MOSCOW, November 13. /TASS Correspondent Ulyana Lavtsevich/. Alexandra Nypevgi, managing a bone-carving workshop in the Chukchi village of Uelen, told us with the modesty, typical for northern peoples, how she was carving the world's first postage stamp on a walrus tusk. When doing that diligent work she pressed fingers to blood, as she had to hurry. The stamp was just 3 millimeters thick. People in Uelen know very well how to comply with the brand.
"The art will live on"
Only very curious people may find easily the village of Uelen on the map of Chukotka - it is a tiny point on the very edge of mainland Russia. Neighboring Alaska may be seen from there when the sky is clear. However, clear blue skies over Uelen are rare: too harsh is the Arctic Ocean near the village where 700 people live.
The local bone-carving workshop celebrated the 90th anniversary in 2021. People there work hard in long winter or short summer afternoons. Their works are known in many Russian and foreign museums. The first objects were presented at the Tretyakov Art Gallery (in Moscow) back in 1937, when the distance from Chukotka to Moscow seemed incredibly long.
Alexandra Nypevgi follows the work of her father, uncle and grandfather. Her current team is 12 carvers and engravers, who are able to catch the slightest breath of wind to have it captured for centuries. The secret is simple - they know very well the world they depict.
In the village, practically every family has at least some relation to the famous workshop. "My grandfather, father, uncle were bone cutters, my dad managed the workshop for many years, and my career must have been predetermined," Alexandra said. "But no! I joined the company as a master in adulthood already, having worked for many years as an economist. Although, of course, I spent my childhood here: there is not much entertainment on the edge of the earth."
Local kids are running all the time to the Uelen bone-carving workshop, because here the cutters can "draw" on a walrus bone the endless Chukchi fairy tales - just sit back, open your eyes wider and, amid a monotonous, lulling voice, get immersed in fascinating stories about sea and tundra hunters.
"Have you ever seen how sea hunters come ashore in a storm? Our master Pavel Kalyacha has carved this miniature out of a walrus fang, and it, being absolutely static, is filled with motion and life. Here is an exhausted hunter in the long pitching barely holding an oar, here is a serious border guard helping tired people to drag a boat ashore, and here another passenger is looking forward hoping the sky will get lighter," Alexandra said proudly about the unique talented masters. "This work by a very young man was recognized as the best object at the Treasures of the North exhibition. Young people do come to us. Thus, the art will live on."
Every image is unique
Veronika Ergiro, the successor of local bone cutters has just returned to Anadyr from Bishkek bringing a gold diploma of the 17th Delphic Games among the CIS countries. The jury said her image on the fang, dubbed Native Land, was the best. Veronika has carved on the fang a story about Chukotka's most revered animals - a whale and a deer.
"My parents worked at the Uelen workshop as an engraver and a bone cutter, and I had learned a lot from them even before I studied Bone Carving at a Chukchi college," the girl said. "Well, when I travel, quite often people of my age get surprised. They say, "Oh! A bone cutter? Isn't it for the old Chukchi, isn't it a hobby, not a profession?" I disagree. I've got my college degree and I'm going to continue working as a bone cutter. Either in Anadyr, or I may return to my native Uelen. There, the thick fog is packed with inspiration. Just reach for it and take some."
Bone cutters get raw material from sea hunters, she continued. Normally, the cutters prefer to use walrus tusks like "canvas." Not every bone may suit though: it must be kept in a dark, cold room for at least two years. After that, the bone needs to be beaten, sanded, carefully polished, and only then images may be carved on it.
"Our standard images are the sea and tundra. However, it wouldn't be correct to think the audience is fed up with these scenes," Veronika said. "Every image is unique, it keeps the master's soul. Give me five images and I without mistaking will name their authors."
"This talent is in the blood"
Another well-known master Olga Manasbayeva agrees with Veronika. Back in the 1980s, Olga was a cleaner at Anadyr's municipal service center. She often watches bone cutters, but it never occurred that one day that craft would make her living. In the perestroika, most people in Chukotka faced poverty, and nobody at that time cared about crafts. Since the 2000s, the state has offered incentives to bone cutters.
"When there was literally nothing to eat, we were ready to gnaw those walrus bones. Nowadays, the masters are working hard: the young people do join, and mini-studios are opening in villages," Olga said. "For example, My Business Center - use it to take a grant and buy equipment. Or a marketplace in Moscow, leased by Chukotka's government - make and sell. I still can remember the time when I taught kids in the orphanage, where I worked, how to cut seals out of soap bars. Well, that's in the past, and the skills haven't vanished."
Olga says masters in Uelen share a unique talent to feel the world they show. "I have studied painting, composition, chiaroscuro, while Uelen's most masters have learned only from mom and dad," she continued. "But they don't need to study proportions or anatomy of a deer or polar bear, they don't need making sketches. That's their genetic memory working: their eyes and hands since childhood remember the beast's image - the beast that is frolicking, running away, or hit by a harpoon. This is not what they teach at academies. This talent is in the blood."
The Museum of Bone-Carving Art at the famous workshop in Uelen is currently under reconstruction: the upgraded building with interactive installations will welcome guests in late 2024. Many of them are foreigners - they cross continents to see still images of life, carved on bones.
When this material was almost ready for publication, the author learned that Uelen masters had won the Grand Prix of the 3rd International Festival - Bone-Carving Arts of the Peoples of the World. The event was held in Magadan in late October. It featured masters from Russia, China, Mongolia, Kyrgyzstan, Belarus and Kazakhstan.