MOSCOW, May 25. /TASS Correspondent Dmitry Osipov/. Vera Tyrylgina has been managing the local history museum in the village of Kolymsky in Yakutia's northeast for more than 30 years. She is the only employee at the museum, which over past years has become a unique center of reindeer husbandry history with more than 3,000 exhibits.

"Under the star dome"

Kolymskoye is a small village on the Kolyma River near the place where Yakutia and Chukotka meet. The local population, fewer than 700 people, is mostly engaged in reindeer husbandry, hunting and fishing. It was a surprise to learn this village keeps the richest museum collection dedicated to people living in the North.

The museum in Kolymskoye was opened due to efforts of local residents in 1991, and Vera has been working there since the first day. Over 30 years, she has managed to collect about 3,000 objects. Most of them are related to reindeer husbandry - tools, clothing and utensils. The museum has its own yaranga - the Northern peoples' traditional portable dwelling, made of reindeer skins and embroidered by women from the "Turvaurgin" ("New Life") nomadic tribal community of reindeer herders.

- The stove in yaranga heats it up within just half an hour. It's warm inside even in 60-degree frosts. Reindeer herders use two types of housing — a winter tent and a yaranga. They leave the winter tent in the tundra, and they carry the light summer yaranga," said Vera - since childhood she learned how reindeer herders live: before school, she lived with her parents in the tundra and since then she enjoys staying "365 days under the star dome."

Vera was born in 1957. The family moved to the Nizhnekolymsky District from the neighboring Allaikhovsky village. After school, she took a year-long course gain skills in sales, and later on she worked in the retail sector for 16 years, until 1991.

"As the Perestroyka came, the trade faced hard times - stocks were running out, we had a coupon system. Before that, we in the village never experienced a shortage of sugar or flour - the supply was at the highest level. It was very embarrassing, I didn't want to offend customers," Vera said, explaining why she had changed the occupation.

Three people applied for the position of the museum head. "I was chosen out of the three candidates. Apparently, that was due to my active position - I had participated in amateur performances, was active in crafts," she said.

First exhibits

It took less than a month to prepare the museum opening. "We went to the elders, collected the material. We've received some items from the district's museum and culture department. At first we had 47 exhibits — household items, harnesses, gear, kitchen utensils. We have received traditional back stretchers to carry hay, brushwood, food, and fowl. That process took certain time: people used to come to the museum, saw that others had given something, and brought new objects to us. Must have realized it was worth leaving memories of themselves," she continued.

With time, the museum was getting new objects, typical for everyday life in the tundra. Ancient wooden bowls made of larch knurs, collected at reindeer herders' camps in the tundra.

"We were presented with a set that housewives used in the tundra - a hammer and a round stone in a special bag. It was used for crushing products, like frozen meat, fat, liver. The kit had kamus (reindeer skin) gloves, and all the items were in one bag so that they were not lost and remained clean. In the continuing roaming, ground meat was a kind of semi-finished product ready for consumption. It's like stroganina, though smaller in size," Vera explained.

Other rare exhibits included, for example, a safe-chest, dated back to the 18 - 19 centuries. In 1995, Anna Kaurgina, a housewife and mother of many children, gave to the museum an American-made lock, which she had found in the taiga. "The production date on the lock was 1895. Back then, was an active exchange with the American colonists, and no borders. A lot of things the Americans used to buy or exchange here," Vera said.

In Kolymsky, the Evens and Chukchi live side by side with the Yukaghirs and northern Yakuts, and also with descendants of Russian Cossack explorers. "We used to have a lot of professional hunters, famous and well-deserved. Dynasties of reindeer herders and hunters. Nowadays there's practically no hunting of fur-bearing animals, because this work has devalued - it is not profitable for hunters to get animals as costs for the skins are very low, and selling skins is not structured," she continued.

There are 15 deer per the village's every resident. The locals keep about 9,000 deer. In the Soviet years, the livestock was much bigger, the crisis occurred in the 1990s when the stock decreased significantly. Due to the Turvaurgin nomadic community, founded in 1993, the livestock has grown by now.

- In the Soviet years, the livestock at the largest Nizhnekolymsky state-run farm reached 36,000. During the Great Patriotic War (World War II), the Turvaurgin collective farm, like entire Yakutia, helped the front. The farmers even wrote a letter to Joseph Stalin asking him to use their collected funds to make a tank and have it named Turvaurginets. The tank was built - this is how people in a far-away village fought for the Victory," Vera said.

Traditions of the North

The museum has a lot of items related to hunting - wide skis, sledges, fishing nets, woven horsehair nets, floats made of larch root - durable and lightweight.

"Previously, sinkers were made of willow. Our ancestors cared for the surrounding nature, reservoirs; they all made own tools for work, fishing and hunting. Modern sinkers are made of steel and they contaminate reservoirs," she continued.

The most valuable exhibits are those handed over by the locals, especially the elders, she added.

"Every day is history, and this history is important to preserve. We have objects, with which reindeer herders have been roaming the tundra all their lives. For example, the Chukchi calendar - broken into quarters, made of one piece of wood, rectangular, compact, convenient for transportation. This calendar, in a good condition, is more than 100 years old. The museum has an old board for making fire - milgamyl. Valuable exhibits include reindeer herders' belongings: chouts (lasso), drovers, bridles, in which deer antlers are used," she said.

Vera is well-known for her social activities. For example, in March, she was an expert at the international reindeer herding championships in Yakutia's Neryungrinsky District. With other local experts she judged the Chum (traditional tent) Mistress competition.

- Women keep life in the tundra. There would be no life there without women. Everything depends on her: she will dress her husband, shoe him, feed him, soothe a crying child, will cure a disease, will carve up a deer carcass in minutes, will clean the fish and, of course, will offer tea in freezing winter.

Vera is skilled in crafts. She makes great fur hats, riding gloves of wolverine, a Chukchi leather ball, stuffed with deer wool. She embroiders on suede, makes appliques, small beads jewelry. Now she is sewing a beads bag. She told us how she loves to cook dishes from game, yukola, balyks. She dreams to publish a recipe book. Since 2001, she has been working on a book about the native village. It has not been published yet. "Waiting for its time to come," she told us.

Movies in the tundra

Vera says her work with children is very important. She tells kids about history of their village - at lessons at the museum. She also works with the elder generation. She bringing to them the so-called "exhibition in a case" and tells history of the objects in the case.

The museum pays a lot of attention to work with reindeer herders, to whom Vera gets on a snowmobile. She demonstrates to them historical and modern movies. Every year she comes to the herders when they are busy with annual counting and veterinary procedures, and also when herders head for the tundra in spring.

What upsets the museum is its run-down house of 1954. "It's just very cold in winter," Vera said. "The temperature drops below zero. I have to dress warmly. But this summer we will have a renovation, and the culture department has sent to us 10 radiators, so I hope it will get warmer."

The village, she told TASS, although well-maintained, has become outdated in recent years, and people choose to leave. "Young people do not want to live in the village, they go to the city. Therefore, the population is getting smaller, and fewer children are born. I would like, of course, to have our village renovated, and not only ours, especially the housing."

Meanwhile, Vera is not going to flee the village and hopes for the best. "I love my land, my village, and - most importantly - my job. This is my brainchild. Every object passes through my heart. Therefore, the museum work is endless. No matter how much I work, there's no end to it. I am happy my work will not vanish, it will remain, and there will be successors," she said in conclusion.