Kseniia Bolshakova (Dolgan) es una activista del Ártico ruso que trabaja para revitalizar su lengua dolgan y defender sus tierras ancestrales. Su novela, «La escarcha también se derrite», aborda los problemas del cambio climático, la pérdida del pastoreo de renos y la actual extinción de las lenguas Indígenas. Bolshakova vincula el deshielo del suelo congelado, las prácticas interrumpidas de un modo de vida nómada y la migración sin precedentes hacia el sur de los renos salvajes con la línea rota de transmisión de las lenguas nativas en la comunidad.
Crecí en una familia de pastores de renos en la tundra de la península de Taimyr. Soy una de las guardianes más jóvenes de la lengua nativa en nuestra nación. Hoy en día, menos del 10% de los dolganos hablan la lengua nativa. Menos de 10 familias dolganas en toda la nación continúan con el modo de vida nómada y crían renos. Hace tan solo 10 años, había docenas de familias dedicadas a la cría de renos. Y hace cien años, todas las familias tenían renos. En la década de 1920, había 500.000 renos domésticos en toda la península de Taimyr. Ahora, los pastores de renos de Dolgan que quedan no tienen más de 2.000 renos.
Las personas que están abandonando la vida nómada no lo hacen por elección propia. El calentamiento global ha traído lluvias invernales que nunca se habían producido más allá del Círculo Polar Ártico. El musgo blanco encerrado en el hielo condena a los renos a morir de hambre. Esta tragedia ecológica afecta a las manadas de renos de las penínsulas de Yamal y Taimyr. Es extremadamente difícil restablecer una población disminuida de renos domésticos, ya que hay muchas otras formas naturales de pérdida de renos. El rebaño puede ser atraído por renos salvajes, devorado por lobos y osos, o muerto por la enfermedad de las pezuñas y la brucelosis.
Elder Dolgan reindeer herders.
However, I believe that this is oversimplified. The traditional way of life is a guarantor of the preservation of the ancestral language. But can I, as a Dolgan, really speak my native language only on a reindeer herding camp in the tundra? My language is vibrant and has very high development potential; in the hands of a knowledgeable native speaker, it applies to all areas of life. So what is really going on? Why is the language going after the reindeer?
Reindeer herding is our own livelihood and our own production. By losing it, we are immersed in a world built and made by the Russians, even in a settlement where 99 percent of the population is Dolgan. This is the root of our problem and the big question of our continued existence as an Indigenous Nation. Until recently, Dolgans tried to shift sustainability from reindeer herding to wild reindeer hunting.
According to the regional environmental services, the wild reindeer population on our Taimyr Peninsula numbered 485,000 in 2009. Next year, we expect only 70,110 reindeer. At this rate, the Taimyr wild reindeer population may completely disappear by 2030. Because of climate change, our wild reindeer go south to the Republic of Sakha. There they lure away domestic reindeer from Evenki and Sakha herders on an unprecedented scale. This poses a serious threat to the survival of reindeer herding in the region.
Climate change is not just transforming our traditional way of life but also an imminent threat to our existence as an Indigenous people in both physical and ethnic terms. The Dolgans live in the permafrost zone. To understand what permafrost is, what it means for the Dolgans, and what global warming is doing to it, I suggest we descend into the frost’s womb.
Kseniia Bolshakova in front of an ice drift.
IN THE FROST’S WOMB (A chapter from the novel, “The Frost Also Melts,” by Kseniia Bolshakova)
Thrown open, the wooden trapdoor upholstered in reindeer hide falls heavily to the ground. The dogs lying nearby jump up, startled, and run out onto the porch. I look down into the passage and the smell of old metal and frost hits my nose. Colliding with the permanent cold, the white clumps of my breath disperse instantly. The dim light of a bulb brightens the bottom of the iron shaft.
I grab hold of the welded ladder and take a decisive step down. The tunnel, made of oil barrels soldered together, leads into the permafrost. With every step the air grows heavier and icier. The most important thing is not to slip. The rusty three-meter-long tube gives out into a tiny underground balok.
The low arched ceiling, walls, the floor— everything in the icy chamber is made of matte crystals. My hands reach of their own accord to touch the tiny crystal bits. Protecting themselves from the hands’ warmth, the icy needles scratch my fingertips. If I was as tall as Hubruu Basi (Gangly Vasya) I would be able to touch the ceiling as well.
Three levels of shelves stretch along the perimeter. Wild deer carcasses lie still in their skins—a kind of natural packaging. The fish is hidden in sacks. I find our sack by its tie. I wrangle out a hefty whitefish.
Mama sent me to the Opanasiuks’ frost tunnel to get fish for stroganina, thinly sliced frozen fish. Kind neighbors, they allotted us a spot in their nature-provided refrigerator. The people in Popigai are nearly all fishers and hunters, but not everyone has their own ice tunnel. There are only seven for the several dozen families in the town. It’s not enough to dig out a frost tunnel, it requires care. Every year the cracks in the fridge walls are “plastered over” with a mix of snow and water.
The Popigai residents spent a long time campaigning for the construction of a shared frost tunnel for the whole village. Work like that is complicated, lengthy and costly. Finally, they got the funding. A team arrived to check the soil, and wouldn’t you know, the earth is no longer what it once was. The frost is melting.
Over the last few years, the pressure of the warmth is pushing back both the polar night and the long Arctic winter. Earlier, people would still be riding around on snowmobiles in early June, and the river ice would only just be starting to break up. Now the ice flow is fully underway by the end of May. Fall also takes longer to come now. The river used to stop moving as early as September, but now it starts freezing over only in early October.
Massive amounts of snow in Bolshakova’s, village of Popigay.
This upheaval of nature is so powerful that soon the reindeer herders will find themselves garden keepers. Around the houses in our villages there are no plots of land to till. People plant potatoes out in the open tundra. If this keeps up, soon it won’t be just potatoes that can grow in Taimyr. Southern animals and insects will appear, unheard of biting longhorn beetles. Wildfires in the Evenki and Sakha lands drive the roe deer north to us.
The taiga has always burned, but the warming means the fires have grown terrifyingly large, threatening animals and humans alike. And what do the authorities do? They just cut back their fleet of firefighter choppers. Allegedly, sending helicopters to put out the taiga fires is more expensive than the timber. You might say that not everything can be measured in profits and losses. Not everything. But that’s not true for everyone.
Wildfires are supplemented by arson as well. To hide the traces of illegal logging, the cut areas are set on fire. And whole regions of Siberia burn. Above the burning taiga the rains cannot fall for months. The precipitation goes off and soaks other regions. The rivers overflow, floodwaters wipe out entire towns. Bureaucrats visit the flood victims in helicopters, unload some bread and blankets, and fly away again. The people, like animals in the tundra, have to fend for themselves.
Half of Siberia burns, the other half drowns. Fanned to a hot blaze by man, the world can no longer be protected from overheating by our land of permafrost. The Earth’s ice cap is helplessly trickling away. The permanent is becoming terminal. The frost is melting. The Dolgans are dissolving in time and among other peoples.
English translation by Ainsley E. Morse.
An ice drift.
Top: Taimyr wild reindeer in Siberia. All photos by Kseniia Bolshakova.
