KRASNOYARSK, February 17. /TASS/. Modern housing, social and utility infrastructures and an ethnic village will be made in Surinda - a town in taiga, in the northern part of the Krasnoyarsk Region, the pilot project’s authors and participants told TASS. The project will be a model for the region’s other far-away settlements to follow.

"We must not delay the project, we have construction skills, we have good opportunities," the region’s Governor Alexander Uss said at a meeting with the leader of the Evenkiyskiy Municipal District Andrey Cherkasov. "The Krasnoyarsk Region is becoming more attractive for tourists, and thus we must preserve the life styles of the North’s indigenous low-numbered peoples, their crafts and everything related to them."

According to the regional government, the plan’s implementation is due to 2024: construction of modern housing, adjusted to the Arctic conditions, repairing or building a new school and a leisure center, the mail office, the medical center, upgrade of the utility and communication infrastructures. The Surinda town will be a model, which will be used for other settlements in Evenkia.

Deer breeding in taiga

Surinda is a unique town in the Krasnoyarsk Region. it has four streets with small wooden houses, some of which are more than 50 years old. Most residents, slightly more than 450 people, are the Evenks - representatives of the North’s low-numbered indigenous peoples. The town has a school and a kindergarten, and a facility for elementary medical services. Some buildings have not been renovated since the Soviet times.

The village is on the Surinda. Its name can be translated into English as "Whitefish River." But despite the name, the main occupation in the village is hunting, not fishing. Surinda is a center of the Evenk’s deer breeding in the taiga. In the early 1990s, the farm had about 11,000 domesticated deer, and in the early 21st century, the livestock shrunk to 400. Nowadays, the region has about 2,000 domesticated deer. A few shifts work to graze deer, build fences for the herds, and make necessary equipment and devices. Women are engaged in currying.

According to the municipal district’s deputy head, Ulyana Dzhurayeva, Surinda has been chosen for the pilot project because the settlement has preserved and developed the traditions of deer breeding. The authorities will support the sector and people working in it. One of the ideas is to bring in new deer to renew the livestock. For this settlement the engineering and infrastructure communications are most important. However, the region’s envoy on the low-numbered indigenous peoples Semen Palchin pointed to the importance of further development of the Evenks’ main occupation - deer breeding in the taiga.

To feel the life

The new town will have shops to make national clothes, boots, mittens, sledges, hunting skis and souvenirs. Surinda’s residents are skillful in making those objects. These products will be of demand in other northern settlements in the region, the authorities say, stressing the new shops will offer new jobs and will be a key focus of the future ethnic village.

Unlike in other places, in Surinda the project authors refused from organizing an ethnic village with a local history museum next to it, Vice President of the Association of the Indigenous Low-Numbered Peoples of the North, Siberia and the Far East Artur Gayulsky told TASS.

"The idea is to make an ethnic village within the existing settlement, with all the infrastructures: a school, a kindergarten, a leisure center, and alternative energy sources," he said. Thus, when tourists come to visit Surinda, they will not see just an artificial museum, but they will be able to feel and see how people in Surinda live, how modern hunters and deer herders work.

Medical services and workout facilities

Presently, the low-numbered indigenous peoples usually experience a lack of certain social benefits, state services, the Krasnoyarsk Region’s Minister of Economy and Development Yegor Vasilyev told TASS. In the northern hard-to-reach settlement economic activities are limited to micro businesses in trade, crafts, currying and making traditional outfits and footwear. As a rule, those businesses are short-term, unstable in terms of incomes, with minimum profits, and with state incentives.

Being aware of those specific forms, the region has been developing a new approach to living in the northern settlements. The idea is to make a cutting-edge area, where people have a necessary minimum of social infrastructures: a station for paramedics, a leisure center, and a workout facility. Training will be organized in compliance with standard programs and national traditions, so that the local residents learned the skills necessary for people to live and survive in the taiga or tundra.

"The roadmap to implement this pilot project in Surinda includes construction of energy-effective houses, renovation of heating systems, improvement of social infrastructures and development and preservation of traditional skills and occupations of the low-numbered indigenous peoples <…>," Vasilyev said. "Before the implementation, we will adopt Surinda’s development plan, and when this is done, will being the construction of houses, an educational center, and a workout facility."

According to him, the region estimates investments at about 100 million rubles ($1.4 million) to provide a stable Internet connection, cell communication, and reliable supplies of electricity, heat and water.