The Coldest Place on Earth 极寒以北

Alexey Vasilyev jokes that living in Yakutia is akin to a curse.

“I thought that maybe all bad photographers end up here when they die,” quips Vasilyev, a renowned Yakutian photographer who’s created a monumental body of work documenting life in the region, a part of Russia’s Siberian Arctic.

Also known as the Sakha Republic, Yakutia is perhaps best known for its frigid climate and vast tundras. Nearly one million people live spread out across the region’s three million square kilometers (one-fifth of Russia’s total territory)—a place equal in size to India, which is home to 1.3 billion. Its capital city Yakutsk is the world’s coldest, where winter temperatures frequently plunge to -40 degrees celsius. In Yakutsk, the buildings stand on stilts to ensure that permafrost, the layers of frozen soil that runs 450 feet deep, don’t melt. Winter fog blooms are also common: the extreme seasonal cold traps hot air from humans, homes, and cars that leave the city streets looking like scenes out of Silent Hill.

Yet Yakutia’s rich cultural legacy, complex history, and intertwined identities reveal a part of the world that’s much more than frozen land.

Epic tales date the Sakha people’s history back to the 10th century, though not much is known about their early history. Yakuts’ modern story begins in the 17th century, in parallel with Imperial Russia’s eastward expansion. By this time, the semi-nomadic Yakuts were already a hybrid community. As Sakha tribes moved throughout northeastern Siberia, they mixed with indigenous groups like the reindeer-herding Evenk, while other evidence points to ancestral ties stemming from Turkic-speaking tribes of the Altai Mountains and Mongol groups in Central Asia.

The Sakha Republic now occupies a distinct, and extraordinary, place in Russia—where indigenous Siberian traditions, Asian heritage, and links with Russia and the global Arctic, collide.

The chance to safeguard Yakutia’s story through photography, and to tell this story to a global audience, is what drives Vasilyev’s dedication to photography. Nearly ten years ago, equipped with only his iPhone, Vasilyev first began shooting daily life in Yakutsk as a way to stave off boredom—and manage an on-and-off battle with alcohol. “In my case, alcohol and creativity aren’t compatible,” he says.

Vasilyev’s commitment to his craft paid off. Global publications like TIME and National Geographic have showcased Vasilyev’s works. And this year, Vasilyev’s Sakhawood series documenting Yakutia’s grassroots film industry won him first place in the category of “Contemporary Issues: Stories” from the World Press Photo—one of the most prestigious prizes in global photojournalism.

“I now understand that I’m not only photographing for myself, but for others,” Vasilyev says. “I’ve begun to believe that I am… a chronicler of Yakutia. I hope my art can help answer the question for Yakuts—who are we and what place do we occupy in the world?”

Between Europe and Asia

As a Eurasian nation, Russia’s yearning to be viewed as a “civilized” western nation, largely began with Peter the Great’s westernizing reforms during his reign from 1682 to 1725. But that didn’t stop Imperial Russia’s eastward turn in a bid for more land, resources and power.

Most of Russia’s Asia colonization took place in the 17th century—including the empire’s conquest of the Sakha people and the annexation of territories from a weakened Qing China. In 1632, Russians and Yakuts made their first contact when bands of Cossack soldiers loyal to the Tsarist empire built forts in the Lena Valley, in what was the Yakuts’ heartland. One of these Cossack forts eventually became the settlement of Yakutsk. Imperial Russia then annexed the region.

The empire imposed yasak—a Mongol-Turkic word used to denote a tax established by law (the Mongol empire’s emperor Genghis Khan called his laws the “yasak of Genghis Khan”)—on indigenous peoples in Yakutia like the Yakuts, Evenki, and Chukchi. These groups paid tribute to Tsarist Russia in fur—of sables, foxes, and more, which helped prop up their fur trade.

Fyodor Dostoevsky, one of Russia’s most loved writers, summed up the country’s long-standing identity crisis in the late 19th century: “Russia is not only in Europe, but also in Asia. The Russian is not only a European, but also an Asiatic” given that two-thirds of the country is geographically in Asia.

The writer proclaimed: “In Europe, we were slaves. But in Asia, we shall be masters. Our civilizing mission in Asia will bribe our spirit and carry us there… a new Russia would be created, which would in time regenerate and resurrect the old one.”

When the Sakha Republic became an autonomous republic of the Soviet Union in 1922, the region was already indelibly intertwined with Russian social, cultural, and religious norms.

Sakha’s incorporation and assimilation into Russia is something Yakuts accept “as history—as a given. It’s something we can’t change now,” says Vasilyev. The photographer identifies as an Asian and a Yakut in Yakutia—a place which is an indelible part of Russia, he explains. “Growing up in the 1990s, I only learned Russian. My main language—in which I think, read, understand, speak and love—is Russian. But now, I believe it’s very important to know our national language, too.”

