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Komi reindeer herding: the effects of socialist and post-socialist
change on mobility and land usepor_108 282..297
Mark J. Dwyer1 & Kirill V. Istomin2

1 Department of Geography, University of Cambridge, Downing Place, Cambridge, CB2 3EN, UK

2 Max Planck Institute for Social Anthropology, Advokatenweg 36, DE-06114 Halle/Saale, Germany

Abstract

This paper contributes to the discussion concerning the way in which Soviet
state policies have influenced the lives, social organization, economy and
culture of a group of indigenous Komi reindeer herders of northern Russia: its
main focus is to explain how these policies have changed the herders’ patterns
of migration and land use. Extensive anthropological fieldwork—to determine
current and past herding practices—was carried out and archives were thor-
oughly investigated to document land use changes in relation to state reindeer
herding policies. It was found that compared with those of several decades ago,
the migration routes are now much shorter, as the herders have abandoned
large areas of winter pastures located in the southernmost part of their herding
territory. This “abandonment” phenomenon is endemic amongst reindeer
herders generally, throughout the Komi Republic. Whereas the reasons for the
abandonment of winter pastures are diverse, they can be attributed mostly to
the state sedentarization policy, which has modified the family structures of
herders, and the continuing decreases in state subsidies that have changed the
balance between state and private ownership of reindeer. Both these factors
have greatly contributed to the herders’ dependence on visiting towns, where
they now own flats, and on selling reindeer products, upon which they are
increasingly reliant for financial security.

Keywords
Komi; post-socialism; reindeer herding;

Russia; social change; socialism.

Correspondence
K. V. Istomin, Max Planck Institute for

Social Anthropology, Advokatenweg 36,

DE-06114 Halle/Saale, Germany. E-mail:

istomin@eth.mpg.de

doi:10.1111/j.1751-8369.2009.00108.x

The effect of state policy upon the life, social organization
and culture of aboriginal peoples has been one of the
most important topics of research in Siberian anthropol-
ogy (Fondahl 1989; Slezkine 1994), particularly since the
break-up of the Soviet Union (Ventsel 2005: 24–25).
Indeed, a vast body of literature exists describing how the
socialist and post-socialist policies of the Soviet Union/
Russian Federation have influenced the aboriginal
peoples of the Russian North (for a review see Ventsel
2005). It has often been observed that at the state level
both Soviet and, to a lesser degree, post-socialist Russian
policies towards these peoples were highly centralized,
uniform and inflexible, and paid little attention to the
local circumstances and particularities of individual
communities (e.g., Fondahl 1989; Shindler 1991; Slezk-
ine 1994). For example, there were attempts to organize
a post-Soviet clan-based administration for peoples
without clans (Pavlov 2003). However, a number of
studies undertaken during the last decade have demon-
strated that the interpretation of these state policies

varied significantly in different parts of the Soviet/
Russian North, and sometimes led to markedly different
effects, even among different groups of the same people
in the same region (e.g., Gray & Stammler 2002; Stam-
mler & Ventsel 2003; Klokov 2004).

One example, which has received relatively little
detailed attention, is the impact that Soviet/Russian state
policy has had on the land use strategies and migration
patterns of northern nomadic reindeer herding peoples. It
has been documented that the central Soviet administra-
tion generally regarded nomadism as a backward way of
life, which, although tolerated for economic reasons, was
generally viewed as being inconsistent with modernity
and destined to disappear (Fondahl 1989; Slezkine 1994;
Vakhtin 1994; Golovnev & Oshirenko 1999; Konstanti-
nov 2002). Therefore, up until the beginning of the
1980s, local authorities throughout the Russian North
were urged to apply policies that would foster sedentary
living. They achieved this by providing reindeer herders
with free flats in villages, forcing the transition from

Polar Research 28 2009 282–297 © 2009 The Authors282

mailto:istomin@eth.mpg.de


“family nomadism” to “productive nomadism” (i.e., the
system in which male and some female members of rein-
deer herding families move, while the majority of female
members and children pursue a settled way of life in a
town or village), as well as introducing “shifting pastur-
ing” (Fondahl 1989; Krupnik 2000; Jernsletten & Klokov
2002). “Shifting pasturing” refers to the system in which
several different groups of reindeer herders (mostly male)
alternate between undertaking pasturing shifts in the
tundra (lasting from one to three months), and periods of
rest with their settled families in a village. Furthermore,
the direct intervention of the state specialists in determin-
ing migration routes and schedules, which happened in
many places, more often than not decreased the length
of migrations, and bound them to a region around the
sedentary bases of the enterprises (Syrovatskij 1975;
Anderson 2000; Gray 2005; Ventsel 2005). It was only
towards the middle of the 1980s that the transition from
family to productive nomadism was officially recognized
to be neither economically viable nor socially helpful in
all regions (Zabrodin 1980). The degree and consistency
with which these policies were carried out varied sub-
stantially from one region to another, and therefore
affected reindeer herding groups in very different ways.
For example, the Soviet policy implementation for the
European and Yamal groups of Nenets reindeer herders
resulted in a decrease in the length of their annual
nomadic migrations, and an increase in the time spent
in proximity to the “sedentary bases” (Golovnev &

Oshirenko 1999; Tuisku 2002; but see Stammler 2005 for
an opposing view), whereas the migration patterns of the
Yenisey group of Nenets apparently remained unchanged
(Klokov & Šustrov 1999). Interestingly, post-socialist
transformations—which included the lifting of the state
“sedentarization” policy and the endorsement of nomad-
ism in official discourses—also affected the Yamal and
European Nenets in different ways. Whereas the Yamal
Nenets’ migration routes remained similar to those of
the late Soviet period (Golovnev & Oshirenko 1999) and,
according to Stammler (2005), the pre-Soviet period, the
migration routes of the European Nenets have signifi-
cantly changed (Tuisku 2002). This shows that detailed
regional studies are needed in order to understand better
the effects that state policy may have on mobility and
land use.

