Disappeared Herds: The Loss of Reindeer Herding in the Evenki Community of Western Yakutia During the Soviet Era

The impact of Soviet modernization on the lives of Indigenous peoples of the North remains a key topic for researchers. Of particular interest is how these projects transformed the traditional way of life and cultural foundations of Indigenous communities. This article examines the transformation of reindeer herding during the Soviet period and how Soviet policies and large-scale industrial programs reshaped the lives of nomadic communities in the North. Specifically, the study focuses on the history of the loss of reindeer herding in the Sadynsky National Evenki nasleg of the Mirninsky District in the Republic of Sakha (Yakutia). The article examines how reindeer herding was organized in the 1960s and the conditions that herders in the nasleg faced at that time. It also analyzes the social, economic, and other factors that influenced the industry’s decline in the 1970s and investigates the reasons behind the collapse of traditional reindeer herding in the Sadynsky nasleg. This study is based on archival documents from the Sadynsky National Evenki nasleg, held in the Municipal Archive of the Mirninsky District of the Sakha Republic (Yakutia) in Mirny town, as well as the memoirs of local residents and field materials collected by the author between 2019 and 2021. While most studies on nomadic communities focus on those where reindeer herding persists, this article shifts the focus to a community that has completely lost its primary traditional livelihood and for which the revival of reindeer herding is important. The novelty of this study lies in its focus on communities where reindeer herding has been lost, a perspective often overlooked in other research. This research deepens our understanding of the impact of Soviet modernization projects on Indigenous peoples.