March is the best month for the explorers to visit Yamal and to observe the Reindeer Herder’s celebration. The Reindeer Herder’s Festival is a one-day occasion, celebrated yearly in the Salekhard and Aksarka, the two significant towns inside the Yamalo-Nenets district in the Russian Arctic. In 2020, the celebration will happen on March 28th in Salekhard and April 4th in Aksarka town. For the nomadic Nenets people, a celebration day is a significant occasion, which offers an opportunity to meet with companions and contend in challenges of physical aptitude and an assortment of different rivalries.
It has likewise become an occasion in which the Nenets can impart to the world an interesting slice of their special culture, which has remained moderately unaltered. On this visit, not only will you witness the Reindeer Herders’ Festival in Yamal, you can also stay with a Nenet family a long way from the city, giving you an astounding chance to completely inundate yourself in the nomadic lifestyle and on the off chance that you are sufficiently fortunate, you can witness the beauty of Northern Lights.
Reindeer Herder Festival Day
Upon the arrival of the celebration, a large number of Nenets and Khanty plunge on Salekhard. It is a huge festival, a big get-together for the typically separated wanderers and an unfathomable exhibition, with reindeer sleigh races, reindeer wrangling, wrestling rivalries, and a beauty contest for the ladies in their best customary dress.
The Reindeer Herder Festival is the most significant occasion of the year for Yamal’s Nenets and Khanty. Herders from everywhere throughout the tundra carry their families to Salekhard to sell their artworks and different products, meet with companions, and contend in the rough-and-tumble contents of physical ability. Normally, the herders accompany their “chums” (conventional tents) and reindeer, with little kids wrapped firmly in covers to shield them from the ice.
Meandering the celebration grounds, you will have the option to pop inside the chums and taste the special Arctic delights, for example, “stroganina” (cloudberry jam) and obviously, reindeer meat. And you will be impressed by the Nenets and Khanty ladies dressed in their unadulterated white snow conventional outfits.
Reindeer Herder Festival in Salekhard and Aksarka
A few people keep on asking which makes the better occasion between Reindeer Herder Festival in Salekhard and one in Aksarka. Frankly, the two festivals are lovely and fascinating. The main contrast is that the festival in Salekhard is more formal with the support of local specialists, a greeting of columnists and TV, and so on. However, Festival in Aksarka is more comfortable without authentic appointments and long talks. There are also similar challenges and normally same members on both occasions.
Reindeer Herder Festival for Nenets and Khanty People
It is like an Oscar ceremony for film industry, though more significant in a sense. Simply envision that individuals were meandering for the entire year far away from civilization and considerably different nomads. They normally have 1,000 – 3,000 reindeers in each family, so they cannot go near one another to have enough nourishment for the reindeer, and during the year, they interact with their family only.
That is the reason why Nenets and Khanty people make a big deal out of this festival. It is their only chance to see companions, to show their children that were brought into the world after the last celebration, to purchase fuel, prescriptions, apparatuses, and other stuff, to win a snowmobile in rivalries or to discover a spouse.
After the celebration, you will have the chance to visit “stoybische” (camp of reindeer herders) in 50 – 100 kilometers from the city to go through the night in chum, to figure out how to cook customary Nenets and Khanty foods, to see reindeer crowd, to encounter how these individuals live in their regular day to day existence, and to watch Northern Lights.
In the event that you travel to Reindeer Herder Festival in Salekhard or Aksarka, you will have the most grounded charge of positive feeling for the entire year. So, collect your money and go to the Reindeer Herder Festival in Yamal.