The Reindeer People

"Russia has 5,000 miles of Arctic territory, more than any other country, and there are 20 different peoples living there, most of whom are reindeer people, clinging to the shreds of what they once were. Vitebsky lives with and studies the Eveny people. He is an anthropologist and he’s writing about acculturation, but it’s not full of the platitudes and clichés you normally read. It is an in-depth portrait of reindeer herders living at minus 50˚. They have been through tremendous upheavals. They were collectivised under the Communists, which was obviously very difficult to do with a nomadic people. There aren’t really any nomadic people any more, just semi-nomadic, and the book is about what has happened to them, the ravages of alcohol and Communism. But he does find something alive in the human spirit. Just. Support Five Books Five Books interviews are expensive to produce. If you're enjoying this interview, please support us by donating a small amount . He is a proper anthropologist and he can unite anthropology and great writing and make anthropology accessible – more than accessible. He lifts the book out of academia, which of course they all want to do but not many can. The Eveny are not really Russian, they have Mongoloid features. They have been completely left behind now. Nobody’s interested, there’s no money, they are doing worse now than they were doing under Communism and alcohol is playing a major part in that. But this book describes what it’s like driving reindeer at minus 50˚, sitting round a camp fire when everything’s going well. They use every part of the reindeer, they eat it, dress in its hide, drive them and, when they are travelling with them they look and smell like them too. The book is full of poignancy and lyricism. There is a heartbreaking moment every time he goes back – he is a good anthropologist and so goes back to check on what has changed – and someone he thought would never go under to alcohol has done so. It’s about Russia but it’s about everywhere. I’ve written about Antarctica, when I was a young woman, and it was a vision of hope and purity, innocence – a country where there had never been war. Then, recently, in middle-age, I’ve written about the Arctic, polluted, fragmented, all the settlements are horrible. There’s no room for good architecture and it’s all ugly, the schools, the hospitals and there’s no sense of disposing of rubbish and nowhere to put it anyway. It suits the elegiac vision of middle-age. I am most interested in humanity. That’s what climate change is about. The earth will be fine, will regulate itself, it’s us that are going to have the problems. Loveable, fallible, hopeless humans. My book is a love affair with humanity, trying to find dignity where on the surface there seems to be none with all the booze and disenfranchisement. I wanted to find the icescapes but was drawn back to where the people are."