Sakha spirit

Yakutia’s deep entanglement with Russia is undeniable. Yet, rituals and beliefs unique to Sakha culture have not only survived, but have experienced a newfound renaissance in recent years.

Vasilyev captures the Sakha spirit through his photo series Ysyakh—a tribute to Yakutia’s New Year, the region’s most-loved holiday. During the summer solstice in June, Yakuts come together to thank the Sakha deities for the upcoming year through food, dance, sport, and other festivities. Ysyakh, which originated around 2,000 years ago, is a blend of shamanic, indigenous, and Mongolian traditions. It’s a fundamental part of Yakutia’s cultural heritage and “important part of our national identity — a moment when we become an organic whole,” Vasilyev wrote in The Guardian.

During Ysyakh, the white shaman—whom Yakuts believe to have a close connection with the spiritual realm—leads festival processions, performing blessings, ceremonial dances, and singing prayers. The white shaman gives the traditional offerings of pancakes and kumi (fermented horse milk) to the gods. The central role of kumi may have been passed down from Mongolian traditions; in the thirteenth and fourteenth centuries for instance, the fermented milk was also used in new year rituals to ensure the health of the herds and Genghis Khan.

Finally, at dawn, Yakuts turn toward the sky to catch the first summer rays with their outstretched palms; and pray for happiness and fortune.

That such traditions take place in Yakutia today is almost miraculous. Orthodox priests undertook efforts to Christianize the Sakha people during the Imperial era, with mixed results. In the Soviet era, Yakutia became a hotspot for gulags—Soviet concentration camps—due to the region’s natural resource abundance alongside its geographic isolation. Soviet authorities also sought to starve indigenous traditions, and the Ysyakh holiday was secularized and Sovietized. Communicating with Sakha spirits was forbidden; instead, people were encouraged to give thanks and offerings to portraits of Stalin, instead.

By the late 1980’s, Yakutia’s intellectual and artistic communities instigated a revival of Sakha heritage, which paved the way for Ysyakh to find its way back to its true meaning. In 1992, the first administration of the New Republic of Sakha, a non-Soviet government, designated Ysyakh a formal state holiday.

In Vasilyev’s documentation of the festival, Yakutia is transformed into an ethereal place, far from its somber moments of history, or winter reality of dense fog and whistling snow. “[Our] brand is usually winter, but I wanted to show summer,” he says. Vasilyev also acknowledges that there are “dark sides of our life [in Yakutia], but I don’t want to show it.” The photographer references the alcohol addiction in the region and in Russia, at large: “It seems to me that in our country, alcohol doesn’t let people relax and have fun, but leads to overconsumption and aggression. [But] I can’t solve these problems with photography but only hurt someone’s feelings. Sure, I want to show truths that may be harsh, but at the same time leave room for inspiration and some kind of light sadness.”

His take on Ysyakh is akin to a soft, pastel dream sequence in which cream-colored horses roam green steppes under powder-blue skies; where families, dressed in their best, reunite under the summer sun to pray to the gods.

Yakut and Russian women are clad in floor-length, floral khaladaai dresses; while young girls wear bastinga headdresses and are decked out in ornamental silver jewelry laughing over ice cream and waiting for their turn to dance. Others wear white robes and matching headscarves while burning incense to purify the grounds of negative energy.

Reverent Nature

When Vasilyev’s grandmother was dying of cancer, he cooked pancakes—a traditional Sakha and Russian food—for the first time in his life. The pancakes were an offering for Yakutia’s nature gods. “I went to the river and started asking for spirits. I didn’t even know which ones to ask for… but I asked them to somehow alleviate her suffering.”

For Sakha people, nature is animate and teeming with powerful spirits who play a potent force in human life. The nature spirits are worthy of awe, reverence, and even fear. “We live in harsh natural conditions and are used to relying on ourselves,” says Vasilyev. “But before any important, or even insignificant event, in our lives, we have to appease the fire, earth, and water spirits. Sometimes we appease them so that we get lucky.”

Yakutia’s local film industry, known as “Sakhawood,” deftly captures Sakha’s natural mysticism tied up with modern life. Sakhawood sprung up in the early 1990s as a way for Yakuts to reclaim their narrative. “Our culture was destroyed [after] 70 years of Soviet rule. Shamanism, our traditional faith, and other customs were banned. But now we’re bringing them back,” said Aleksei Romanov, a renowned Yakut director who founded Sakhafilm, Yakutia’s premier film studio, in 1992.

And Sakhawood films have begun to garner international acclaim, with its movies shown at film festivals from Seoul to Frankfurt. For the past few years, Vasilyev became a fly-on-the-wall at Sakhawood productions. His eponymous photo series documents this burgeoning local film industry as they recreate Yakutia’s modern-day human dramas intertwined with the fantastical and mystical revered in traditional Sakha culture.

