The Enets (russian: энцы, ; singular: , ; also known as Yenetses, Entsy, Entsi, Yenisei or Yenisey Samoyeds) are a Samoyedic ethnic group who live on the east bank, near the mouth, of the Yenisei River. Historically nomadic people, they now mainly inhabit the village of Potalovo in Krasnoyarsk Krai in western Siberia near the

Arctic Circle The Arctic Circle is one of the two polar circles, and the most northerly of the five major circles of latitude as shown on maps of Earth. Its southern equivalent is the Antarctic Circle. The Arctic Circle marks the southernmost latitude at w ...

. According to the 2010 Census, there are 227 Enets in Russia. In Ukraine, there were 26 Entsi in 2001, of whom 18 were capable of speaking the Enets language. The Enets language is a Samoyedic language, formerly known as Yenisei Samoyedic (not to be confused with the Yeniseian language family, which is completely unrelated). They still speak their language, but education is in Russian so there is fear they may lose their language.

Current situation

British travel writer Colin Thubron visited the town of Potalovo in the late 1990s and found the Entsi deculturated and demoralized, beset with problems of alcoholism. The reindeer

collective A collective is a group of entities that share or are motivated by at least one common issue or interest, or work together to achieve a common objective. Collectives can differ from cooperatives in that they are not necessarily focused upon an ...

established in Nikita Khrushchev's day had been severely impacted by

acid rain Acid rain is rain or any other form of precipitation that is unusually acidic, meaning that it has elevated levels of hydrogen ions (low pH). Most water, including drinking water, has a neutral pH that exists between 6.5 and 8.5, but acid ...

from the nickel

smelter Smelting is a process of applying heat to ore, to extract a base metal. It is a form of extractive metallurgy. It is used to extract many metals from their ores, including Silver mining#Ore processing, silver, iron-making, iron, copper extracti ...

s at Norilsk. A fur farm that raises

fox Foxes are small to medium-sized, omnivorous mammals belonging to several genera of the family Canidae. They have a flattened skull, upright, triangular ears, a pointed, slightly upturned snout, and a long bushy tail (or ''brush''). Twelv ...

was similarly diminished. About half the population was unemployed with a few employed in reindeer herding on the west side of the river, the remainder living by fishing in the Yenisei River. Fisherman from Potapovo sometimes catch red

sturgeon Sturgeon is the common name for the 27 species of fish belonging to the family Acipenseridae. The earliest sturgeon fossils date to the Late Cretaceous The Late Cretaceous (100.5–66 Ma) is the younger of two epochs into which the Cretace ...

and '' Omul'', a type of salmon, as well as

char Char may refer to: People *Char Fontane, American actress *Char Margolis, American spiritualist * René Char (1907–1988), French poet *The Char family of Colombia: ** Fuad Char, Colombian senator ** Alejandro Char Chaljub, mayor of Barranquilla ...

, gang fish, and northern pike. Thubron mentions a salted muksun fish product. Some social services continue to be provided by the Russian government: a small hospital, with a doctor and a few nurses; schools (although older children must attend in Dudinka to the north); and small

Russian government The Government of Russia exercises executive power in the Russian Federation. The members of the government are the prime minister, the deputy prime ministers, and the federal ministers. It has its legal basis in the Constitution of the Russia ...

pension A pension (, from Latin ''pensiō'', "payment") is a fund into which a sum of money is added during an employee's employment years and from which payments are drawn to support the person's retirement from work in the form of periodic payments ...

s. The electric plant had recently burned and electricity was provided intermittently by a generator. Life expectancy is 45 with many dying violent deaths due to family violence and fighting.

Citations

Article on the Enets in ''The Red Book of the Peoples of the Russian Empire'' online version
*Adapted from the Wikinfo article, "Enets" https://web.archive.org/web/20070927211239/http://www.internet-encyclopedia.org/wiki.phtml?title=Enets March 3, 2004

References

{{authority control Ethnic groups in Siberia Ethnic groups in Russia Ancient peoples Indigenous peoples of North Asia Samoyedic peoples Krasnoyarsk Krai Indigenous small-numbered peoples of the North, Siberia and the Far East Indigenous peoples in the Arctic Modern nomads

Current situation

See also

Further reading

Citations

References