Photo album from Ihiakh festival 2012

Opening Ceremony

Dunya choreographed all of the dances, it was quite a production.

Sakha people, as well as many other Siberian peoples worship the sun. The festival is usually held at the Summer solstice around June 21/22. The students hold it after they finish their classes and before they start their exams. When the solstice comes, they will be in exams.

Overnight the students had a disco, followed by "greeting the sun" at around 4:30 am. We were not there for this (we went home for the night). The weather was very cold and overcast, so I am not sure this went very well for them.
As part of the opening ceremony, Aiysen (the student president) performed a ritual of lighting a fire, and feeding the fire with the fermented horse milk drink, Following the ritual there was then some impressive Sakha style singing.

Last year the oldest student at the festival said some words to pronounce the festival open. As there were Sakha elders who live in Krasnoyarsk present, this man Valery was asked to speak. (I later met him, he turns out to be a baseball, softball and lapta coach. I intend to get to know him and play some sport with his connections when we return in August.)

Food contest
Last year I judged the food contest. This year it was judged by the Sakha elders who were invited to the festival.

 There were four teams representing various universities around the city.

Sports events
After the opening ceremony and food judging there were many sporting activities. The first was Mas Wrestling. I took part in this (and lost). (There's a video of this in last year's archive.)

There were around 9 guys who took part in all of the sports activities. They were also invited to give a speech so they could be judged, the winner being awarded the title "Mister Sakha" (as a counterpart to Miss Sakha- who was awarded on April 8th).

One of the events was to lift a 90kg rock and walk it as far as possible. Of the competitors, the shortest distance was 30 metres, the longest was 102 metres!

This was one event that we did not see last year, because we did not stay for the Sunday. The guys are wrestling with their necks, to pull the other over the line or to pull the rope off the other.

A more simple tussle.

After the official proceedings there were a few games for fun- soccer, volleyball and (well lapta had been planned, a Russian game vaguely similar to baseball- but no one brought any equipment for it) a game of "flag". Flag was quite a complex game, but I got the hang of it after a while.

Melody was interviewed by Aima.

The Sakha Republic flag.