Pandemic Threatens Future of Numerically Small Peoples of Russian North

Paul Goble

            Staunton, August 14 – Because the numerically small peoples of the North are so isolated that the coronavirus came to them far later than it did other groups in Russia and because they are so few in number so that even high rates of infection produce only small numbers of victims, the impact of the pandemic on them has been largely ignored by the Moscow media.

            But three reports, one prepared for the UN Special Rapporteur on the Rights of Indigenous Peoples, a second for the Arctic Council and a third by Indigen Human Rights Organization, document that they have suffered greatly and may not recover as fast as other populations.

            (These reports, prepared over the past six months by experts in Russia and abroad  are at un.org/development/desa/indigenouspeoples/covid-19.html, arctic-council.org/en/news/the-impact-of-covid-19-on-indigenous-peoples-living-in-the-russian-arctic/ and indigenous-russia.com/archives/6552 respectively.)

            Collectively, the three make the following points: First, because of their isolation, the numerically small peoples of the Russian North initially avoided the infection. They live in isolated areas and transportation between them and other parts of the country is limited or non-existent.

            Second, the virus was brought into the regions of the numerically small peoples of the north by Russian corporations who continued to cycle workers through their facilities throughout the period of the pandemic. Infection rates in these places rose to extremely high levels, and the coronavirus on occasion spread from them to the numerically small peoples nearby.

            Third, their isolation and numbers meant that Vladimir Putin’s health “optimization” program meant that many of the medical points which had serviced them in the past were closed over the last five years. As a result, when the pandemic did come, they lacked access to medical care and were more likely to become seriously ill or even die.

            Fourth, the Russian government failed to provide the subsidies the members of the numerically small peoples needed to survive. Many of them were able to return to their natural economic activity of the past, but many were not because they exist in a halfway house between the traditional economies and the modern one.

            And fifth, Russian officials in the north given limited resources devoted far more of them to the Russian economic outposts which continued to produce goods for use elsewhere in the economy or export than to peoples who did not. As a result, the pandemic has left the numerically small peoples of the Russian north in a far worse position than they were in.