This paper focuses on documenting and explaining
changes in the migration pattern of a community of Komi
reindeer herders, who inhabit the eastern part of the
Bol’šezemel’skaja tundra and the northern part of the
Komi Republic (formerly known as the Komi Autono-
mous Soviet Socialist Republic [ASSR]), in the north-east
of the European part of the Russian Federation (Fig. 1).

The primary aims of this paper are threefold: (1) to
document the changes in the migration pattern of a group
of Komi reindeer herders during the Soviet and post-
Soviet periods (i.e., mainly from the 1960s period of
amalgamation policy to the post-socialist present day);
(2) to discuss these changes in relation to state policy

Fig. 1 Map showing the location of the study
area in northern Russia.

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Polar Research 28 2009 282–297 © 2009 The Authors 283



vis-à-vis northern reindeer herders; and (3) to propose
hypotheses for the causal relations between state policy
and the changes in the herders’ migration patterns.

Background

The Komi began herding reindeer around three centuries
ago, which, interestingly, corresponds with the age of
“large-scale” reindeer herding per se (Krupnik 1976,
1989). As often stated in Russian literature, historically,
the Komi adopted reindeer herding from the Nenets
(Krupnik 1989, 2000; Žerebcov 1982; Konakov & Kotov
1991). However, this adoption most probably concerned
transport reindeer herding, whereas the “large-scale”
reindeer herding system was developed by the Komi
independently from the Nenets, although not in isolation
from them (Istomin 2004; see also Habeck 2005 for a
discussion). Commencing in the Ižma region of the
Bol’šezemel’skaja tundra, in the area that is now the
Komi Republic and the Nenets Autonomous Okrug,
the Komi increased the numbers and sizes of their herds
over a short period of time (Islavin 1847; Kercelli 1911;
Babuškin 1930), expanded into the Khanty-Mansi areas
in the east, and even emigrated to the Kola Peninsula in
the west (Konakov & Kotov 1991; Took 2003).

The communist revolution in Russia and the subse-
quent civil war caused economic stagnation, which
paralysed Russia, including Komi reindeer herding
(Istomin 2004). The history of Komi reindeer herding
during the communist era can be divided into the follow-
ing seven periods, which were essentially similar all
over the Russian North (Fondahl 1989; Sergeev 1955;
Muhačev 1990; Slezkine 1994; Vakhtin 1994): (1) the
period of the civil war, from 1918 to the beginning of
the 1920s; (2) the period of restoration, in the 1920s; (3)
the collectivization epoch (from the Russian, kollektiviza-
cija), in the first half of the 1930s; (4) the first period of
stagnation, from the end of the 1930s to the middle of the
1950s; (5) the amalgamation epoch (from the Russian,
ukrupnenije), from end of the 1950s to the middle of the
1970s; (6) the second period of stagnation, from the
second half of the 1970s to end of the 1980s; and (7)
the period of re-privatization and crisis, from the 1990s
to the beginning of the 2000s.

The first and second periods relate to the establishment
of political control by the communist government over
reindeer herders, and the building of official institutions
for their administration. The period of collectivization
was marked by strong intervention by the state into the
life of reindeer herders. This intervention was directed
mainly towards the system of property relations, whereby
independent reindeer herding entities became local col-
lective state farms (in Russian: kolhoz; plural kolhozy).

After the period of stagnation, when the issues of aborigi-
nal peoples were mainly neglected by the state, the
second reconstruction era (which coincided in time, but
was not limited to the amalgamation policy) emerged.
During this period a strong attempt was made to reform
both the technology of reindeer herding and the herders’
way of life: by creating new state farms (in Russian:
sovhoz; plural sovhozy) in place of semi-independent
kolhozy, closing/merging villages and encouraging seden-
tary life, etc. This period is the focus of this paper.

Study site and methodology

This paper focuses on the reindeer herding state farm
(sovhoz) Bol’šaja Inta, which is one of three reindeer
herding enterprises of the Komi Republic’s reindeer
herding region of Inta (in Russian: Intinskij Rajon). The
other two enterprises of this region are Petrun’sky
(Petrun’ village) and Fion-A (Abez village). The Bol’šaja
Inta sovhoz, which used to be the supply enterprise of the
Intaugol coal-mining company during the Soviet period,
emerged as a reindeer herding enterprise during the
1960s, by acquiring (during the period of amalgamation)
seven smaller collective farms (kolhozy), which had been
established during the 1930s (Smetanin & Savel’eva
2004: 336; Tables 1, 2). To differentiate between the
sovhoz from the socialist era and the post-socialist sovhoz,
the latter are hereafter referred to as “modern sovhoz”.

During the period of this research, Bol’šaja Inta con-
sisted of five brigades (in Russian: brigada; plural brigady),
each of which was historically linked to a particular
village and kolhoz: the first and fourth brigades were those
from the village of Adzvavom, the fifth brigade was
from its neighbouring village Adzva (formerly known as
Lar-Van’-Ig), whereas the second and third brigades
originated from the villages of Kočmes and Larko, and
Nidz’el’, respectively. The brigades from the three
remaining kolhozy, which were also acquired by Bol’šaja
Inta (i.e., those from the villages of Jag-El’, Dresjanka and
Kosjuvom) were most probably integrated with those of
their closest neighbours, i.e., with the first, fourth and
fifth brigades, and the second and third brigades, respec-
tively. The second brigade ceased to exist towards the
end of 2005, and although there has been talk of its
re-establishment, this prospect remains unclear.

