Expedition Avannaa aims to provide life-changing opportunities to indigenous communities in isolated polar, subarctic, alpine and desert areas. It does this through explorational, educational and cultural projects oriented at preserving and reviving traditions, values and the spirit of the communities.
Central Asia meets Greenland. Kyrgyzstan. Photo © 2012 Galya Morrell
Please, take a moment and meet some of the artists with whom we are working today. They are people of all ages, from very young to very old, who despite the hardships of their own life keep helping others in their communities to live in peace and harmony. “Clap your hands when air is cold! Clap your hands when wind is biting! Clap your hands when days are short! Clap your hands when your heart is sad This is a secret of a long and happy life”, says our friend, Anna Rintuvie, the artist from Chukotka who have birth to 10 children and saw it all. “If you do it, she says – cold will not be very cold and Dark will not be too dark!”
Clap your hands when it’s cold! Chukotka. Photo © 2013 Galya Morrell
There are many people like Anna in the small settlements of the North. Praskovia Petrovna Matannakova is 93. She sews out of birch bark. Her memory is sharper than her needle and her eyes are like scanners: she notices the smallest things, invisible to others. She says: «Life is hard, but people make it harder than it is. One can spend years on complaining and pitying oneself and lose his time which is the biggest asset. Don’t eat too much. Don’t hate. Work. Use your hands. Use your heart. Remember your past. Share. Love.» Praskovia is the Sun of Debdirge, a small settlement in Yakutia, Siberia – the Sun that is never too tired to shine.
Photo © 2013 Galya Morrell
Maria Vlasievna Petrova from Tuora-Kiel, another small settlement in Yakutia, is 91. She is blind. And yet, she still makes these masterpieces! She started to sew from birch bark at an early age of 6 – to survive and not to starve to death. She went through war and hunger. She went through loss of her children. But she never had a «depression», she never hated nor blamed others. What is her secret? “Don’t be lazy, and share with others!» What was her worst life experience? The death of her father. She was a child when he died. Everyone was gone to the front. She was all alone with her dead father in the empty house. She needed to figure out how to build a coffin and bury him in the frozen land. «That was the hardest», she says. But the hardships did not ruin her heart, they just quenched her character like steel.
Praskovia Petrovna Matannakova, 93, Yakutia, Siberia. Photo © 2013 Galya Morrell
Anna Nikolaevna Akimova is 81, or so she thinks.Till recently she did not have a birth certificate, because like Praskovia and Maria, she is an orphan. From the young age of 5 she learned to handle the needle and never stopped since. But of course, not only did she sew – but she also milked cows, rode horses, irrigated land and cooked for a community of 80. When the war started in 1941, she was 7. She worked at the job of an adult man; all men were gone to the front. For her work she received only a half-cup of empty soup. In the fall, children were allowed to go onto kolkhoz fields and dig into mice’s holes. «Mice are hard workers. And their holes were full of little grains. Stalin could not persecute them for «stealing» from kokhoz field – so they were richer than us, people. The day when I found a «hole» was the biggest celebration. This was happiness!»
Anna Akimova, 81. Yakutia, Siberia. Photo © 2013 Galya Morrell
Anna created the collection of Yakutian national costumes which are now kept in her privately owned museum in Tuora-Kyuyol. She payed for the museum out of her pension which is scarce. This museum looks like a yurt but is build of wood instead of skins. Anna was collecting penny by penny from month to month to buy materials and pay for construction of the museum.
The first private museum of national costume in Yakutia. Photo © 2013 Galya Morrell
Anfisa Sharipova, 81, is a Mari. She is a doctor and an artist. She lived in Chukotka for over 50 years and saved many souls in the worst years of GULAG. Now she saves souls through her art. She says: “Many things can go wrong in life … not exactly as you planned. You can blame them on your nearest ones, or you can blame them on the snowfall, or you can blame them on the wind… But why to blame at all? Why not to make art instead and make life beautiful?”
Anfisa Sharipova, a Mari artist living in Chukotka. Photo © 2013 Galya Morrell
Valery Vykvyragtyrgyrgyn is a great carver from Chukotka. He is an artist, a dreamer and a doer who works with those who are in pain, who are in need. He teaches them the old wisdom of life. “Everyone has fears. Fears can be huge. Fears seize us at night: fears of death… fears of not buying shoes on sale… Can we confront our own fears? In the Arctic countries we fear the polar bear. He is so smart and fast – he can catch you in a blink of an eye. So what to do? Try to be taller than him! He can be twice your height. It does not matter. It’s all about your attitude! Stand on your tip-toes and scare him! Scare your own fear away – and then he will go too!”
