(Bloch and Kendall 2004). These state-supported cultural revitalization efforts often are reminiscent of similar efforts across the world in which invoking tradition is closely linked to legitimating state or regional power (Handler 1988; Watson 1995; Kaplan 1994). In the context of an indigenous community in the 1990s, however, state-sponsored cultural revitalization, or “cultural invention” (Linnekin 1991; Conklin 1997), was not simply the Soviet state’s construction of a distinct indigenous identity as something to be contained in museums, performed, and studied as part of the past. As I also explore in Chapter 7, the Evenki I knew who were involved in performing tradition in the form of dance, song, and handicrafts did not see these acts as “inventing” culture. Being part of a folk dance troupe, singing, or sewing warm fur clothing was instead part of daily life and sociality. The state created institutions and funded organizations, but the revitalization of Evenk cultural practices that was busily taking place when I first arrived in Tura in 1992 and continued in various ways throughout the 1990s involved people who themselves breathed life into these sites and found meaning in them. In the 1990s, Turintsy continued to value Soviet institutions such as the House of Culture, but many also began to look to new or renewed forms of sociality such as organized religion and healing practices.
In Tura, as in other Soviet towns and villages, the “House of Culture” (Dom kul’tury or “De Ka” as young people called it) was the primary center of organized social life for much of the Soviet period. While in cities these social centers were sometimes called “Palaces of Culture” and in fact were housed in former tsarist-era palaces, in Tura the House of Culture was a cavernous, rather unappealing two-story structure of grey concrete built in the 1980s in the town center. This institution sponsored events throughout the year to mark holidays such as the “Day of the October Revolution,” New Year’s Eve, and “the End of Winter.” It also housed various clubs such as a chess club, a sports club, a rock music group, and the Evenk folk dance group (Osiktakan), and hosted a weekly discotheque for teenagers. Moreover, the House of Culture served as the site for civic events. It was a polling site for the election of local and federal representatives and was used for public send-offs for young men entering the army. In the post-Soviet era indigenous groups in some parts of Siberia established separate cultural centers they viewed as distinct from the more orthodox, state-sanctioned House of Culture (see Gray 1998: 297; Khelol 1997). Throughout the 1990s, however, the Evenki in this region had not created such alternatives, and in fact, in Tura many Evenki, as well as other town residents, continued to frequent the House of Culture as an important gathering place, both for civic events and for entertainment.
Most significantly for Evenki, in conjunction with the residential school, the House of Culture was a place where Evenk identities were bolstered through state-financed means. The various clubs housed within the House of Culture and the holiday events celebrated there focused around reproducing what were referred to as “traditional” (traditsionnye) Evenk songs, dance, and clothing. For instance, in 1993–94 the House of Culture had an Evenk folk music ensemble consisting mostly of elderly women who sang songs in Evenk and Russian; the songs featured lyrics about life in the taiga. The Evenk folk dance ensemble also performed a number of choreographed pieces that invoked shamanic practices and were accompanied by the steady beat of a hide drum. In the 1980s and early 1990s, this was a popular group for youth to belong to; the troupe traveled extensively in the Soviet Union, as well as abroad, and it was also considered a source of employment for those principal dancers who were paid by the Department of Culture. In the 1990s, in addition to the dance and music groups, the House of Culture also housed a “methodological center,” where three women were employed in crafting the details of traditional, material culture for set design, costumes, and ritual events. By the late 1990s the growing demands of the Evenk District Sakha community for greater government recognition and a corresponding allocation of resources were also evident in the House of Culture, where a Sakha drama group was briefly established.
The majority of educated Evenki in the Evenk District in the early 1990s were employed in the sphere of “culture” as “cultural workers” (kul’turnye rabotniki) in institutions such as the residential school and the House of Culture. The concentration of Evenki in these spheres ensured that they were steeped in this enterprise of producing officially designated versions of tradition (Bloch 2001). When the Ministry of Culture lost much of its financing from the central government in 1993, however, the House of Culture became a less focal aspect of Tura social life. Many of the cultural workers—musicians, artists, and choreographers—were compelled to seek employment in more lucrative spheres. One artist who had been trained as an architect joined the town planning office. A musician employed at the House of Culture admitted to me with a note of shame that he had decided to leave his job to shovel coal in one of the town boilers. His new position would pay four times more than what the House of Culture could offer him.31 The deterioration of this institution represented the demise of a broader system that had played a critical role in placing Evenk identities within a structured, shared, Soviet context.
Priests, Shamans, and Consciousness in Flux
The rapid demise and public denigration of formal Soviet ritual left a gaping ideational hole for many people in the Russian Federation. In the Evenk District in the 1990s, youth often openly derided symbols of the Soviet era, carving disparaging graffiti in public outhouses and exchanging anecdotes parodying socialist policies and Soviet leaders. Older people and Evenk intellectuals, however, often found this disrespect for Soviet cultural practice and ideology disconcerting. They spent decades taking part in a common Soviet consciousness and often proudly proclaimed themselves as Soviet citizens (sovetskie grazhdane). Such was the case of one retired reindeer herder who described himself to me as a “Soviet person” (sovetskii chelovek) in our conversations in 1993. One afternoon he proudly exhibited the medals he had won for fighting on the Western Front during World War II and for leading a successful herding brigade for a number of years.
One reflection of the widespread sense of belonging to a Soviet society was the ongoing salience of Soviet holidays. Many of these did not just disappear from the landscape with the creation of the Russian Federation. Some Soviet holidays such as May 9, Victory Day (Den’ Pobedy), commemorating the end of World War II for the Soviet Union, or November 7, October Revolution Day (Den’ Oktiabr’skoi Revoliutsii), commemorating the Russian Revolution, continued to be widely celebrated. These days were marked by concerts organized at the House of Culture and private parties. These were also occasions when Evenki living in southern cities made an effort to travel home.
Lenin’s birthday, April 22, while not widely celebrated in Tura in the 1990s and significantly not marked by an event at the House of Culture, was inscribed in local consciousness. The holiday was designated as “Labor Day” (Den’ Truda), at a time when the Communist Party was briefly outlawed in 1993–94. One “Labor Day” event in Tura in 1994 particularly illustrates how Soviet ritual practice remained pertinent for an older generation in the 1990s. Lenin’s birthday began with the daily 7:30 A.M. Evenk District radio broadcast. The feature program was a medley of former tributes to Lenin that concluded with the commentator’s note of relief that the days of requisite odes to Lenin had come to an end. That afternoon I learned from the young commentator that she had been personally threatened by a group of people identifying themselves as members of the Communist Party. Soon after the program they barged into her office and began to berate her for her views; they emphasized that without Soviet power and Lenin’s vision the Evenki would not be at the “level of development” that they were today. She was warned to avoid such disparaging remarks or else her job would be in danger.
Some people in the Evenk District, however, were not finding comfort in the structures and ideologies of Soviet cultural practices; they were looking for new ways to make sense of their world, and organized religion became one of these. Prior to 1993 there had never been an organized religious group in Tura, although there had been occasional missionary outposts in the region in the late nineteenth and early twentieth centuries, as mentioned earlier in this chapter. In the summer of 1993, Russian Baptists and Dutch Evangelical missionaries made their