Anthropological fieldwork for this paper consisted of
three expeditions with brigades of the Bol’šaja Inta
sovhoz. The first expedition took place in 2001
(September–November), the second took place in
2002 (June–December) and the third took place in 2003
(January–February). During these expeditions, nine
months were spent with the second and third brigade,
one month was spent with the first and fourth brigade,

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Polar Research 28 2009 282–297 © 2009 The Authors284



and one month was spent with the fifth brigade. During
various intervals—from August 2001 to February
2003—a period of over a month was spent interviewing
retired reindeer herders in small remote villages: Adz-
vavom (two weeks), Kosjuvom (one week), Petrun’
(three weeks) and Rogovaja (three days). A number of
days were also spent with state farm officials, collecting
relevant maps and asking general herding questions.

The research included participant observation and
interviews that were conducted in both the Komi and

Russian languages. The interviews were informal, and no
specifically designed questionnaires were used. The inter-
viewing process was repeated several times, with different
individuals and groups of herders, in order to cross-
reference the data. Participant–observation, used to study
the technology of reindeer pasturing, essentially involved
practical work among reindeer herders. December 2001
was spent perusing Russian state archives in both Inta
and Syktyvkar. The majority of information was obtained
from the Komi National Archive (KNA), as this is where
most information is held, and obtaining access to the Inta
files proved difficult. The reliability of Soviet reindeer
herding statistics is often questioned. This especially con-
cerns those relating to private reindeer (Tuisku 2002;
Stammler & Ventsel 2003), collectivized reindeer of the
1930s–40s (Slezkine 1994; Habeck 2005) and the struc-
ture of reindeer losses (Konstantinov 2002; Konstantinov
& Vladimirova 2006). However, in the context of this
research, little else could be done other than to accept the
statistics at face value.

The figures representing the winter pastures and
migration routes of the Bol’šaja Inta sovhoz brigades are
based both on maps obtained from the sovhoz adminis-
tration and the herders’ knowledge. The sovhoz maps
had neither coordinates nor scaling. However, the his-
torical aspects of the migration routes and winter
pastures (i.e., where the herders used to travel and
pasture their reindeer prior to the relatively recent
changes) were drawn by veteran herders, using accurate
topographical maps. Although much care has been
taken to reproduce, as accurately as possible, the sovhoz
maps and combine them with the herders’ knowledge
of pastures and migration routes, they should be treated
as approximate representations.

Table 1 Kolhozy (local collective state farms) in the Inta region prior to amalgamation. The names of the kolhozy were taken from archival data in the year
1945 (KNA 2576). The names of the villages, to which the kolhozy correspond, were provided by veteran reindeer herders.

Name of kolhoz Corresponding village

Budenogo Adzvavom

Kirova

It is likely that the Kirova kolhoz belonged to the Nenets Autonomous Okrug (NAO), as it was only after merging

with Budenogo in 1958 that the new enlarged Kirova became registered and known as a Komi kolhoz

(KNA 4859). Adzva was formerly known as Lar-Van’-Ig, although it is not clear when the village was

renamed (Roščevskij et al. 1999: 219).

Adzva (formerly known as

Lar-Van’-Ig)

Timošenko

In 1958 the Timošenko kolhoz was renamed Frunze (KNA 4859).

Jag-El’

Vinogradova Nidz’el’

Čapajeva Kosjuvom

Kosju Dresjanka

Sotsolenevod

In 1945, Sotsolenevod was not registered as a kolhoz belonging to the Inta region (KNA 2576), as it belonged to

the NAO (KNA 3794). It was not until 1953, when Sotsolenevod merged with Čapajeva to form the Molotova

kolhoz, that it became registered as a Komi kolhoz (KNA 3794).

Kočmes & Larko

Table 2 Amalgamation of the kolhozy (local collective state farms) in the
Inta region.

1960

Molotova Kolhoz

(Kosjuvom + Kočmes + Larko)
Frunze Kolhoz

(Jag-El’)

Kosju Kolhoz

(Dresjanka)

Stage 1

Sovhozb amalgamation of Bol’šaja

Inta

1961

Kirova Kolhoz

(Adzva + Adzvavom)
Vinogradova Kolhoz

(Nidz’el’)

Kirova Kolhoz acquired the

Vinogradova Kolhoz

1963

Kirova Kolhoz

(Adzva + Adzvavom)
Leninaa

(Petrun’)

Kolhoz abolished in the Inta region.

Both kolhozy were subordinated to

the Pechora region.

1967

Kirova Kolhoz

(Adzva + Adzvavom)

Stage 2

Sovhoz Bol’šaja Inta acquired the

Kirova Kolhoz

aLenina Kolhoz (now the sovhoz of Petrun’) was based in the village of Petrun’ which

is to the east of Inta.
bSovhozy, new state farms.

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Changes in mobility and land use

The most notable changes in the reindeer herders’
pattern of migration in Bol’šaja Inta occurred progres-
sively, as a result of their abandonment of winter
pastures. The reduced length of the herders’ migrations
means that they no longer travel as far as they did
several decades ago, to pastures located in the southern
range of their migration route. In the following sections
these changes in mobility and land use will be outlined
chronologically, ranging from the sovhoz period (early
1960s) to that of the present day. It was not possible to
map individual migration routes before the 1960s
because of the lack of archival and detailed anthropo-
logical data. However, veteran reindeer herders said

that the migration routes used prior to the 1960s were
essentially the same as those used in the early sovhoz
period (early 1960s).

Migration routes and winter pastures during the
early 1960s

Figure 2 shows the migration routes and arrangement of
winter pastures during the early 1960s, following the first
stage of the kolhoz amalgamation (in Russian: ukrup-
nenije), and the establishment of the Bol’šaja Inta sovhoz.
The migration routes A and B are those of the brigades
belonging to the Kirova kolhoz that did not merge
with the sovhoz during the first stage of Bol’šaja Inta’s

Fig. 2 The migration routes and arrangement of winter pastures in the early 1960s.

