WRITING
FROM A FORGOTTEN PERIPHERY TO A NATIONAL PRIORITY:
REWILDING, RECLAIMING, AND RESETTLING THE RUSSIAN FAR EAST
Article Under Review With American Ethnologist
Since 2016, over 120,000 Russian citizens have received land plots through the Far Eastern Hectare, Russia’s settler colonial project in Asia. Aimed at countering demographic decline and boosting the economy, the program frames the Far East as a wild, untamed frontier waiting to be developed and conveniently obscures the region’s complex history. By ethnographically attending to the Far East, largely neglected since the Soviet Union’s collapse, I argue that regional wilderness is not just a discursive construct of the central government but also a material consequence of (post)Soviet political and economic decisions. Further, I show how the state’s vision of recolonization is disrupted by the material legacies that settlers uncover while working the land. Finally, I reveal the tensions between the state’s development plans—underpinned by ideas of progressive expansion and temporal linearity—and local understanding of history, which recognizes periods of decline and the dynamism of post-Soviet ‘feral ecologies.’
КАК МЫСЛЯТ ЛЕСА:
К АНТРОПОЛОГИИ ПО ТУ СТОРОНУ ЧЕЛОВЕКА
Russian Translation of Eduardo Kohn's How Forests Think
Eduardo Kohn's How Forests Think challenges the conventional anthropocentric understanding of the world by exploring the relationship between humans and nonhumans in the Amazonian forest. Drawing on his ethnographic research with the Runa of Ecuador, Kohn argues that the forest, as a nonhuman entity, has its own thoughts and ways of being in the world, which blurs the boundaries between nature and culture.
As the scientific editor for the Russian translation of this groundbreaking study, I was responsible for editing the rough draft, drawing on my expertise in environmental anthropology and Piercean semiotics. This collaboration made Kohn’s work available to Russian-speaking audiences, contributing to the circulation of contemporary anthropological and environmental thought in Russian academia, an effort that becomes even more significant in light of its growing isolation from the global scientific community.
SELKUP VERNACULAR ARCHITECTURE:
DUGOUT, RAW-HIDE TENT, CACHE, AND LOG HOUSE
Entry for the Encyclopedia of Vernacular Architecture of the World
The Selkup live in the Western Siberian regions of Krasnoyarsk Krai, Tomsk Oblast, and the Yamalo-Nenets Autonomous Okrug in Tyumen Oblast, residing in the forest tundra and taiga zones along the Ob, Taz, and Yenisei rivers and their tributaries. In terms of dwellings and subsistence practices, the Selkup are divided into two groups: settled taiga hunters and fishermen living along the Ob and semi-nomadic reindeer herders, hunters, and fishermen living in the forest tundra near the Taz and Turukhan rivers.
Selkup shelters and storage structures vary by region and function. Reindeer herders use portable tents called mɔ̄t, constructed with birch bark and reindeer hides for seasonal adaptability. The dwellings feature conical frames and sacred spaces for guests and religious items. Taiga Selkup, conversely, built more permanent structures like the karamo, a dugout house covered with turf, well-suited for a settled lifestyle in a cold climate.
Both groups also utilized elevated log caches, or kele, to store personal belongings, equipment, and food supplies. Temporary summer shelters, such as balagan or kore, were constructed from available materials like birch bark and branches. By the 19th century, many settled taiga Selkup began adopting Russian-style log houses, a shift that became more common in the 20th century as larger settlements developed.
Originally written by the Russian anthropologist Zoya Sokolova, this entry has been extensively revised for the second edition of the Encyclopedia of Vernacular Architecture of the World to be published in 2025.