In one of the most-recognized works from Vasilyev’s ‘Sakhawood,’ two young twin brothers Semyon and Stepan, stand in a dim forest clearing covered with leaves dressed in a furry, Ewok-like costume for their film debut. The twins were cast in the role of ‘dulgancha,’ the mythical swamp creature of Yakutia’s imagination in a scene from The Old Beyberikeen and the Five Cows, a hit 2019 film based on a classic Sakha fairytale.

Another of Vasilyev’s shots from the film shows the leading character — clad in a fur vest and armed with a homemade dagger — battling an abaasy, the Sakha spirit of the underworld, outside of an earthly, misty forest. Traditional Sakha lore says that three realms exist: the heavens, the middle world populated with humans, and a lower realm where evil spirits reside.

In the folktale about the old beyberikeen’(the old lady), her wish for a daughter is granted when a beautiful, young girl blossoms out of a fast-growing sprout she plucked from her garden. But the girl eventually falls prey to the devil’s daughter, who “tore off all the girl’s skin and put it on her face.” The prince, who was to wed the old lady’s daughter, eventually has to battle evil forces to revive his true bride and restore harmony to the land.

“If you look at Sakhawood, you can feel our reverence for nature. You can see the relationship between the power of nature, its mystical aspects, and its role in human life,” says Vasilyev.

Myths and rituals are prominent in today’s Yakutia, but they exist alongside modern life and within Russian cultural institutions, as well. In Black Snow (also known as Khara Khaar), a film by renowned Yakutian director Stepan Burnashev, Vasilyev captures three actors playing truck drivers, smoking, and looking over their script in a dilapidated Russian log cabin. The film is a drama about the mundanity and petty human longings— for money, ego—that take place in Sakha, like everywhere else in the world. It won Best Feature at the Window to Europe Film Festival last year.

For his behind-the-scenes shots, Sakhawood won a top prize at the World Photo Press 2021 Photo Contest.

While Vasilyev doesn’t dwell on his successes, he acknowledges that with growing recognition comes a greater sense of responsibility.

“Life is [the same] as it was five years ago. A typical day could mean intensive shooting or a whole day spent watching documentaries. I’m still a simple person with all my weaknesses. I meet with my small circle of friends. We go to the movies, read the news and surf social networks. I have a girlfriend and I enjoy my time with her,” he says.

And last year—the first year of the pandemic—the renowned photographer even worked as a courier as businesses were disrupted worldwide. “I delivered goods, came home, and watched TV. The pandemic was shit! I practically didn’t shoot anything and had to earn money another way.”

Sometimes Vasilyev wonders if any catastrophic events were to happen in Yakutia, would “anyone find out about it — or even care? If Yakutian culture were to disappear altogether, would it somehow affect the world?” The fact that his images are lauded worldwide means that “the more people know about Yakutia, the louder our voice will be in the world,” Vasilyev says.

My Dear Yakutia

Today, a reckoning is taking place in Yakutia. “There’s a feeling that we are Yakuts and we must preserve and respect our culture,” Vasilyev says. “This feeling is growing. It’s manifesting itself in national politics and in popular culture, like music and film. Our younger generations are starting to feel a stronger attachment to this identity and care more about this culture.”

Before he began photographing on his own, Vasilyev was a photographer for local paper Youth of the North, where he often took portraits of children in the city. For nearly a decade, he attended kids checkers’ tournaments, ballet performances, and wrestling matches; Yakutian and Russian kids coexisted alongside both Yakut and Russian culture and institutions.

But he began to notice what he describes as Russia’s ‘national chauvinism.’ “Living in Russia, we feel like strangers. I want to show that not only [Slavic] Russians live in Russia,” explaining that it seems as though the country is indifferent to the 120 different ethnic groups in Russia.

Thus, the photographer’s current, yet-to-be-released project is an even deeper look at the region. Vasilyev’s new focus is on Sakha’s various indigenous peoples of the north—“Evenks, Yukagirs, Chukchi and Dolgans. I want to make a project about their lives. We’ve lived with them for almost several centuries.” While Yakuts are the majority in Sakha yet a minority in Russia; the smaller indigenous groups which make up less than 1% of the population in the region, are mixed and contributed much. Northern Yakuts for instance, adopted the practice of reindeer breeding from Evenk groups.

And beyond the cultural reckoning, another one is taking place related to Sakha’s natural environment. Yakutia, like other parts of Siberia, are bearing the brunt of climate change. This summer—Yakutia’s hottest and driest on record—93 active wildfires have burned through 1.1 million hectares of land, making Sakha the worst wildfire-affected region of Russia. Vasilyev’s recent works show forest officers and volunteer firefighters battling raging blazes and thick smoke across the region’s charred forests. “We must protect our nature. Our permafrost is melting; people are suffering; and Siberia has been burning for many years. But nobody cares about this catastrophe,” he says.

Through his art, Vasilyev ultimately wants the world “to know about us… and to see that we’re all interconnected.”

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Website: www.alexey-vasilyev.com
Instagram: @lekon_v

Contributor: Yvonne Lau
Chinese Translation: Olivia Li