Description
The Nenets (sometimes spelled Nenets) are a Samoyedic indigenous people of Russia living near the Arctic Circle. They constitute the largest of the 26 ethnic groups in Siberia. Nenets means man in the Nenets language. Their traditional activities are reindeer herding and fishing. Highly nomadic, their camps rarely remain in the same location for more than a week. Nenets territory is characterized by tundra and coniferous forests, permafrost land, with numerous rivers and vast marshy areas. Along the banks of the Ob River, Nenets settlements extend into the dense forest zone of the Siberian taiga. With the Russian Revolution of 1917, the Nenets undergo a policy of forced assimilation and collectivization. They are forced to abandon their nomadic lifestyle by settling in state collective farms, the kolkhozes.