Yuri Vella’s Fight for Survival in Western Siberia

Book excerpt: The book is centred on a fascinating personality, a Western Siberian indigenous poet, reindeer herder and ecological activist, who, in his 40s, made the choice to live in the forest with reindeer. There, he struggled with oil giant LUKoil to ensure his reindeer the possibility to live. A series of essays reflect on his awareness and construction of self and culture, his complex relations with the oil industry, and his native spirituality. It presents insights into what it means to be an indigenous intellectual in post-Soviet Russia at the beginning of the 21st century. Yuri Vella (1948-2013) is not an ordinary representative of his people, but he shows one of the possible forms indigenous leadership could take in Russia, if it aims at giving indigenous peoples the possibility in the near and far future to shape a sustainable relation to nature and their neighbours.