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amalgamation process. These brigades included the two
from the village of Adzvavom (currently known as the
first and fourth brigades) and that of the village of Adzva
(currently known as the fifth brigade). All three brigades
shared the same migration route, except the fifth brigade,
which had its own section of migration route that
branched off along the way. These three brigades, unlike
the others of Bol’šaja Inta, had winter pastures that were
located near the Pechora River, rather than in western
Siberia.

According to the veteran herder Aleksej (first brigade),
the first and fourth brigades had their winter pastures
near the village of Ust’-Usa (close to the new “petroleum”
town of Usinsk), whereas those of the fifth brigade were
east of the town of Pechora. Aleksej explained that the
migration routes followed the Usa River, which intersects
with the Pechora River, and leads to the winter pastures.
Similarly, the veteran herders Mihail and Aleksej (second
brigade), and Ivan (third brigade), recalled their trans-
Ural migrations with nostalgia, and drew the routes on
the map with great precision.

The information provided by the herders with regard to
the location of their migration routes and winter pastures
is supported both by published maps (IGE 1964: 98) and
by maps held by the sovhoz (MA 1982).

Migration routes and winter pastures during the
late 1960s

Figure 3 shows a change in the migration routes and
winter pastures of the first, fourth and fifth brigades,
which occurred during the late 1960s. According to
Aleksej (first brigade), the three brigades were no longer
permitted to travel to the Pechora region, which they had
always done in the past, once they merged with the
Bol’šaja Inta sovkhoz. Instead, they were given new winter
pastures behind the Ural mountains, near Saranpaul’
(further south from those of the second and third bri-
gades), and had to create a new section of migration route
(G) that joined up with that of the second and third
brigades. This meant that the brigades from Adzvavom
and Adzva were forced to abandon not only their Pechora
winter pastures but also the sections of their migration
routes that led to them. Aleksej reported that no reindeer
herding brigade (from Bol’šaja Inta) ever travelled to the
Pechora region after this period.

The reasons for relocating the winter pastures of the
first, fourth and fifth brigades become clear if one takes
into account the development of the oil and gas indus-
tries, which was initiated in the region during this period.
In 1964, the decision was taken to establish a permanent
settlement in proximity to the Usinskaja oil well in the
middle of the first and fourth brigades’ winter territory; in

1971, this new settlement was officially named Usinsk,
and acquired city status in 1984. In 1964, a gas deposit
was discovered in Pechora, near the mouth of the Vuktyl
River (the upper part of Pechora), and by 1967 a major
industrial plan to extract the gas had been developed
(Smetanin & Savel’eva 2004). Around the same time, the
Bol’šaja Inta sovhoz acquired the Kirova kolhoz, which
included the brigades from the villages of Adzvavom and
Adzva, as part of the second stage of the amalgamation
process (described earlier), and changes were made to the
location of winter pastures. It is highly likely, therefore,
that these changes correspond with the plans of industrial
development. No further mergers or acquisitions
occurred from this point onwards, and the brigade struc-
ture remains the same today as it was in 1967.

Migration routes and winter pastures during
the mid-1970s

Figure 4 shows the abandonment of the trans-Ural
winter pastures (E) and the section of migration route
that led to them. According to Aleksej (first brigade),
the brigades from Adzvavom and Adzva were the first
to cease pasturing their herds behind the Ural Moun-
tains, in 1974 (some 31 years ago), which signifies that
they travelled there for a period of only seven years
(1967–1974). Similarly, Serafim, Aleksej and Mihail
(second brigade) reported that the two remaining bri-
gades (the second and third) continued pasturing their
herds in western Siberia for a further two years, before
abandoning the practice themselves in 1976. Instead,
the herders reported that all of the brigades started to
use winter pastures that were situated close to the Ural
Mountains (i.e., not on the other side of them), near
the village of Kožim and a place called Tundra Pjaseda
(D); however, to a certain extent, they probably used
some of the pastures located around the town of Inta in
a similar way as they do today.

Interestingly, according to the map of 1964, the pas-
tures located near Kožim, and Tundra Pjaseda, were
marked as being “reindeer passages” rather than winter
pastures (IGE 1964: 98). This meant that these pastures
were not intended to be the final destination of the
migration route, where reindeer would be pastured for
about 4–6 weeks before starting the migration back
towards the north. However, it is not exactly clear which
winter pastures each brigade was meant to use during the
mid-1970s, as no maps from this period could be found.
Nevertheless, it is evident that the winter pastures located
in western Siberia would almost certainly have been
available, given that, to this day, they remain part of the
official winter pastures of Bol’šaja Inta.

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Migration routes and winter pastures from 1982 to
the present day

Figure 5 shows the official arrangement of pastures from
1982 onwards, which correspond with those presented
in the sovhoz map (MA 1982). Although the map was
printed in 1982, there is no indication that any further
official land use changes have since occurred, as the
sovhoz has had no amendments made with regard to pas-
tures, and continues to instruct the reindeer herders to
make movements that correspond to these maps.

It was pointed out earlier that the pastures located near
the Ural Mountains, currently marked as being winter
pastures, were, in the past (i.e., during the early 1960s)
considered to be “reindeer passages”. Similarly, the

sovhoz map of 1982 shows that the winter pastures of all
brigades are now located much further north than previ-
ously. In fact, the 1964 map shows the current winter
pastures as being located in areas that were previously
marked as either spring/autumn pastures or “reindeer
passages” (IGE 1964: 98). The only exceptions are the
winter pastures located behind the Ural Mountains (now
kept as reserve pastures), which have not been exploited
by a Bol’šaja Inta brigade since 1976.

According to Aleksej, Ivan and Petr (first brigade), the
brigades from Adzvavom and Adzva (first, fourth and
fifth brigades) stopped pasturing their herds near the Ural
Mountains in 1982. This coincides with the date that the
sovhoz map was issued (MA 1982), showing the winter
pastures of these brigades to be located elsewhere (Fig. 2).

Fig. 3 The migration routes and arrangement of winter pastures in the late 1960s.

