Description
The Nenets (sometimes spelled Nenets) are an indigenous Samoyedic 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. The Nenets homeland is one of tundra and coniferous forest, a land of permafrost with numerous rivers and vast marshlands. Along the banks of the Ob River, Nenets settlements extend into the dense taiga forest zone of Siberia. Following the Russian Revolution of 1917, the Nenets underwent a policy of forced assimilation and collectivization. They were forced to abandon their nomadic way of life by settling in state collective farms, known as kolkhozes.