. 98 archaeological excavations revealed a number of Neolithic camps in its vicinity.M. Strogoff et al. (2006), p. 92 One of such findings was a red flint flake, discovered about to the northeast.Dikov (2003), p. 113 Further discoveries were made on a small raised area near the river, where obsidian and blade-like flakes were found, as well as within the boundaries of Snezhnoye itself. To the southeast of Snezhnoye, in an area where indigenous people used to live in yarangas, a quartz scraper from the Neolithic was discovered, along with an oval skreblo (a wider scraper). On the river bank by the locality, test pits were dug and, although overall the revealed cultural layer was poor, dozens more flakes and blades were excavated. Opposite this site, investigations by the local director of the radio station revealed a large prismatic obsidian core.Sketches of all the finds made during these archeological investigations can be seen in Dikov (2003), Plate 82, p. 307
Soviet history and economy Snezhnoye is located in an area where the Chukchi are the dominant indigenous people.Dallmann, 1997 Unlike many of the other native localities in Chukotka, which are usually former kolkhozes (collective farms) created where an indigenous settlement originally stood, Snezhnoye was a completely original settlementGray (1997b), p. 1 founded in the late 1920s as one of the first such farms in the national okrug. As a result, despite the Chukchi's dominance in the surrounding area, Snezhnoye's ethnicities include Koryaks, Evens, Chuvans, Russians, and Ukrainians, as well as the Chukchi.
In addition to being established as a brand new settlement, Snezhnoye was also created as a sovkhoz (a state farm) from the very beginning, despite the usual practice being the collectivization first into kolkhozes, which were transformed into sovkhozes at a later date.Gray (2003), p. 327 The name "Snezhnoye", literally meaning "snowy", is after the Chukchi word keyelivtyn (), used by the Chukchi to refer to the area and also meaning "snowy".Electoral Commission of Chukotka Autonomous Okrug. Information about Snezhnoye
Snezhnoye was the first sovkhoz (known as AnadyrskyGray (2003), p. 322) created in Chukotka in 1928 or 1929,Gray (2004), p. 6 following direct targeting by the Soviet Department of Agriculture. Originally it covered an area of some . The locality was established primarily as an experiment in bringing Communism to the Russian Far East, with the rationale that if it could be made to work in Chukotka, then it could be made to work anywhere in the Russian North. This experiment was designed to test the sovkhoz as the main means of collectively organizing reindeer husbandry.Druri (1989), pp. 3–14 The importance of this experiment was underlined when Ivan Druri from the sovkhoz in Lovozero in Murmansk Okrug of Leningrad Oblast, where the first such enterprise for studying reindeer had been established three years previously, traveled across almost the whole of Russia to Snezhnoye to assist with the establishment of the sovkhoz there,Gray (2004), p. 7 and to discuss with the local herders new methods of reindeer husbandry while living and working among them. The expert native herders, however, were given menial roles at first, while the Russians and Ukrainians, who had no specific experience of this type of operation, were assigned to the managerial posts.
Such approach notwithstanding, the sovkhoz was a success and enjoyed growth throughout the Soviet period,Gray (2003), p. 328 providing a regular salary from the state to its employees from the very start, granting considerable purchasing power in local stores and allowing the local population out in the tundra the chance to purchase new furniture and even television sets. Unlike in kolkhozes, where farmers spent a certain amount of time working on plots of land allocated to them, this practice was not so common in sovkhozes, and the population of Snezhnoye, despite their ability to use the local shops, supplemented their diet by foraging in the tundra for berries and wild mushrooms.
Post-Soviet history and economy Reindeer herding continues to be the main source of employment in the locality, although the imposition of a Soviet, centrally planned reindeer husbandry system has had a devastating effect on traditional indigenous practices. Following the dissolution of the Soviet Union, then-President Boris Yeltsin issued a number of decrees, which obliged all state-run enterprises, including sovkhozes, to re-organize themselves as joint-stock companies or private farms.Wegren, S.K. Yel'tsin's Decree on Land Relations: Implications from Agrarian Reform. 1994. Post-Soviet Geography 35(3):166–183. In the ensuing chaos, the reindeer herds were all but decimated, with the farm no longer receiving any government support. Initially, the locality was designed to provide assistance to up to ten reindeer herding brigades, each with herds in excess of 2,000 animals;Gray (1997a), p. 99 however, by 1997 only two herds and less than 20% the original number of reindeer remained.
