The Chulym people are hard to place in the mix of Siberian nations. Historically they have links to the Tatar, Kkakas, Khanty and Ket people. These things can be hard to prove.
What is known is that they have been living in their current location for around 500 years. Ethnically they are probably descended from the northern Khanty and Ket peoples. This is evident from the fact that their stories include their familial descent from the bear. This is not a concept belonging to southern people groups such as the Tatar and Khakas.
They probably migrated south much earlier than 500 years ago, giving them time to be assimilated into the larger Tatar conglomerate of peoples. There are a number of people groups that are descended from the Tatar (some of these more Asian than others, which to me says linguistic but not necessarily ethnic descent). Once having been linguistically assimilated to a Turkic language (losing their Khanty and Ket roots; although some words could still be preserved?), they migrated further east and found themselves geographically cut off from their relatives during the time of the Russian Empire (1600s to early 1900s).
In their place of geographic isolation the Chulym dialect of the larger Tatar language group developed into its own language over the last 500 years. What this does mean, is that even though the Chulym language is dying, the cousins of this language are still quite alive. The linguistic cousins of the Chulym are the Altai, Khakas and Tuvans. Their ethnic relatives being the Khanty and Ket.
I will come back to the topic of endangered languages, but from an academic point of view, it does mean that the loss of the Chulym language is less of a tragedy than the loss of the Ket language. (The Ket language is one of 15 to 20 languages in the world that have no relatives what so ever. Although recently a North American linguist now claims he has proof that Ket is related to Dene in Canada [Yellowknife area] and to Navajo in New Mexico, USA.) The loss of the Tungus Manchu family, which includes a handful of languages such as Evenki and Eveny would also be a bigger loss; **from an academic point of view**. It is always tragic when a culture loses their linguistic identity.
After the music and skit performance section, the games section of the festival began. This follows the same pattern of festivals that I have been to for the Ket and Sakha peoples. The blue ribbon events were canoe races. This was so strikingly similar to the Ket canoe races. The Chulym are a big fishing culture, just as the Ket are. This also lends credence to the Chulym being ethnically descended from the Ket.
This man was the first at the start line, some minutes before his competitors arrived. Evidently he was quite keen.
Eventually his competitors turned up,
but he raced hard,
pulling away from the field on the leg outwards,
and leaving the field in his wake on the return leg.
This man struggles to keep up. (Hey, I wasn't in there, I would have been "in the drink".)
Sadly, these two men didn't have the gumption to get off their alcoholic seats and compete. It's so sad to see people drink their lives away. But at least not all Chulym are chronically alcoholic. Loss of culture and identity will do that to people.
There were various categories of canoe races.
This banner is written in the Chulym language. Historically, Chulym was an oral language. Recently some linguists from Tomsk have worked hard to help the Chulym develop a writing system.
No festival would be complete without some running races.
The lady in the front of this picture wanted to sell me some raspberries. The price was 35 roubles a litre. That's a little more than a $1 per kg. Compare that to prices in Melbourne of over $20 a kg, and Krasnoyarsk of now $3.30 a kg. I was all ready to buy some from here, but could not do so on Saturday. They would not have lasted until our return trip to Krasnoyarsk.
Sadly, when Monday rolled around, we were faced with very wet weather, which meant we had to make a quick escape or risk having the road cut off for a week. Alas, no raspberries were purchased. Melody will have to find other sources for making jam and preserves. Raspberries really are the most delicious of all berries.
The lady wanted an advanced payment so she could go and buy alcohol. I humbly declined to fund her misery.
Not all Chulym are raging alcoholics. This man impressed me greatly. He is closing in on 60, yet very fit. He won both his canoe and foot race with ease and speed. He made his canoe himself, over the space of two days. He evidently also made the trailer that hitches to his motorbike to drive it home. He appeared to me to be part Chulym, part Russian.
The champion of the day with his family on the family vehicle. Motorbikes really are the vehicle of choice in villages all over Russia. Naturally the bike is Russian made, from the Ural brand.
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