2000 Photo Contest, Nature, 2nd prize
Photographer

Claudine Doury

Agence Vu

01 January, 1999

A Nenets man lies drunken in the snow after a party. Members of the 34,000-strong Nenets ethnic group lead a nomadic life on the Yamal Peninsula. They speak a Samoyedic language, have shamanist traditions, and live in tents called chum, which dismantle and transport easily. It takes 64 reindeer hides to make a chum, which becomes home to an extended family. The Nenets' life revolves around raising reindeer. Each year the children go away to boarding school, where they stay for eight months. Despite the modern comforts they find there, most children choose to come back to the traditional way of life after school.

About the photographer

Claudine Doury

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