YAKUTSK, August 11. /TASS/. Traditional crafts, music, dances, and the epic of Arctic peoples must be put on the federal list of Russia's intangible ethnic and cultural heritage, experts told TASS.

In August, the Russian government initiated a federal list of national intangible ethnic and cultural heritage. Prime Minister Mikhail Mishustin supported the initiative.

"First of all, the list must include data on the North's languages, traditional crafts, and folk epic. We support the idea to have a list and will be happy to join the project. We have initiated a multi-cultural portal on languages and heritage of the Arctic's indigenous peoples, which accumulates information on peoples of the North and Arctic," said Anatoly Zhozhikov, leading the UNESCO International Chair - Social and Human Adaptation of the Arctic Regions to Climate Change - at the North-Eastern Federal University.

The Arctic State Institute of Culture and Arts' President Sargylana Ignateva stressed the preservation of the Arctic intangible heritage is important for the Northerners' self-identification and favors the cultural diversity in the region.

"In my opinion, the federal list must include information on the rich musical and dancing heritage of the Arctic peoples. Our Institute has been working effectively on the preservation of the North's cultural heritage. The list must contain also the epics of the indigenous peoples, including Yakutia's Olonho heroic epic," she said.

Since 2021, the Institute has been working jointly with the National Library, the Institute of Humanitarian Studies and Problems of the North's Low-Numbered Peoples (the Russian Academy of Sciences' Siberian Branch) on a project to make digital copies of the cultural heritage objects of the North's low-numbered indigenous peoples, she added.

The project is based on audio recordings, magnetic tapes, and cassettes collected by Yury Sheikin, a musical expert. "The project's objective is to preserve this colossal heritage, which he began to collect back in the 1960s. The collection's second part features musical instruments. The Institute has organized a museum to present a small part of that huge collection of almost 200 instruments," she said.

About list

The new public resource will make easier the study, use, preservation and promotion of intangible ethnic and cultural heritage. The Ministry of Culture is appointed the list's operator.