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Shaman image. 1992-1993. Oil painting. 118 x 93.
Alexander Khodulov was a Yakutian artist, who lived from 1962 till 2003. His preferred genres were portrait, landscape scenery, still life, etc.
He was born in Yakutsk. In the family of the outstanding USSR national artist Dmitry F. Khodulov. Graduated Children Art School, Yakutsk Art College (1981), the Surikov Art Institute in Moscow (1987). A member of the Sakha Republic Artist Union since 1993.
Today is Russia’s Victory Day, a national holiday celebrated across the country. See photographs taken on Victory Day in Yakutsk, Republic of Sakha-Yakutia, Russia.
This is a 5-min video about Yakutia!
Its creators tried to do the impossible… to show all images of the vast diverse region called Republic of Sakha (Yakutia). Think, they succeeded, but, frankly, such a hard mission won’t be possible to do ever.
No more words! Watch Yakutia!
This time Inga Bysykatova (in the abiove picture), who previously presented the photo report about the Siberian white crane expedition in South Yakutia, shows how the republic biology institution’s field study went in the Arctic tundra of Ust Yansky region, the north-eastern part of the Republic of Sakha (Yakutia), Russia, in summer of 2009.
The mission was to research Sandhill Cranes on the western border of Siberian white cranes areal in North Yakutia, if to be more precise, in the area of the estuaries of the rivers Chondon and Sellyah north of the Tumat village. See the map.
Inga says that before the expedition there were a fact of Sandhill Cranes presence registered at that place, but not proved scientifically.
Today she is able to confirm that the expansion of these birds going on to the West. Sandhill Cranes were officially registered in Chukotka before 1920s, than they moved to Kolyma by 1950s and the Indigirka river by 1990s. Nowadays, they are in Ust Yansky region.
“Our expedition was the first that proved the presence of Sandhill Cranes in the Ust Yansky tundra. That was in 2009… We counted and registered 142 Siberian cranes and 6 Sandhill Cranes,” says Inga.
By the way, it was Inga, who arranged the whole travel to the Arctic. A pretty hard work, I dare to say.
Now feel free to enjoy the summer Arctic of Yakutia, Siberia/Russia, and don’t miss amazing pictures of those bloody-sucking mosquitoes.
In June, Ilya Kovyakin, a friend of mine from Magadan, asked me to help him with fishing on the Lena River and travelling to Lena Pillars. He said, he would wish to do that in the course of 3 days. I was like, “My god, I am not a fisherman, I don’t have a boat, and I’ve heard that great fishing might happen in far away places… So…”
Eventually, the idea arrived… Everything might be done on the way from Yakutsk to Lena Pillars with visiting three places and for three days. The route is Elanka – the camp at the Buotama River (the Lena River tributary) – Lena Pillars.
The miracle happened. On the first day, Ilya with his family and Ajar Varlamov drove on his 4wd from Yakutsk to Elanka. The drive took 4.5 hrs. At that place, they rented rooms in Arinosov’s house (800 rubles per person) and did what they wanted. Ilya fished, his family members enjoyed nature, and Ajar took as many photographs as possible.
Below, please, see Ajar’s photographs. Beautiful, aren’t they?
Hooray! May is at hand! It’s time for Yakutian men to hunt for ducks…
Rumours went out. Some say that duck hunt might be prohibited due to games migrated from radiated Fukushima, Japan. Some say it will be allowed, but strongly recommended not to eat ducks. In any case, hunters will go out into the wildness and shoot their gamebirds.
Here in historical videos, you can see how Yhyakh (Ысыах in Russian), the Yakut national holiday, was celebrated in the 1960s. For the long period, the Soviets prohibited the Yakuts to hold its traditional summer event, but eventually, since 1941, allowed.
Yhyakh is the celebration of the summer solstice. Dedicated to the spirits of Ajyy and nature revival. Followed with the rising sun worship ceremonies, abundant food, kumis (also spelled kumiss, koumiss or kumys; it’s the horse milk) drinking, national sports games, horse races.
Further, please, find the second historical video. Read the rest of this entry…
This is a print of a Jakut woman. It is one of 72 prints from the book: Costume of the Russian Empire, ... dedicated, by permission, to her Royal Highness the Princess Elisabeth, London 1803. PS. Click the image to enlarge.
Saying a lot of thanks to my Finish friend of mine, Fredrik Forsberg, who provided a book print scan copy and the A FEMALE YAKOUTI chapter text from the book “Costume of the Russian Empire.” And it was him, who colored his black-and-white print copy.
Further, please, read the chapter with information on the illustrated Yakut woman in a national costume.
This is the trailer of non-existing fantasy / horror / history / drama movie created and presented by Yakutsk-based film makers, E. Osipov (producer), Misha Vasiliev (director), Sema Amanatov (cameraman, director of arts). A short film trailer was done on the Canon 7D digital camera.
This way E. Osipov (his blog) is trying to attract investors and sponsors to the production of the widescreen movie about love, shamans, a warrior and Sakha (Yakut) people’s ordinary, but brutal life of the past in the biggest Siberian region called Yakutia.
Based on Sardana Sivtzeva’s novel “Taming Demons.”
Another good news. Yakutia is becoming Siberia’s Hollywood with a dozen of new widescreen movies produced per year! Did you know about it? 
Platon Oyunsky statue on Orzhanikidze Square in Yakutsk. *To enlarge the image, click on it.
A book image of Platon Oyunsky
Always wanted to write about Platon Oyunsky, a Soviet Yakut statesman, writer and translator, a co-founder of modern Yakut literature, but I didn’t know how to do that. He is really a big man of history of the Republic of Sakha. Many Yakutian scientists wrote many serious works about this personage… and unconsciously I considered the task of writing about him to be impossible.
And you know what happened? One morning I was heading to my work place. It was in the early winter. I was passing Ordzhanikidze Square, when I saw a man cleaning the stature of Platon Oyunsky from snow.
It was so fascinating to see how the man was doing his job that I took a picture of his brushing work, uploaded the photo to my TwitPic account and soon got series of replies from a Yakutsk-based guy in the form of short information of who Mr. Oyunsky was.
I said, “Wow!” That guy, named Petr Petrov, was pretty serious and tried to overflow my stream stressing the importance of the historic hero. I wrote to him, “Do you have more text in English?” He, “Yes, I’ve just finished one.”
Below, please, find Petr’s text. It appeared to be pretty short, however, he wrote it very sincerely.
We blog about the Republic of Sakha (Yakutia), the biggest & coldest region in Russia's Siberia. Also known as Yakutia. My honor to have been born and live in such a beautiful land! ~ Bolot.