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However, according to Vasilij and Aleksej (second
brigade), and Ivan and Prokopij (third brigade), in 1990
the second and third brigades also stopped winter pastur-
ing near the Ural Mountains. Consequently, between
1982 and 1990, a further abandonment of winter pas-
tures took place (of those near the Ural Mountains).
Some abandonments resulted from a possible reorganiza-
tion of pastures, whereas others resulted from the general
trend of not travelling so far south.

It should be noted that more recently (from 2001 to the
present day) the first and fourth brigades have been
observed to use pastures belonging to the neighbouring
Haruta reindeer herding enterprise: this resulted from the
lack of prosperity of a number of the Haruta enterprise

brigades, who no longer used their winter pastures. These
pastures are located to the north and north-west of
Adzvavom.

Summary of change in migration routes and
winter pastures

Figure 6 shows the general “retreat” from the migration
routes and trans-Ural winter pastures in the Bol’šaja Inta
region from the early 1960s to the present day. Although
some of the winter pastures are no longer available (i.e.,
those to the west), those near the Ural Mountains and in
western Siberia remain accessible, despite having been
abandoned. It is apparent that all of the brigades no longer

Fig. 4 The migration routes and arrangement of winter pastures in the mid-1970s.

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travel as far south as they once did, and the modifications
to the official “pasture maps” over the years appear to
reflect the reindeer herders’ changing pattern of land use,
rather than change having been dictated by the state. The
migration routes A (first and fourth brigades), B (fifth
brigade) and C (second and third brigades) are approxi-
mately 29, 31 and 42% shorter, respectively: i.e., 34%
shorter on average. For example, the length of the trans-
Ural migration route (of the second and third brigades) has
decreased from 720 km (one way) to 410 km. For the sake
of simplicity, the migration routes were measured in a
straight line: the actual lengths are considerably longer.

There were two separate reasons for the abandonment
of some winter pastures, and the sections of migration
routes that led to them. The winter pastures located near
Pechora were essentially abandoned following a reorga-
nization of reindeer herding territories during the sovhoz
amalgamation period, by a direct order of the state,

whereas those located south of Inta (near the village of
Kožim and on Tundra Pjaseda) and in western Siberia
were abandoned because of a range of complicated social,
cultural and political factors, but not by direct state order.
These factors are analysed in a later section.

Changes to state policy

The situation after the 1960s amalgamation
(ukrupnenije)

According to archival data, the Bol’šaja Inta herd com-
prised between 10 000 and 12 400 reindeer (excluding
transport reindeer), before calving, from 1970 to 1983.
Consequently, there should have been a minimum of
2000 and a maximum of 2480 reindeer (before calving)
in each brigade, assuming that all five brigades had com-
parable herd sizes.

Fig. 5 The migration routes and arrangement of winter pastures from 1982 to the present day.

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Polar Research 28 2009 282–297 © 2009 The Authors290



Following amalgamation, the status of reindeer own-
ership changed. During the kolhoz period, the majority of
reindeer were owned by the kolhoz, and were supposedly
collective property, whereas during the sovhoz period they
became state property. Apart from this, a limited number
of private reindeer (officially named personal reindeer)
were officially tolerated. The number of private reindeer
authorized in the Komi ASSR and the Nenets Autono-
mous Okrug was 30 animals per herder (Smetanin &
Savel’eva 2004: 504). (Tuisku [2002] analytically differ-
entiates between private and personal property of
reindeer: she prefers to use the term “personal property”
to designate the right of kolhoz/sovhoz workers to a certain
number of reindeer pastured in a brigade’s herd, whereas
“private reindeer” can be owned only by independent
herders who do not work for collective/state enterprises.

Although the authors agree with Tuisku and others
[Fondahl 1989; Anderson 2000; Konstantinov 2002;
Ventsel 2005; Konstantinov & Vladimirova 2006] that
affiliation with a [post-]socialist enterprise brought about
a number of important constraints on, and possibilities
for, managing private property, we believe that this affili-
ation influenced the strategy of exercising property rights,
rather than the rights themselves. We see no heuristic
value in differentiating between “private” and “personal”
property, and believe that such a differentiation in official
Soviet-era documents has ideological rather than empiri-
cal relevance.)

Despite the strict limits on numbers, the percentage of
privately owned reindeer throughout the Komi republic,
and the Soviet Union in general, slowly grew during the
entire sovhoz period. This tendency became apparent

Fig. 6 The overall change in migration routes and winter pastures from the early 1960s to the present day.

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Polar Research 28 2009 282–297 © 2009 The Authors 291



during the 1950s, and especially during the 1960s, when
the punishment for exceeding the permissible limit of
“personal property” became less severe, whereby a guilty
party was generally fined rather than given a prison sen-
tence (Smetanin & Savel’eva 2004: 604). The growth of
private herds was most significant in the Yamal, where,
by the end of socialist period, more than 40% of the total
herd was privately owned (Stammler & Ventsel 2003:
331; Klokov 2004: 60). The figure for the Komi ASSR—
13% in 1987—is more modest, and closely resembles that
of Yakutia, of about 10% (Stammler & Ventsel 2003). It
should be noted, however, that the statistics on private
herds may not be entirely correct, because of the attempts
of the herders to hide the exact number of their private
animals, and thus avoid fines. We believe, however, that
the statistics still reflect general practices, and are useful
when comparing different regions throughout Russia.