Valery Vykvyragtyrgyrgyn, the great carver of Chukotka. Photo © 2013 Galya Morrell
And this is Shektikan Iskakova, 82, an artist from Karakol, Kyrgyzstan. All her life she baked bread and raised children. She was born in Ichke-Bulun – small settlement in Kyrgyzstan. She laughs like a child. What’s the secret of her youth we asked her? And what’s your secret of an artist? “Don’t trash. Give new life to old things. Remake them. And by doing it you will reinvent yourself”.
Shektikan Iskakova, an artist from Central Asia. Photo © 2012 Galya Morrell
Nikolai Kristensen lives in Nuussuaq – a remote settlement in Upernavik District in Northwestern Greenland. We met him by pure chance when we were caught by storm and he offered us shelter. He makes dresses out of beads. He does not make plans, designs, or outlines. He makes his dresses out of cheap little beads and out of pure love of his heart. He can not predict what will happen with these little beads next morning: he just touches them and miracle happens.
Nikolai Kristensen. Artist from Nuussuaq, Northern Greenland. Photo © 2012 Galya Morrell
When you look at his room, you see all these kittle beads spread chaotically around the floor, tables, window-shelves and all other flat and not-so-flat surfaces. They look like dust. As meaningless and boring as dust can be. But then something happens. Then – all of a sudden – they come together, one by one. Thousands, they come into one and miraculously turn into a masterpiece that one can not understand or analyze.
Nikolai Kristensen. Bead dresses. Nuusuuaq, Northern Greenland. Photo © 2012 Galya Morrell
And then comes the young generation. They live so far from “civilization that they have to create so many things – that elsewhere could be bought in a store – with their own hands. From toys to clothes to artwork. And where do they learn from? From the elders! These old grandmothers and grandfathers are not being paid by anyone, but they do this work with the children – so the the history can continue. So the the language, songs, stories, skills, and values and survive in the turbulent times. At the young age of 11, these children can sew from the birch bark and horse’s tail and make masterpieces from anything that just lies on the ground around them – feathers, small pieces of fur, grass and even mud. They do it without any special instruments – just with their hands. Look at the Yakutian chair – it is made with no single nail – like all Yakutian houses are. It’s an ancient wisdom .. and we can not afford it to be lost!
11 year old Artist from Taatta, Yakutia, Siberia. Photo © 2013 Galya Morrell
These young kids, ages 11-14, can make artworks that many museums in the world would be proud of. But then – they can also fly in the air like white cranes… The mystical white cranes of Siberia.
A young dancer in Hangalas, Yakutia. Photo © 2012 Galya Morrell
But if you only knew how hard life can be here. – 60C in the winter (= – 90F), no indoor toilets, no running water. In the summer – due to the climate change – one has to dig trenches just to be able open the gate of one own’s house. Yakutia is flooded. Permafrost is melting. But no matter what people don’t give up.
Izabella Elyakova. The artist from Taatta, Yakutia. Photo © 2013 Galya Morrell
They have their dreams – even though there are no roads to pursue them. Material roads. But when these young kids have old people next to them – the tradition-keepers, we know that their land will not fall apart. They will grown up, will take over and will learn to create art from nothing – like Nikolay Elyakov does from this wheel-chair. So that life can be beautiful.
Two generations.Yakutia, Siberia. Photo © 2013 Galya Morrell
There are no stages, but why would this matter? Absence of “real” stage is no excuse! They dance and perform on the muddiest ground on earth – but they do it with dignity, passion and hope.
10 year old Ballerina in Yakutia. Photo © 2013 Galya Morrell
Stage can be the snow. Or the sea ice. Or just the road. These children from Chukotka – Chukchi, Yupic, Evenks and others perform in one of the harshest climates on Earth. -35C + 97% humidity + 40m/sec wind gusts – who else can do it? They just need to know that they are being heard too. Young citizens of Chukotka, they say that they are proud of their land. But they would like to travel more than they do today. “One of the first places I would like to go to, – says 9-year old Kiriusha, is Greenland. Why? Because I heard that people who live there are almost like us.”
Childrens’ Home Folk Ensemble in Chukotka. Photo © 2013 Galya Morrell
And that’s exactly why we are trying to build bridges between lands and people who live so far away from each other. Because regardless the great distances these people are no strangers to each other.Their hearts beat in unison – because they have never lost their connection with great nature and with the wisdom of their ancestors. We are just helping them to meet each other.
Greenland Week in Chukotka. Photo © 2013 Galya Morrell
