Snow in the Yakut Habitat: Traditions and Modernity

Based on the analysis of various ethnographic data and the author's field material, this article examines the use of snow for economic activities and a range of socio-cultural practices of the Yakuts in the mid-19th and 21st centuries. The principles of cryosophy and cryoanthropology, which suggest a positive perception of cold and the cryogenic processes and phenomena that accompany it, served as the methodological basis for the study, as did the increased attention given to the analysis of the role of cryogenic resources in the life of northern communities. We analyzed documents from the collections of the Irkutsk Region State Archives, the Scientific Archives of the Siberian Branch of the Russian Academy of Sciences, the St. Petersburg Branch of the Archives of the Russian Academy of Sciences, the Manuscript Fund of the Archives of the Yakut Scientific Center of the Siberian Branch of the Russian Academy of Sciences, information from scientific literature, and materials collected during the 2017–2023 expedition works in the Amginsky, Olekminsky, Srednekolymsky, Tattinsky, and Khangalassky administrative regions of Yakutia. As a result of the conducted work, it was found that snow is a source of drinking and industrial water, also it serves as a means of insulation of residential and commercial buildings, and cleaning things. Snow has found a wide application in the economic practices of the representatives of the ethnic group: Hunting, fishing, agriculture, livestock and horse breeding, and in making transportation connections. There are also a number of ethnic peculiarities in the use of snow. In particular, the Yakuts did not use snow to construct their houses. At the same time, the nature of settlement by the representatives of the ethnic group and their preference for lakes led to the emergence of a number of unique traditional winter practices based on the use of snow. It should be noted that over time, with socio-economic, cultural, and technological development, snow, as a resource for ensuring the life of the representatives of the Yakut ethnic group, began to lose its position. It is concluded that the current stage, in addition to the preservation of a number of well-known household methods, is characterized by the actualization of the importance of snow in general, cryogenic processes, and phenomena as a resource that forms the tourist potential of Yakutia.

Cryoanthropology, Indigenous Peoples of the Arctic, Yakuts, Yakutia, cryogenic resources, snow, economic activities, sociocultural practices