The size of the brigades increased after the transition
from kolhoz to sovhoz. According to the herders, during the
kolhoz period the brigades of Bol’šaja Inta generally had
five or six herders each, as opposed to between eight and
10 during the sovhoz period. This change could be attrib-
uted to the increased number of reindeer managed by
each brigade. Indeed, the herders recall that during the
kolhoz period there were many more brigades than at
present, and the size of their productive herds—at around
1000 reindeer per brigade (before calving and excluding
draft transport reindeer)—was much smaller. The
herders’ general statement that herd sizes in the Inta
region were smaller during the kolhoz period, compared
with those of the present day, is supported by archival
material. For example, there were 1408–3331 productive
reindeer (after calving) at the Budenogo kolhoz (Adz-
vavom) between 1945 (KNA 2576) and 1959 (KNA
4895). Considering that there were (and still are) two
Adzvavom brigades, it is perfectly plausible that two
productive herds of 1000 animals each (before calving)
could have accounted for up to 3300 head of reindeer
(after calving), given the productive capacity of 65%
for a typical Komi herd (Dwyer 2006).

According to herding veterans, the number of herders
living in a tent (in Komi, čom; in Russian, čum) was
around five or six during the kolhoz period (as opposed to
between eight and 10 during the sovhoz period), and
generally consisted of two families, each of which occu-
pied a separate side of the čom. In addition to the duty
herders, there would have been at least two female tent
workers and several children. This closely resembles the
descriptions from the beginning of 20th century that
among Komi a čom usually accommodated two families
(Kercelli 1911), consisting of husbands, wives and their
unmarried children. This pattern changed considerably
after the amalgamation, mainly as a result of the gender

drift (see Vitebsky & Wolfe 2001). The decline in the
number of female tent workers apparently accelerated
during the sovhoz period (see Dwyer 2006). Furthermore,
probably for the first time in Komi history, the herders
living in the tent often belonged to more than two fami-
lies. Although the implications of these social changes
have not yet been researched, they would most likely
have influenced the work organization of female tent
workers, considering that the tent has only one stove, one
set of common equipment and a finite amount of space
(e.g., for making clothes).

The reasons for the gender drift are considered to be
complex, and their detailed discussion lies outside the
scope of this paper (see Vitebsky & Wolfe 2001). It is,
however, worth mentioning that the outflow of women
was strongly supported by the state as an important step
in the transition from “family” to “productive” nomad-
ism. In the Komi Republic, girls were encouraged to
become sedentary by both the system of school education
and public media, which represented the tundra as a male
space, generally unsuitable for women.

Komi reindeer herding, unlike many other reindeer
herding communities, did not develop on the basis of an
“extractive economy” (e.g., hunting, fishing and gather-
ing), but rather on that of a “productive economy”, which
included cattle breeding and agriculture (Istomin 2000).
As a result, present-day Komi reindeer herders have
strong connections with family members who live a sed-
entary village way of life, and the herders return to these
settlements during the winter—as their winter pastures
are located close to the villages—to trade and exchange
goods, as well as to visit family members. Reindeer
herders, despite being nomadic during their working
lives, usually retire to villages with their family, and
sometimes build their own wooden houses. Since the
development of towns such as Inta and Vorkuta, a Komi
family may now consist of reindeer herders, coal miners,
shop assistants, cattle breeders and agriculturalists.
Household diversification is not unique to the Komi (see,
e.g., King 2003).

The process of amalgamation meant that all villages
saw their populations decline quite radically, and it is
probable that some villages remain totally uninhabited.
For example, the village of Adzva had a population of 242
in 1939, which decreased to 63 during the sovhoz period
(in 1970), and to only 16 in 1995 (Roščevskij et al. 1999:
219). This depopulation was related to the state policy of
closing down small villages, and centralizing the popula-
tion in small towns and large villages, in order to facilitate
logistics, improve the supply of goods and services, and
decrease the population outflow from villages to cities
(the so-called policy of unviable villages; Kovalev &
Šapošnikov 1977: 36; APSH 1980: 44–53). The inhabit-

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ants of the villages declared unviable were offered free
flats in towns and larger villages, where the headquarters
of their sovhoz were usually located (Kovalev & Šapošni-
kov 1977: 33). At the same time, the supply/support to
these unviable villages was cut back, essentially forcing
the local population to relocate.

The major effect that these policies had on reindeer
herding families was that of segregation. Prior to the
establishment of the sovhoz, the typical family type of
the northern Komi, especially the reindeer herders, was
the so-called large “undivided family” (Konakov &
Žerebcov 1994; Solovyev, pers. comm. 2002). These com-
prised several related nuclear families, typically two or
three, joined together to form one household. For
example, such a unit could be made up of the families of
two brothers and the family of one of their married sons.
The unit held private property in common, for example,
a house in a village (Konakov & Žerebcov 1994). Usually,
an undivided family included nomadic reindeer herders
as well as settled non-nomadic agriculturalists or farmers,
and, whilst one of the related nuclear families travelled in
the tundra, the remaining sedentary nuclear families
stayed in the village, and worked both within the kolhoz
system and independently (each kolhoz member had a
right to a small plot of land and several animals). All the
products derived from reindeer herding, agriculture and
farming were considered to be the property of the undi-
vided family, and were shared accordingly. Furthermore,
when it was time for the herders to return to the village
to either visit (during the winter) or permanently retire,
they lived in the house of their undivided family, which
they considered to be partly their own (Solovyev, pers.
comm. 2002).

The state policy to provide accommodation meant that
each nuclear family received its own flat, which, subse-
quently, changed the distinctive Komi family structure.
Although today there is still a large degree of exchange of
goods and services that takes place between nomadic
reindeer herding nuclear families and other related fami-
lies who remain sedentary in villages and towns, property
is no longer considered to be a common commodity.
Therefore, dealings between related nuclear families are
now based on the principle of more or less balanced

reciprocity, whereby the help provided by one family is
paid back in a similar manner. Consequently, whereas
during the kolhoz period, and even prior to it, reindeer
herders generally either retired to villages with family
members or died whilst living and working in the tundra,
during the sovhoz period they either applied for state flats
(if they were entitled to them) or purchased real estate.
This resulted in herders spending less time in the tundra,
and more time visiting towns and villages, and occupying
their newly acquired accommodation during the winter
months, once they had reached their winter pastures.

