Wednesday, March 28, 2007

The Arctic Indian Festival

This last weekend saw the annual Arctic Indian Festival in Novy Urengoy. Last year I missed this feast of ethnicity as I was having days off; and can you believe I have been coming to this place for a year already??? Time flies when you're freezing your rear off!!

Anyway I looked forward to this extravaganza with great anticipation. The Indians have been busy all winter long (that means from last August!!) making their trinklets and artisania to sell to the gringos and make enough money for their Vodka and ciggies for the coming year. What an opportunity for me to witness something not everybody gets to see, and buy stuff that will fascinate visitors to Casa Mellars.

So Saturday afternoon I ventured forth with my trusty interpreter to enjoy the sites. As we approached the area of the festival the music could be heard echoing off of the "picturesque" blocks of flats and Indian tepees could be seen, wow this looked promising!
However the closer we got the more I realized that the number of tepees was about three or four not the multitude advertised in local newspapers.
This is yours truly outside of one of the tepees. I actually looked inside, the place was dark, full of smoke from the fire, and stank like you wouldn't believe! A good photo op however.




The first interesting thing we saw was a pole about 30 foot high with boots attached to the top. This pole, as explained by my interpreter, is a much enjoyed competition for the local youth. They strip off to their undies(remember it may be Spring but it was still -20 outside) and then try to climb up the pole and snag a boot with a prize in it. However the pole is covered with grease.... just to make it a little more interesting! During the time we watched, about 15 minutes, many tried but only one managed to make it, as can be seen in the picture below.




Moving on we saw some Indian dancers and singers performing absolutely incomprehensible dances that even my interpreter didn't understand.



We then moved over to the artisania stands to buy some goodies. Ha! what a joke, the artisania consisted of things I wouldn't keep if they came out of a Christmas Cracker. Pure junk, in fact my interpreter showed me a trinklet with a "Made in China " sticker on the back!! The only thing I saw worth buying was a rather magnificent set of Reindeer antlers ( fortunately not still on the Reindeer) but the thieving bast.... gentleman wanted $300 for them. Needless to say I didn't buy them.

And basically that was it as far as the Indian part went. The rest of the site was covered with Shashlik stands (Shashlik is like Greek souflaki only giant size and is actually quiet tasty when cooked in hygienic conditions), and booze tents, filled with the inevitable drunk local men being held up by their ever faithful wives.

And I didn't get to see a live Reindeer

4 Comments:

At 9:23 AM, Blogger Jamie said...

Reindeer Antlers....wow....I bet that was interesting. But $300!! Damn...

So, the grease on the pole; if it was -20 out there, wasn't the grease more like ice?

 
At 12:26 AM, Blogger kelly said...

Made in China? the cheeks! Well all is fair in war and... raising money for booze!

Still, climbing a freezing cold pole with shorts, no gloves and no shirt at -20!!! and you didn't think that was fascinating?

I wonder what an ice inspired dance is like. Good photo of you outside the tepee.

Glad you are there to let us know what is happening in the hidden corners of the world

 
At 1:37 AM, Blogger The middle child said...

Awesome Pics! I would totally have climbed that pole. You only live/die once.

 
At 7:02 PM, Blogger kelly said...

Prematurely!

 

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