By the 16th century, the formation of the peoples of the North of Western Siberia, who still live in the Tyumen Region, was completed.

Fur hunting was originally a secondary occupation — furs were used only to decorate clothes. However, in the 14th–15th centuries, the fur trade began to play a major role, because Russian and Oriental merchants were willing to buy furs. Furs have become the leading commodity exchange item.

The harvesting of pine nuts was significant for the life of the Ob Ugrians. The cedar tracts were in public ownership and the "knotting" took place in an organized manner, and at the same time for everyone. The collected cones were crushed and sifted. Woodworking and the production of birch bark utensils turned out to be the most stable of the traditional crafts. Cups, troughs for boiled fish, ladles and other utensils were made of wood, as well as skis, dugout boats, sleds, shafts for spears and arrows, musical instruments and much more.

The Siberian Nenets, who lived in the northern Tyumen tundra, had an original culture. In the XVII–XVIII centuries the Nenets began a rapid development of large-scale reindeer husbandry, which is probably due to a decrease in the number of wild deer. Herds of domestic deer have increased to several thousand heads. Domestic deer were bred to use meat, hides, bones, and more. By the 19th century, nomadic reindeer husbandry had become the main basis of the Nenets' entire life.

The Nenets have achieved great success in the bone-cutting business. The bones of deer and marine animals were used to make household utensils, arrowheads and spears, and bone ornaments that can be seen on the belts of modern Nenets shepherds.

The Nenets invented the chum, a dwelling ideally adapted to the cold and frequent migrations. The chum was constructed from cone-shaped poles and covered with fur sheets sewn from several deer skins. Khanty and Mansi peoples built birch bark chums.

Industrial fish processing is becoming another important industry for the northern regions. The mobile fish cannery M. D. was considered the largest fishing enterprise Plotnikov. In the summer, he conducted production directly at the fishing site in the Obdorsk area. To do this, materials for the manufacture of cans, oil, vinegar and other spices were delivered there in the spring by steamboats. With the end of the fishing season, production was moved to Tobolsk, where canned food was prepared from frozen fish. In 1912, production increased to 400,000 cans.

Valuable fish species were an important source of currency, which was used to purchase imported machinery and equipment. In 1923, all fish harvesting was transferred to the Fish Trust and the cooperative. Private fishing was prohibited. For the Khanty, Mansi, Komi, Nenets and Selkups, whose fishing was one of the main sources of livelihood, there was no choice left — either to join a cooperative or to abandon fishing.

The expansion of the USSR's foreign trade led to increased demand for Siberian furs, a traditional Russian export commodity.

The first collective farms appeared in the Ob North in 1929. In addition, several reindeer herding farms were established in the North. The consolidation of personal herds has led to a reduction in the number of deer in the region.

Over 150 shamans were repressed in the 1930s to destroy the traditional spiritual way of life and under the pretext of combating superstition.

In the late 1940s, half of the fish produced in the Siberian basin were caught on the territory of the region. The Tyumen fish had no equal in species composition among other large-scale fishing areas. Fish of valuable species were mainly harvested here on a commercial scale — muksun, pyjian, shchekur, grouse, nelma, sturgeon.

Tyumen furs brought great income to the state. Fishing for arctic fox, fox, sable, ermine, and otter was a traditional occupation of the local peoples. Every year, they extracted furs worth 12 million rubles at procurement prices, which were significantly lower than market prices and could not be compared with prices on the world market.

Before the October Revolution, the Khanty were on the verge of extinction. The establishment of Soviet power gave an impetus to the development of Khanty culture. The Khants, like the Mansi, had oral art. The most ancient genres of folklore are myths about the origin of the world and totemic legends. The Khanty mythology is dominated by the image of Numi-torym (the upper god and the upper sky), whose youngest son Mir-susne-humu subdued all the forest spirits on earth. Later, a heroic epic appeared — songs, sagas, and stories about military clashes between tribes and wars with other nations. Images of animals play an important role in folklore. Social-oriented fairy tales often criticize Russian merchants, tsarist officials, clergymen, as well as local princes, wealthy peasants, and shamans. The introduction of writing among the Khanty led to the creation of the first alphabets in 1930 and the appearance of the local press. The first works of this literature began to appear in various magazines, newspapers and other publications.