The present situation (post-socialism)

Following the break-up of the Soviet Union in 1991, the
former communist sovhoz of Bol’šaja Inta, like many
others throughout the Komi Republic and Russia, became
a quasi-independent enterprise, as a result of the
privatization process. As Bol’šaja Inta was a “supply
enterprise” to the Intaugol’ State coal company, as noted
earlier, both companies were privatized simultaneously in
1992 (Kolegov 2004: 14).

The Komi style of reindeer herding in the Inta area, and
probably throughout the Komi Republic, was relatively
unaffected by the sovhoz administrative period, at least in
the sense that reindeer populations and control remained
quite stable. However, following the privatization of
Bol’šaja Inta, the ownership structure of the reindeer
herds changed. Whereas formerly the herds were pre-
dominantly owned by the sovhoz (during socialism),
reindeer herders steadily increased their ownership of
reindeer (from 1991 to the present day), once the previ-
ous private reindeer ownership restrictions were lifted.
This is corroborated by state statistics, which show that
although the modern sovhoz continues to own the major-
ity of the herds (close to 2000 reindeer per brigade), there
has been an increase in the numbers of private reindeer
owned by the herders (Table 3; also see Habeck 2005:
104). This recent trend is partly in response to the fall in
state subsidies, and the resultant decline in both herders’
salaries and the general availability of goods and services
that are important to them, for example, helicopters
bringing in a regular food supply and the materials

Table 3 Changes in reindeer ownership in the Komi Republic.

1990 1998 1999 2000 2001 2002

Number of reindeer owned by enterprises and former sovhozya 102.3 83.9 76.5 76.0 76.1 75.0

Number of reindeer owned by herders in thousands 21.3 26.8 23.8 29.0 24.7 25.8

Number of reindeer owned by herders unmanaged by the stateb N/A 2.2 2.0 5.1 5.1 5.1

Total in thousands 123.3 112.9 102.3 110.1 105.9 105.9

aSovhozy, new state farms.
bThis category consists mainly of reindeer owned by households of free Nenets reindeer herders (jamb-to), who operate in the Komi Republic. Source of data: KSSC (2005).

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Polar Research 28 2009 282–297 © 2009 The Authors 293



necessary for herding practices. Consequently, the own-
ership of private reindeer is of paramount importance to
herders, given that the sale of reindeer products derived
from their private herds generally account for over half of
their annual income. Access to the village or town
(especially Inta) in winter has also become increasingly
important, as the reindeer herders spend more of their
time trading to generate sufficient income to purchase
food and materials for the following year in the tundra, as
well as to supply their family with meat and furs. They
also take the opportunity when in a village or town to try
to find wives, or to spend time with their partners who
either do not work in the tundra or have taken time out,
for example, for child-bearing or health reasons.

Discussion

Although some of the changes detected in the pattern of
Bol’šaja Inta’s land use—namely, the abandonment of
winter pastures near Usinsk and Pechora in the middle
of the 1960s—can be attributed purely and simply to
industrial development, this explanation does not apply
to the abandonment of pastures near the Ural Mountains.
We argue that it was predominantly the closure of small
villages, and the resettlement of their inhabitants to larger
villages and towns, as well as the gender drift and recent
redistribution of reindeer from state to private property,
that spurred the reindeer herders to abandon these
pastures. Indeed, the beginning of this abandonment cor-
responds quite remarkably with the period during which
most reindeer herders received their state flats. It appears
to us that the resettlement campaign and the issuing of
flats triggered the break-up of the typical Komi undivided
family structure into European nuclear families, with the
result that the ties, which included common ownership of
property, that linked nuclear families into the larger
grouping were no longer as strong as they had once been.
This resulted in nomadic families desiring or needing to
visit the village or town (where their flats were located)
more regularly, and for longer periods of time. These
visits could only be made during the winter months,
when the herders reached the southern range of their
pastures. This meant that if they wanted to stay in their
flats, they were no longer able to travel hundreds of
kilometres further south (beyond the village or town) to
their distant winter pastures. As a result, the herders’
migration routes receded, and the pastures they began to
use during the winter months were those previously
regarded as either spring/autumn pastures, or “reindeer
passages” (IGE 1964: 98). It is probably for this reason
that when the new sovhoz maps were produced in 1982
(MA 1982), following the Murmansk prospecting expe-
dition, the winter pastures were drawn up, to some

extent, on the basis of where the brigades were actually
pasturing their herds, rather than where they were meant
to have been pasturing them.

There is, of course, a whole host of other reasons why
reindeer herders spent increasing periods of time in the
village or town. Firstly, the difficulty the herders experi-
enced in finding partners (caused by the gender drift) was
a major concern, and more frequent visits to town
increased their chances of meeting a potential partner.
Secondly, as the town and villages developed, so did
living standards, and there is no doubt that these became
increasingly attractive to the herders who spent most of
their time travelling in the tundra under quite difficult
conditions, and with only the bare essentials for living.
Thirdly, during the sovhoz period, a reindeer herding
family was permitted 30 private reindeer (Smetanin &
Savel’eva 2004: 504); however, since the lifting of own-
ership quotas (following the end of socialism), there has
been a steady trend towards the increase of private own-
ership, and the decrease of state/enterprise ownership
(i.e., the modern post-socialist sovhoz). This trend is pre-
dominantly the herders’ response to the low wages and
decreasing supplies they receive from the modern sovhoz,
and there is every indication that this situation is likely to
continue. In fact, reindeer herders have already become
more reliant upon private income that is derived from
their private herds than on the payments made by the
modern sovhoz. This means that during the winter months
much time and effort has to be spent in the town prepar-
ing and selling reindeer products.

