Nenets Autonomous Area

Representation of the district

Nenets Autonomous Area is a very ambitious Russian region for its unique culture, traditions, unlimited territory, reindeer’s breeding and huge quantity of hydrocarbon material and the Arctic sea access.

This year, 2014, NAA is celebrating the 85^th jubilee.

Geography

The district is around 320 km from north to south and around 950 km from east to west. It stretches from Mys Bolvansky Nos in the north to the source of the Oma river in the south and from Cape Kanin Nos in the west to the banks of the Kara river in the east. The Barents sea, the Pechorskiy sea, the Kara sea and the White sea wash the area.

• The whole district’s territory is 176,81 thousand km² (including islands Vaigach and Kolguev, peninsulas Yugorskiy and Kanin.)

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Climate

• Almost the full Area’s territory is to the north of the Arctic Circle(or a polar circle) and has arctic and subarctic climatic zones.
• The average January temperature is -22°(north-east), -12°(south-west), -18° (Naryan-Mar).
• The average temperature in July does not exceed +15 °.

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Climate

Winter

Spring

Summer

Autumn

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The weather can be unpredictable, and there is no spring or autumn in a traditional idea.

Winter

Winter is the longest season extending up to 9 months and can be very severe(the temperature record is -54°). But how beautiful our winter can be! Have you ever seen the aurora? It is a natural light display which is more often met in the high latitude (Arctic and Antarctic regions). Our Area generously lets us observe this amazing phenomenon.

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Also our region gladdens us with such unusual and unique phenomena as Midnight day and Polar night. The Polar night occurs when the night lasts for more than 24 hours. The opposite phenomenon, the Polar day, or midnight sun, occurs when the sun stays above the horizon for more than 24 hours

�Foundation

• The Nenets District was founded on July 15, 1929.
• On October 07, 1977 it was renamed into Nenets Autonomous District.
• According to the Constitution of the Russian Federation, it became an equal subject of our country in 1993. At the same time its territory and population were included into the Arkhangelsk oblast.

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Population

• The total population is 43 thousand people(2014)
• The Population Density - 0.24 persons/ Km² (2014).
• There are 73 nationalities.
• Ethnic groups(2010)
• Russians 66.1%
• Nenets: 18.6%
• Komis: 9%
• Others: 6.3%

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Politics and symbols

NAD’s coat of arms

The flag

Igor Koshin

• The district is administratively divided into one district (Zapolyarny District) and one town of district significance(Naryan-Mar).
• The Nenets Autonomous District has 1 town (Naryan-Mar), 1 urban-type settlement (Iskateley), 42 rural settlements.
• The governor of the district is Igor Koshin.
• The legislature is Assembly of Deputies.

Capital

• During the last years it is being heavily rebuilt with new modern structures which positively transform the town’s image.

• The district’s capital, its center and the only town in NAD- Naryan-Mar- has 23 thousand people.
• Naryan Mar was officially named as a town in 1935, but the settlement was founded in 1931 for the Seaport needs.
• Originally, the settlement was called Naryan-Mard-“a red town”, but later the last letter was removed for the easiness.

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Economy

• The economy of Zapolyarny district is rich in oil and gas which makes 99% of all industrial activity within the whole District.
• NAD holds an exceptional place among northern regions in hydrocarbon’s reserves as only 10% of oil and 1% of gas have been consumed.
• More than 90% of the Area’s budget is filled by means of oil.

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The Pechora river

It is 1,809 kilometers long and its basin is 322,000 square kilometres.

It provides the district’s tenants with the tastiest Atlantic Salmon(Semga) and many other kinds of fish(sig, ryapushka etc).

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Flora and fauna

Cloudberry

Arctic fox

Polar bear

Lemming

Boletus edulis

Willow ptarmigan

The tundra is a major zone which is a home for lots of animals, mushrooms, berries(the most famous and valuable one is cloudberry) and plants. The most numerous animals are: reindeer, lemming, arctic fox. Also polar bears and elks can be met.

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Indigenous population

The Nenets depend heavily on their reindeer herds, using them for food, clothing, tools, transportation, and more as they migrate more than a thousand kilometers across the tundra every year.

The Nenets, or Samoyeds, are a native people in northern arctic Russia which have kept their traditional way of life unchangeable despite the globalization. Their population numbers 1/5 of the district’s one and equals about 8000 people.

Reindeer meat is the most important part

of the Nenets' diet.