The status of the Nenets language is fixed by law in some regions: in the Nenets Okrug and Yamal, it can be used for office work.

Children are taught in Nenets in 20 Yamal schools: 6 schools in Yamal district, 6 schools in Nadymsky district, 4 schools in Priuralsky district, 4 schools in Tazovsky district, and 7 schools in Purovsky district (there are classes in tundra and forest dialects of the Nenets language).

They write literary works in Nenets, sing, and use it in the media. For example, the oldest newspaper in Yamal, Nyaryana Ngerm (nen. Nyaryana ӇErm) is published in the Nenets language. This edition has been published since April 19, 1931.

The Nenets did not have their own written language until the beginning of the 19th century. Even then, the texts published in Nenets were mainly needed for the Christianization of the Nenets by the Orthodox Church.

Language standards appeared only during the Soviet Union. And before that, there were so-called "tamgi" - generic signs to indicate property. In 1931, the first written language in the Nenets language was created in Leningrad. At the same time, the first primer in the Nenets language, Jadaj wada ("New Word"), was published.

The modern Nenets alphabet was adopted in the late 1950s. It is a Cyrillic alphabet expanded by the letter Ӈ and the signs: " (deaf taser, denotes a deaf guttural bowed sound) and ' (sonorous taser, denotes a sonorous guttural bowed sound).

All the necessary tools, dishes, and utensils were made by local craftsmen, but there were no specialized artisans yet. Khanty and Mansi were already well aware of the blacksmithing and foundry business. Iron was smelted from marsh ore in small furnaces, where the ore layers alternated with charcoal layers. In the furnaces, only holes were left for blowing air. After several hours of burning, the iron flowed down to the bottom and solidified in the form of a crumb. Gorenje. The furnace was broken down, iron was taken out and forged to remove air bubbles and coal residues. Weapons, fish hooks, etc. were forged from this iron.

There was also a traditional pottery production. The pottery was molded by hand, without a potter’s wheel, and decorated with geometric ornaments using special bone or wooden stamps. The finished dishes were baked in a bonfire.

The Khanty and Mansi people, especially their southern groups, were well acquainted with weaving. The fabric was made from nettle fiber, which was produced using a technology similar to flax processing. The nettles were crushed, carded, and spun into a thread. Then, on a primitive loom, fabric was made, which was used to make clothes. All these crafts almost completely disappeared in the 17th and 18th centuries, as cheaper and higher-quality fabrics, tableware, and iron products began to arrive from Russia.

The most sustainable of the traditional crafts turned out to be woodworking and the production of birch bark utensils. Cups, troughs for boiled fish, ladles and other utensils were made from wood, as well as skis, dugout boats, sleds, shafts for spears and arrows, musical instruments and much more. All wooden objects were made with a knife, an axe, and a simple bow drill. Birch bark served as a material for making shoulder boxes, in which loads were carried, women’s boxes for needlework, berry packs, etc. Dishes made of kapa, a woody outgrowth, which was very durable and durable, were especially appreciated.

The economic structure of each nation is well reflected in the types of dwellings used. The Nenets, for example, have invented a plague, a dwelling ideally adapted to cold weather and frequent migrations. The plague was constructed from placed, cone-shaped poles and covered with fur sheets sewn from several deer skins. There was a hearth in the middle of the plague, and a smoke duct at the top. The chuma design best suited the tundra conditions. Its conical shape made it resistant to strong winds and prevented snow from accumulating from above. In the severe cold, with the help of a hearth in the plague, it was possible to maintain the temperature the residents needed. Its assembly and disassembly took little time, which was important when migrating.