To broaden this discussion, it is interesting to note
that Habeck, who studied reindeer herding in the Komi
Republic, is also of the opinion that the reasons for the
abandonment of winter pastures are mostly of a social
and economic nature, notably the herders’ preference
for pasturing their animals close to villages (Habeck
2003: 83–84). Nevertheless, although the abandonment
of winter pastures has taken place throughout the Komi
Republic, there is one exception to this generalization.
Of the four eastern Komi enterprises (Bol’šaja Inta,
Petrun’, Abez’ and Vorkuta) that officially have winter
pastures in western Siberia, only the herders from
Vorkuta still use them. Vorkuta is situated more than
two and a half times closer to the Kara Sea compared
with Inta (Fig. 2), and has fewer pastures between the
town and the coast, and hence the herders probably
have little choice other than to continue using their
trans-Ural pastures. This is supported by the director of
the Vorkuta “Olenevod” sovhoz, who stated that “his bri-
gades must continue (or resume) their migrations to the
remote winter pastures [otherwise] he anticipates large-
scale pasture degradation in the whole region around
Vorkuta” (Habeck 2003: 84).

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Polar Research 28 2009 282–297 © 2009 The Authors294



Another reason for the Vorkuta herders not abandon-
ing their trans-Ural pastures could be that the town of
Salehard (Salekhard), situated along this route, has an
important marketplace, where they can trade the prod-
ucts of their private reindeer. It should be noted,
however, that this is hardly the main reason, as the
demand for reindeer products is significantly higher in
Vorkuta compared with Salehard (Salekhard). Hence,
purely from an economic point of view, trading in
Vorkuta would be more profitable for the herders.

Consequently, the abandonment of winter pastures,
despite being linked to the herders’ need/desire to visit
the village or town, is seemingly also dependent upon
their location. For example, if Inta were to have been
built 100 km further south, then perhaps the Bol’šaja
Inta’s trans-Ural winter pastures would not have been
abandoned, as their location would have been much
closer to the town.

Conclusion

The evidence presented in this paper shows that in the
Bol’šaja Inta region the reindeer herders’ migration
routes became shortened by an average of 34% from the
early 1960s to the present day. This was a consequence of
the gradual abandonment of winter pastures, notably
those situated near Pechora and the Ural Mountains, as
well as those located behind the Ural Mountains in
western Siberia.

The decrease in nomadic mobility during the socialist
period was described in a number of regions of the
Russian North (e.g., Anderson [2000] for Taimyr, Stam-
mler & Ventsel [2003] and Ventsel [2005] for Yakutia,
Gray [2005] and Nuvano [2006] for Chukotka).
However, this decrease usually resulted from the direct
influence of the state, which allocated specific pastures
and migration routes for collectivized reindeer herders,
and considered the long migrations, in which these
people were traditionally engaged, economically unvi-
able. What makes the case of Komi reindeer herding
interesting, however, is that quite a significant part of the
grazing territory has been abandoned by the herders,
against (rather than following) the will of the state. On
the other hand, as clearly indicated in this paper, this
abandonment was still a result, albeit a rather unexpected
one, of state policy.

It was found that changes to the herders’ movements
and of land use, which occurred over a period of several
decades, probably arose as a result of the closure of
small “unviable” villages, and the subsequent relocation
and centralization of the local population and adminis-
tration to larger villages and towns. During this process,
most families received new state-financed flats, and the

numerous individual village kolhozy were amalgamated
to form a single state enterprise (sovhoz), located in the
town of Inta. These events led to a myriad of social,
economic and political changes that, as time progressed,
increased the herders’ need and desire to visit the town
during the winter months, which was achieved by
gradually reducing the length of their migration route,
and hence the range of their winter pastures. It would
appear that the location of the town or village is an
important factor determining whether or not reindeer
herders abandon trans-Ural winter pastures. In the case
of Vorkuta, the fact that the town is located so far north,
and that there are few pastures located between the
town and the coast, means that the herders have little
choice other than to travel further south, beyond the
town, to their more distant winter pastures.

Finally, the other major reason for the abandonment of
pastures was plainly and simply a result of land encroach-
ment by the oil and gas industry. Winter pastures situated
near Pechora (formerly used by Ust’-Usinskiy and Kirova)
are now home to the oil town of Usinsk.

Acknowledgements

The fieldwork undertaken amongst Komi herders in
the Bol’šezemel’skaja tundra was financed by a joint
interdisciplinary research scholarship from the British
Natural Environment Research Council and the British
Economic and Social Research Council (ESRC). The
writing of this paper was also made possible thanks to a
post-doctoral research fellowship funded by the ESRC,
and another funded by the Max-Planck Institute for
Social Anthropology and the Martin-Luther University
Halle-Wittenberg. The authors wish to thank their
numerous Komi and Russian collaborators, in particular,
the Jangasov, Šurakov, Alekseevič, Larionov, Filippov,
Kanev and Semjaškin extended families for their assis-
tance, patience and extraordinary generosity. We should
also acknowledge Mr A. Makarčuk from the Bol’šaja
Inta Sovhoz Administration for his assistance and
cooperation. Finally, we wish to thank our colleagues,
particularly Tim Bayliss-Smith (Department of Geogra-
phy, Cambridge University) and Joachim Otto Habeck
(Max Planck Institute for Social Anthropology) for their
suggestions and criticisms, Ian Agnew (cartographer at
the Department of Geography, Cambridge University)
for having skilfully reproduced and improved the dia-
grams and maps in this paper, and, last but not least,
Mrs Eileen J. Dwyer for her editing contribution. We
also thank Dr Vladimir V. Solovyev, Department of
Ethnography/Cultural Anthropology, Institute of Lan-
guage, Literature and History, Komi Scientific Centre,
Ural Division of the Russian Academy of Sciences. The

Komi reindeer herders’ mobility and land useM.J. Dwyer & K.V. Istomin

Polar Research 28 2009 282–297 © 2009 The Authors 295



Komi National Archive is located at Sovetskaya Ulitsa
26, Syktyvkar, Komi Republic, Russia.

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