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Ermolin D. Food Culture of the Ust-Tsilma Old Believers (based on D. D. Travin’s Archive from the Collection of the MAE RAS)

D. Ermolin
Peter the Great Museum of Anthropology and Ethnography (Kunstkamera) of the Russian Academy of Sciences
St. Petersburg, Russian Federation
ORCID: 0000-0001-8474-9120
E-mail: denis.ermolin@gmail.com

 

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ABSTRACT. The article analyzes the materials of D. D. Travin’s ethnographic research in the region of the Pechora River, mainly among Russian Old Believers of Ust-Tsilma and surrounding villages. The materials are held in the Museum of Anthropology and Ethnography of the Russian Academy of Sciences (MAE RAS) as field diaries and photographic and material object collections. Some of these sources will be introduced into scientific circulation for the first time. The author argues that the region’s biological, physical, geographical, and climatic features, as well as confessional prescriptions and restrictions, impacted the Old Believers’ culture of nutrition and diet. The topic is relevant for several reasons. Over the past decades, ethnographic science has recorded significant transformations in the culture of food consumption, which can be associated, on the one hand, with the processes of cultural and everyday unification and, on the other hand, with what is commonly called glocalization. The practices of food consumption among the Old Believers and the prevailing ideas about neighbors of other ethnicities (primarily the Nenets and the Komi-Izhemtsy) formed the boundaries between representatives of different communities living in the situation of longterm contact. However, the existing barriers do not affect the interaction between ethnicities during the production and extraction of resources necessary for living in the conditions of the North (such as commercial fishing, reindeer herding, and hunting).

 

KEYWORDS: Pechora River, Ust-Tsil’ma, food, nutrition, Old Believers, Russians, Nenets, Komi-Izhemtsy, Dmitriy Travin, MAE RAS

 

DOI 10.31250/2618-8600-2023-4(22)-126-138
УДК 39:641.55(470.13)

 

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