Reindeer

Reindeer eat special kind of moss, yagel, which has got the name “reindeer lichen” because of it.

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Reindeer, besides being the major factor of the nenets’ survival, has a delicious meat which is appreciated not only by district’s inhabitants but experts from all over the world. You can find venison in best restaurants of big cities.

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Meat Processing Plant

Naryan Mar’s Meat Processing Plant’s

(Naryan-Marskiy Myasokombinat) production has won a lot of prizez for its taste and naturalness, it’s a visiting card of the NAA.

Culture

The culture of our district is rich and original as there are lots of creative groups which have a special character and an outstanding talent.

For already 50 years the Nenets folk song and dance ansamble "Hayar" has been showing the spectators the best which nenets’ traditions have.

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The Vyacheslav and Maya Smirnovs folk choir of Russian song.

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Culture

One of the oldest and leading creative teams of the Nenets Autonomous District –

Folk Dance Ensemble "Youth of the North"

“Severyanna” ensemble is the only professional one in our district.

These creative teams are just a small part of all creative individuals which deserve to be known.

Local Museum

The Nenets Local Museum is full of exhibits which reflect district’s historical, natural and cultural development and way of life of the indigenous people through years . There are archaeological finds, works of art or craft, documents and visual materials, recording the historical events of the area.

Pustozyorsk

Chapel of Avvakum with a refectory

Memorial sign on the supposed place of the burning of Avvakum

Pustozersk - the oldest Russian settlement on the Pechora river, the first Russian town north to the Arctic Circle. It is located on the shores of Lake Gorodetsky. It was founded in 1499 by order of Tsar Ivan III. During 16 – 18 it was a big settlement, economic, cultural and administrative center of the Pechora region. Since the XVIII century, gradually lost its importance. In 1924, the town lost its status and was finally abandoned in 1962.

The Pustozyorsk monument

Attractions

The YAK-7B monument

The feat of members of reindeer- transport battalions during the Great Patriotic War monument.

A monument is a type of structure that commemorates a person or an important event. The Great Patriotic War is the most important and frightful event our country has ever had, the thing which can’t be forgotten. It touched all the corners of our Motherland, including so remote as Nenets Autonomous Area.

Attractions

Walking along Naryan Mar, you can come across the monuments reminding us how brave our soldiers were, building peace for us.

Mass media

It has been widely developing for last years so that you can know about all happening in our area using your preferable source: radio, TV or Internet.

Narjana Wonder

• Exactly this name had the oldest newspaper of our district originally, in 1929.

• The way it looks in 2014, celebrating 85^th anniversary together with Nenets Autonomous District.

• The newspapers is in russian but once a week it publishes a page in Nenets “Yalumd”.

Sports

The Sports which our countrymen are successful in.

These kinds of sports bring NAA medals from russian and even international competitions.

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Box

National kinds of sports

Taekwondo

Skiing

National kinds of sports

The northern all-round events(Severnoye mnogoborye) are a traditional sport of native peoples of the North. It is a unique cultural feature of our region showing nenets’ way of life, entertainment. It contains 5 kinds:

• cross with the stick,
• throwing of the sport axe for a distance,
• jumps across the narts (nenets’ sledge),
• throwing of the tynzey (or tynzyan, or maut, or arcan) for a precision
• the triple national jump.

For more than 20 years in Iskateley’s school has been functioning the section of this kind of sports, which grew up a lot of champions and masters of sports(the former students of our school: Chernyaev Evgeniy, Kotkin Denis, Durkin Nikita) under the leadership of Kotkin Alexey.

Interesting facts

• NAD is the least populated federal subject.
• Pustozyorsk is the first Russian town north to the Arctic Circle.
• NAA has the densest river system in Russia.
• Our region is the foggiest in Russia(up to 100 foggy days a year).
• Our motherland’s name can be translated into English by 3 ways:
• as Nenets Autonomous Area(NAA),
• Nenets Autonomous District(NAD),
• Nenets Autonomous Okrug(NAO, as Wikipedia says).

Used internet-resources

• Сайт Администрации НАО
• ЧУМотека
• Свободная энциклопедия
• Нарьян-Мар сити
• The Atlantic

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The work has been made by Kotkin Denis,

the graduate of “MBOU SOSH Iskateley settlement”, presently the 3^rd-year student of Herzen University

2014

Happy anniversary, our favourite area, district and okrug!