Logistics

History 

Chukotka has a rich and ancient past. With challenges faced by its people throughout history, they continue to persevere despite isolation, severe climate, political struggle, and economic hardship.

The first people to come to the Chukotka territory were primitive hunters. Arriving thousands of years ago during the Stone Age, these people came from southern parts of central and east Asia, thanks to a natural land bridge that connected what we know today as northeast Asia and Alaska. Scientists believe that these people were the anscestors of today's Indians, Eskimos, Aleuts, and Chukchi. This wooded area was also home to herds of mammoth, wooly rhinocerous, bison, and reindeer, until it became covered with water. About ten thousand years ago, enormous sheets of ice melted and made oceans rise 492 feet (150 m), ending life on ancient Chukotka land. Today, this territory remains covered with the waters of the Bering and Chuckchi Seas.

In the 16th century, Russia began colonizing Siberia. While the Russian state tried to force the Chukot's loyalty, they resisted. The climate in Chukotka not only made it nearly impossible for its people to "give" sable furs as a tribute to the Russian emporer-as other natives had been forced to do-but their fierce pride would not permit them to accept this new leadership without a fight.

By the 1750s, the Russian government acknowledge that the Chukchi were difficult to defeat and peace would have to be made with them. The Chukchi were then kindly invited to become citizens of Russia, and official peace was made in 1778.

The Russian Revolution of 1917 had grave consequences for the region of Chukotka: the system of Russian state management and control-which had taken two centuries to establish- was destroyed. Its supply system for imported manufactured goods also suffered. By the 1920s, the Bolsheviks (eventually known as the Communist Party of the Soviet Union) established their control in the Chukotka region, setting up offices and organizing Soviet elections. Politically, the Chukotka region was now an essential part of the Soviet Union.

The end of the Soviet Union in 1991 marked the end of the "great migration" that began the history of the Chukotka region. The dramatic shift from a communist to a free market (capitalist) economy was painful for the Chukotka region (as it was for the whole of Russia). Its regional economy never managed to integrate into the market system, gold-mining was destroyed, and Chukotka began to fail.

Since then, more than half of its population-the most qualified, skilled and enterprising workers-have left the area. Most that have stayed have lost all hope in finding a permanent job with decent pay. Now they, too, are considering leaving. Perhaps the only thing keeping them there is the fact that other regions in Russia are not ready to receive migrants, and the airfare is extremely high in this far-east region of Russia.

The outlook has been dismal. Construction has come to a standstill; many national villages have not been renovated since the 1950s and now look war-torn. Raising deer as livestock is no longer lucrative. Gold-mining is no longer considered profitable. The once-flourishing hunting and fur trade is in decline, though animal poaching (illegal hunting) is on the rise. Health care and education are in an equally-miserable situation: Chukotka hospitals don't even have X-ray machines, and schools don't have enough textbooks. Because of alcoholism and other diseases, the Chukotka natives are now on the verge of ruin.

The region has entered the 21st century as totally unprofitable and completely dependant on imported goods. While experts have placed it on the list of regions having the least favorable investment climate, Chukotka residents pin their hopes on the new administration of the present-day Russian Federation (or "Okrug"). Reforms have begun that are rapidly progressing. Soon this region might have a new, more optimistic story to tell, if past the difficulties its people have survived are any indicator!

Source and images: courtesy of http://www.chukotka.org