Unlike the Nenets, the Khanty and Mansi peoples built two main types of housing: dugouts and birch bark plagues. The dugout was a permanent home. It was built as follows: first, a square excavation was dug up to one and a half meters deep, four pillars were dug into the middle of the excavation, connected at the top by a square frame, to which poles, or scaffolds, were obliquely placed from the edges of the excavation, which were the walls of the dugout. Then the structure was lined with turf and earth. The finished dugout had the shape of a truncated pyramid. There was a hearth in the center of the dwelling, and bunks were made along the walls, on which people slept.

Birch bark plagues had a conical shape, the frame was made of poles, covered with birch bark sheets sewn from boiled, elastic pieces of birch bark. Birch bark plagues served as summer housing if you had to leave the village for fishing, collecting pine nuts, etc. They could be transported over long distances.

The Selkups also built karamo dugouts and birch bark plagues, which were slightly different in appearance and design from those of the Ob Mountains. The northern Selkups borrowed the classic tundra plague from the Nenets.

By the time they were incorporated into Russia, the peoples of northwestern Siberia had achieved quite significant development, although their economic base consisted mainly of non-productive forms of economy.

Western Siberia is the cradle of rich and distinctive cultures, the homeland of once—living and now-existing peoples. The Tyumen land also preserves traces of their stay. In the forest-steppe, taiga and tundra along the banks of numerous rivers and lakes, archaeologists find the remains of seasonal camps and long-term settlements of people from the Stone, Bronze and Iron Ages, ruins of ancient settlements.

Of the domestic productions, pottery was the most common. The vessels were hand-sculpted and decorated with simple but immediately recognizable patterns — a belt of triangles or simple zigzags. Along with the dishes of their own manufacture, imported ones were used — Central Asian, molded on a potter’s wheel. Bronze cauldrons, which were not available to everyone, were considered prestigious items.

Arrowheads, pads that increased the elasticity of bows, and plates were made from bone, which were used to make scaly shells that protected warriors in battle. Metalworking, which required special knowledge and skills, was most likely a typical craft production. The development of technologies for the production and processing of iron did not mean the decline of the bronze foundry. Not only various ornaments and horse harness details were cast from copper and bronze, but also Celts and battle arrowheads, which are in the quivers of warriors.

In the depths of the taiga, almost completely isolated from the violent events in the south, the old way of life was preserved at the beginning of the Iron Age. Around the middle of the first millennium BC, several cultural communities were formed here, the development of which reflects the formation of modern indigenous groups in Western Siberia. In the lower and partly middle reaches of the Ob River, the Ust-Po-Dui culture was formed at this time, apparently associated with the genesis of the ancestors of the Ob-Ugric peoples.

The Novgorod chronicles of the XI-XIV centuries mention the Khanty and Mansi regions under the same name "Yugra", "Ugra". Then the Mansi people began to be called "voguls" or "Vogulichs", and the term "Ugra" remained only for the northern Khanty. In the 16th century, the term "Ostyaks" appeared in Russian documents, which gradually spread to all Khanty. The Nenets were known as "Samoyeds", and the Selkups as "Ostyako-Samoyeds". The settlement of the West Siberian population in the 16th century differed significantly from the modern one. For example, the Mansi occupied very vast territories at that time: in the north, the border of their settlement ran along the Mezen and Pechora rivers, the southern border along the Ufa River and further through the places where now Yekaterinburg and Tyumen are located, in the west the Mansi lands reached modern Kazan, in the east they reached the middle reaches of the Irtysh.

The Khanty settlement area included the basins of Konda, Demyanka, and areas south of modern Tobolsk. Obviously, under pressure from the Mansi and the ancestors of the Siberian Tatars, the Khanty gradually moved to the east, pushing back the Selkups, whose territory, according to some sources, reached modern Surgut. The economic structure of each nation is well reflected in the types of dwellings used. The Nenets, for example, invented a plague, a dwelling ideally adapted to cold weather and frequent migrations. The plague was constructed from placed, cone-shaped poles and covered with fur sheets sewn from several deer skins. There was a hearth in the middle of the plague, and a smoke duct at the top. The chuma design best suited the tundra conditions. Its conical shape made it resistant to strong winds and prevented snow from accumulating from above. In the severe cold, with the help of a hearth in the plague, it was possible to maintain the temperature the residents needed. Its assembly and disassembly took little time, which was important when migrating.

