Yakut people

The Yakuts (Sakha), Turkic people of North Siberia, hold the vast Republic of Sakha, Yakutia, with kin in Krasnoyarsk districts, speaking Yakut of the Siberian Turkic branch. Alone among Turkic nations they carried horse-and-cattle pastoralism to the Arctic circle: summer yhyakh festivals, kumis drinking, epic olonkho sung through polar nights, and winter houses half-buried against minus sixty. Yakut smiths forged the famous bata knives; Yakut traders moved furs, ivory and fish along the Lena. Russian ostrogs of the 17th century taxed them in sable, and Soviet collectivisation fenced the herds; diamond mines then drilled the permafrost. Yakutsk theatres, olonkho institutes and the Yhyakh of every June keep the coldest Turkic nation warm. Sakha schools teach Yakut to every child. Krasnoyarsk Yakuts keep the northernmost Turkic dialects. Yakut radio sings olonkho across the republic. Siberian Turkic cousins greet each other in Yakut. Yakutia spans three time zones of forest and tundra. Yakut cinema tells Arctic stories worldwide.