SPECIAL ISSUE:
ALSO IN THIS ISSUE:
Indigenous Peoples of Siberia. Marriage and family:“...With Siberian peoples, love matches happened sometimes but on very rare occasions”
The Khights of the Taiga:“…No other nation has such highly developed inherent principles of decency as the Tunguses”
Description of the Yakut Custom of Sacrifice
Russian Siberians of the 18th Century and Alcoholism:“…in 1733 remuneration for the head of Okhotka port was 300 rubles, 100 chetverts of bread and 1,300 liters of vodka”
“Of the many pleasant ways I traveled in Siberia, the Nerchinsk road was the most jolly. Natural superiorities of that land contributed to this impression a good deal. From time to time, hills and valleys showed pleasantly amid the steppes strewn with gorgeous flowers; no thick forests interfered with your sight but a certain thing could be seen a few miles ahead and the same distance behind you; near springs and rivers, which were plenty and whose water was extremely clean, we came across nomads - the Russians were few among them, they were mostly local natural inhabitants like the Buryats and Tungus – who moved with their numerous cattle from one productive meadow to another, much like the peoples of the early ages. Very useful for us was that these pagans, whom we often had to contact, treated us with such warmth and respect that we could not expect anything better even from the most polite peoples. They drove to us herds of horses, both for riding horses and for harnessing in carts, and chose for us the very best. <…> They supplied us with all the foodstuffs they had, and in such abundant quantity that all our company could hardly consume half of the calves and sheep they gave us.”
by G. F. Mueller (St Petersburg Branch
of the Archive of the Russian Academy of Sciences,
c. 21, l. 5, f. 63, pp. 91o. — 92 o.)