Unlike the Nenets, the Khanty and Mansi peoples built two main types of housing: dugouts and birch bark plagues. The dugout was a permanent home. It was built as follows: first, a square excavation was dug up to one and a half meters deep, four pillars were dug into the middle of the excavation, connected at the top by a square frame, to which poles, or scaffolds, were obliquely placed from the edges of the excavation, which were the walls of the dugout. Then the structure was lined with turf and earth. The finished dugout had the shape of a truncated pyramid. There was a hearth in the center of the dwelling, and bunks were made along the walls, on which people slept.

Birch bark plagues had a conical shape, the frame was made of poles, covered with birch bark sheets sewn from boiled, elastic pieces of birch bark. Birch bark plagues served as summer housing if you had to leave the village for fishing, collecting pine nuts, etc. They could be transported over long distances.

The Selkups also built karamo dugouts and birch bark plagues, which were slightly different in appearance and design from those of the Ob Mountains. The northern Selkups borrowed the classic tundra plague from the Nenets.

By the time they were incorporated into Russia, the peoples of northwestern Siberia had achieved quite significant development, although their economic base consisted mainly of non-productive forms of economy.

Part of the indigenous population of the Yamalo-Nenets Autonomous District, like some other northern regions, continues to lead a traditional way of life: it exists thanks to the tundra and deer, and spends the night in the chums. But children from such families do not study in their own families (it is difficult to imagine full-fledged education in the tundra), but in boarding schools that are associated with civilization.

Such schools appeared in the USSR in the 1930s, and at first the nomads were not forced to send their children there, but in the early 1960s they began to take children to boarding schools without regard for the opinion of their parents. Similar establishments were created in other countries with nomadic local populations, for example, in Canada and the USA. And it’s not about the climate — there are boarding schools in Australia, where aborigines also refuse to live in one place and lead a nomadic lifestyle.

There are more than 30 boarding schools in the Yamalo-Nenets Autonomous District. Usually, there are about 40% of the total number of nomadic children in them, the rest are "village", that is, local children. They do not live in specialized buildings and, in fact, go to a regular school with the only feature — besides them, there are children who are away from their parents for 7 months a year. All children go to school in September, and finish their studies in April — at this time, nomads pass through the places where boarding schools are located and take the children with them.

Ugra is home to 33,807 people from among the small indigenous peoples — Khanty, Mansi and Nenets. About 7,000 of them are school-age children, who often have to be transported from remote camps and villages to their places of study by helicopters, river transport and all-terrain vehicles.

Russian Russians have 14 boarding schools in Ugra, where children of the indigenous peoples of the North study, and although there are special courses in the national language, this is not enough — it is still slowly being lost and replaced by Russian, to the point that the children already speak Russian at home," the social activist complains. "Besides, it is undeniable that that children, having become accustomed to the benefits of civilization, often do not want to return to their small Homeland after graduation.

The Siberian Nenets, who lived in the northern Tyumen tundra, had an original culture. In the 16th-17th centuries, the Nenets did not yet have an unambiguous predominance of reindeer husbandry. There were few domestic deer, and their meat was rarely eaten. Deer were mainly used as transport animals. Hunting and fishing were very important for the Nenets at that time. The Nenets hunted wild deer, waterfowl that nested on tundra lakes and swamps, and fur-bearing animals using bows, spears, and various traps of the same type as Khanty and Selkup. Waterfowl were usually hunted during molting, when flightless geese and ducks could be beaten with simple sticks. Adults and children went out on this hunt. Deer were hunted mainly at crossings: hunters attacked animals that crossed a water barrier during migration. Swimming deer are relatively helpless, and every hunter could take them in just the right amount. Deer meat was dried and smoked, providing themselves with food for a long time. The Nenets, who lived on the sea coast, hunted sea animals — seals, walruses, seals. This occupation was borrowed by them from the pre-Samoan population, which in Nenets legends is called "sikhirtya".