Following the collapse of Anadyrsky SovkhozGray (2000), p. 33 the reindeer herders split into three groups. Three of the remaining four brigades chose to remain with the farm, with the remnants of the sovkhoz renamed Agricultural Enterprise Sovkhoz Anadyrsky ().Gray (2003), p. 342 One brigade decided to work independently of the sovkhoz, took a portion of the land, and struck out on their own, although the brigadier is now back with the main farm, since it proved too difficult to barter for supplies with the other three brigades.Gray (2003), p. 331 The remaining few families withdrew from the tundra completely and focused on establishing local farms. Those who remained in one of the two groups tending the reindeer on the tundra were generally related to those families who had originally owned the reindeer prior to the establishment of the sovkhozGray (2000), p. 35 and almost all those still involved in reindeer herding in Snezhnoye have family ties which keep them in the region.Gray (1997a), p. 100
In 1996, eighty-six people, or more than half the total workforce, were directly employed by the remnants of the sovkhoz, the only productive enterprise remaining.Gray (2003), p. 324 The remainder of the workforce was employed in ancillary roles, working as teachers (as the school was the largest employer after the sovkhoz), in the House of Culture, in general administration, in shops, or in utilities.
After the death of all the male elders in a short period of time from a variety of causes (including suicide,Gray (2000), p. 34)) very few people remained who had first-hand knowledge of traditional Chukchi reindeer husbandry methods following decades of Soviet doctrine. The sovkhoz was partially abandoned,Gray (2004), p. 17 with many of the local people noting the continuing involvement in herding by the "respected old men", as they were locally known, in the more successful brigades in Ust-Belaya.Gray (2005), p.202 This economic collapse caused almost all of the senior employees of the sovkhoz to leave, joined by many Russians who had occupied senior positions in ancillary rolesGray (2003), p. 326 and who were no longer paid the high salaries and other benefits which had initially attracted them to the region. The head clerk in the local administration, along with the sovkhoz's chief economist and the bank clerk, were among those positions vacated.Gray (2005), p. 197 This created a vacuum in the local economy that, due to the complete lack of trained individuals, was not filled for some time until the standards required for a number of roles were reduced. The vacated technical positions included the clerk serving the Head of the Administration (who was replaced by an indigenous woman without training and who was unable to keep the records properly), the economist (which remained unfilled), and the bank branch (which simply closed, forcing everyone to travel to Ust-Belaya for any banking needs). Local indigenous people have now filled this vacuum,See Gray (2005), p. 199, Plate 7.1 for a picture showing former reindeer herders who have left the tundra for a job in the electric plant. but that in turn resulted in creating a further vacuum out on the tundra. The lack of experienced herders in the tundra creates additional problems for the surviving reindeer husbandry enterprises. In one year, a number of deer were lost because herders failed to drive the female deer across a river before the ice melted so that they could join the bulls. There were no calves produced that year.Gray (2004) p. 20
In addition to essentially removing the whole management structure, the dissolution of the Soviet Union also brought hardship to the herders.Gray (2004), pp. 18–19 By 1996, they were owed payment for more than three years and while their salaries were still recorded in the official accounts, so were their expenses for food and other essentials meaning that a number were actually in debt to the sovkhoz. The end of state funding for the sovkhoz left many of these farmers very poor and at the bottom of the social ladder. By 1998, many had left Snezhnoye in search of more reliable employment. Further class differentiation was driven not by differing salaries, but by the differing lengths of delay in paying them.Gray (2003) p.340 Those who remain working for the sovkhoz find that there salaries are delayed much more regularly, and for longer periods than those who work for the local administration and ancillary services, causing foraging for berries and wild mushrooms to become a vital means for those employed by the sovkhoz to acquire products with which they could barter for other essential supplies.Gray (2003) p.340-341 The situation was such that the need for foraging and poaching as a means of survival for the employees of the sovkhoz had grown to such a level that these formerly privatized enterprises were brought back under the wing of the municipal authorities.Gray (2001), p.13-14
The effects of the reduction in population and the collapse of the local economy led to a significant risk that the locality might be closed, a fate that had befallen a significant number of rural localities in the preceding decades.Krupnik and Chlenov, p. 60 This is exemplified in letters such as the one below, sent from Anadyr in 2007:
Geography