The complete ahistoricity of this has pissed me off so much that I am reblogging this with ADDED INFORMATION even though the poster of the original tweet will never see it.
A good place to start to actually learn a bit about at least one of Russia's many Indigenous cultures is Piers Vitebsky’s incredible book ‘Reindeer People’ [which you can read in full, for free, on the internet archive here] about the indigenous Eveny reindeer herding culture of Siberia.
What really happened when Russia began to encroach on the herders' lands?
Vitebsky then tells us about how the Soviets imposed their policy of collectivization on the herders - the opposite of letting them 'keep their lands and lifestyles' as the guy on twitter says:
[pp.35-6] As we see, these are the same policies of land exploitation, forcible 'civilising', and imprisoning or killing those who resisted.
The Soviets essentially abolished the nomadism and deep-rooted relationship to the land that the Eveny had nurtured for thousands of years [p43]:
But hey, at least the Soviets didn't implement the boarding schools for native kids that were infamous in North America - surely the apparently Indigenous-rights-loving nation of Russia would never have stolen indigenous kids from their parents to raise them away from their parents and cultures, right? Uh...
On the very next page: "There were stories of native children all across the North who had escaped from their boarding schools, sometimes dying of exposure while trying to rejoin their parents. Most of these incidents happened in the spring, when the sun was up but the temperature was still far below freezing. Though the boarding schools had taught native children to read and count, it had left them unfit to survive on the land."
'But... but... the USSR championed women's rights and feminism! Surely it empowered Native women!' Here's what actually happened to Eveny women as a consequence of Sovietisation:
Traditionally, Eveny herded reindeer as families. Not only were children removed from this through boarding schools, but women, too, were forced out [p45]:
The boarding schools were only closed when "the de-nomadization of women was complete". With their mothers no longer partaking in traditional herding culture, the Soviets knew their children could now be raised at home without learning their traditional ways [p192]:
To go back to the original tweet: apparently, Indigenous peoples in Russia kept their "lands and lifestyles" for centuries. Shamanism was a huge part of these lifestyles for many Siberian cultures. What happened to the shamans?
Most Eveny today speak Sakha, the lingua franca of what is known as the Sakha Republic, or Yakutia, because the Sakha are the biggest Indigenous group there. Smaller languages like Yukaghir, Chukchi, Eveny and Evenki are struggling to survive.
The author writes about sitting in on a local meeting in the village of Sebyan. The complaints the villagers raise - of dwindling language use, land exploitation leading to widespread health issues - will sound familiar with the issues faced by Indigenous peoples in North America.
While the book is largely about the Eveny people, they are not the only reindeer-herding culture whose livelihoods have been near destroyed by Russian colonialism [p379-80]:
Obviously this is just one book, and just a handful of examples from it. But anyone can use it at least as a start from which to do further research.
But you might say, "these are issues that happened over the Soviet period. What about today?"
Today, Indigenous Siberians are being drafted by Russia to a much greater extent proportionate to their population than European Russians, especially those from the cities. Consequently, there are significant anti-war and even independence movements among some Indigenous groups there, like the Free Yakutia and Free Buryatia movements, which Russia has designated as terrorist organisations.
If Russia's Indigenous peoples were truly being left to live their traditional lifestyles in peace in their own lands, perhaps Putin's government would not be so quick to use them as cannon fodder for his imperialist war in Ukraine.
That Indigenous peoples in Russia have continued to nurture their culture as best as was possible given the exploitation, cultural oppression, and land theft that they have suffered throughout their history is a testament to their resilience.
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