In the 17th and 18th centuries, the Nenets began the rapid development of large-scale reindeer husbandry, which was probably due to a decrease in the number of wild deer. Herds of domestic deer have increased to several thousand heads. Domestic deer were bred to use meat, hides, bones, and more. Nomadic reindeer husbandry has become the main basis of the entire Nenets life. But it happened two centuries later, that is, by the 19th century.

Unique materials for characterizing the occupations and everyday life of the northern groups of Ust-Poluyans who lived in the circumpolar zone were obtained during the excavations of the Ust-Poluysky settlement located in the modern Salekhard. The basis of their economy was hunting, fishing for sea animals and fishing. Fish were caught with nets and traps, beaten with bone spears, and hooked. At the places where deer crossed rivers in the autumn, "camps" were arranged, which made it possible to stock meat for the winter. It was also practiced to use a decoy deer, under the cover of which the hunter managed to approach the herd unnoticed. They hunted with bows and arrows, equipped mainly with bone tips: pointed, used for hunting animals and large birds, blunt — for shooting at animals with valuable fur, clawed — for huntingwaterfowl. Ust-Poluytsy could have hunted belugas on the Ob River, and walruses on the coast of the Gulf of Ob.

The Khanty and Mansi peoples supported their existence mainly by hunting and fishing. The Khants, who occupied the banks of large rivers, had a slightly higher share of fishing. The Mansi people, who lived in the upper reaches of the rivers on the eastern slopes of the Urals, were mainly engaged in hunting moose, whose migration routes passed through the Ural passes. In general, the hunting and fishing methods of these closely related peoples differed little.

The Ob Ugrians were typical hiking taiga hunters who hunted the beast. They chased deer and moose across the snow in winter, catching up on wide skis lined with otter hide so that they would not roll back when climbing the mountain. After the appearance of Russian merchants, skis began to be lined with reindeer camus, as otter skins became more profitable to sell than to use in agriculture. The hunter was armed with a bow with arrows, a short throwing spear and a knife. When hunting a bear, they used a massive spear with a long tip, a palm tree.

Capercaillies and grouse were caught with pressure traps and shot with bows. The most effective way to catch ducks and geese was a net that was installed vertically in specially cut clearings near lakes, where at a certain moment hunters covered the entire flock with it, which flew away after the sack.

Fur hunting was originally a secondary occupation — furs were used only to decorate clothes. However, in the 14th—15th centuries, fur farming began to play a major role, because Russians and Oriental merchants were willing to buy furs. Furs have become the leading commodity exchange item. Fur hunting was carried out with a bow with arrows, traps— circassians, kulems, loops, slops and crossbows — bows that were guarded on animal trails.

The main means of slavery in Khanty and Mansi were nets and seines woven from nettle fiber. Fishermen went out on hollowed-out boats — oblas, which are often found in burials of the Ob Ugrians of that time. During the fishing, a special waterproof burbot skin suit was used. Fishing rods with iron and bone hooks and spears were also known, which were used to beat fish at night with a torch. One of the most effective was the shut-off fishing method. Small rivers were blocked with special fences, leaving one or more narrow passages where muzzles made of thin cedar chips were inserted. Usually, the locks were used during the passage of the fish to spawn and back. A lot of fish were caught in the summer, ice fishing was less important. The fish was dried, smoked and salted. It was the main food of the Eels during the year.

The harvesting of pine nuts was significant for the life of the Ob Ugrians. The cedar tracts were publicly owned and "knotting" took place in an organized manner, and at the same time for everyone. The collected cones were crushed, sieved in large-mesh wooden sieves, screened and placed in winter storage. Pine nuts were a favorite treat and the best remedy, along with fresh blood for scurvy in winter. The southern groups of the Ob Ugrians — the Turin and Pelym Mansi, Irtysh Khanty — were also known for small-scale hoe farming, which had auxiliary significance.