This isolated community along the Tapsui River, one of the tributaries of the Northern Sosva River, can be reached only by small motorboats from Spring through Autumn. The population of Sholtitpaul is two: Olga Anyameva and her husband, Valerii Klimov, both in their late-forties or early fifties. They live the lives of hunter-gatherers and are among the few remaining Mansi speakers.

Mansi is one of more than 80 recognized minority languages spoken in Russia. The vast majority of these languages are indigenous to Russia, and most are listed in UNESCO's “Red Book” of endangered languages. Two of these languages, Khanty (sometimes referred to as Ostyak) and Mansi, spoken by peoples of the same name, are generally accepted as Hungarian’s two closest linguistic relatives.

Sharing the Ugric language group Hungarian, Khanty and Mansi make up the Ugric branch of the Finno-Ugric language family that includes Finnish and Estonian in its Finnic branch. The Khanty and the Mansi live along the Ob River in the oil-rich Khanty-Mansiisk region of northwestern Siberia.

Today, very few Khanty and Mansi speakers remain; their language and culture, like so many others in Russia, are on the verge of extinction. Most remaining Mansi-speakers are fishers and hunter-gatherers, while many Khanty speakers are reindeer herders. They live in log cabins in areas where temperatures in January dip to 45 degrees below freezing.

One of the factors clearly contributing to the extinction of these people is oil. The population of the Khanty-Mansiisk region has skyrocketed since the discovery of oil here in the 1960s, which has resulted in the dilution of the indigenous population. Today, well over 1 million people - almost all Russian speakers - live in this region roughly the size of France. The Mansi number about 6,000 and only about 30 percent speak the Mansi language. There are between 20,000 and 30,000 Khanty but only a fraction speak their ancestors’ language.

Large-scale displacements

Oil exploration has been blamed for the displacement of people in the early 1990s, when constitutional protections of indigenous peoples’ rights to traditional land in Russia were undermined by corruption and poverty.

Large tracts of forests in regions where the Mansi and Khanty once lived and hunted have been razed. Many oil migrants from the south also hunt for sport, seriously impacting the livelihood of the few natives that remain in the forest.

Olga looks with disdain to a neighboring cottage being built where a former Mansi village once stood on the Tapsui River. The cottage will be home to a top executive at a local oil and gas company, whose standard of living is light years from hers – a stark contrast to the hunter-gatherers who live in log cabins, without electricity or plumbing. With no running water, Olga makes use of water from the Tapsui for cooking and bathing.

With the temperature plummeting to minus 45 in winter and reaching only 15 degrees for about two months, the woodstove in her living quarters burns roughly 10 months a year.

Long-lasting confrontations

Despite the remoteness of this region, historical records dating to the 12th century suggest confrontations and battles between the ancestors of modern-day Mansi and Novgorod, and later Moscow, until coming under full Russian control in the 17th century.

Moscow-rule never stopped taking its toll on either of these two northern peoples. “My family first fled the whites [the Tsarists]; and then when the reds [the communists] came to power we fled them, too, they wanted to collectivize our reindeer herds,” says Olga.

“Under Stalin,” she says, “there was one village where they killed all of the Mansi, and only the men who were out hunting survived.”

Indicative of official Soviet attitudes toward the Mansi is a foreword of a 1957 Soviet textbook on how to teach the Mansi language. The text says that before Communism: “the level of social development of the Mansi amounted to primitive communities with strong signs of disintegration.”

This underlying attitude viewed these people as primitive communities, and led to a policy of forced integration which involved taking young children from their families in the forest and sending them to Russian schools in larger Russian-speaking communities often more than 100 kilometers away. After years in these schools, few children returned, and most became disconnected from their heritage.

This practice continues today; but with fewer and fewer children being born in the forest, it is not much of a problem anymore.

Authorities and impediments

Bureaucracy also impacts the lives of these indigenous people. Whereas hunting is part of their traditional way of life, they now must obtain a license from authorities for each animal they want to slay. Apart from being expensive, travel to and from cities to obtain these licenses can take one or two days each way.

Nowhere can the threat to these languages and cultures be felt more strongly than within the communities themselves. The expression “few and far between” takes on a whole new meaning in this region. Most villages along the Tapsui River are now empty, the last of the people living here died out, and their children moved to larger communities. In the mid- 1990s, the last survivor in the Village of Tapsvatpaul ended his own life tragically when he turned a gun on himself.

When asked why the last man in Tapsvatpaul shot himself, Olga does not blame vodka, depression, loneliness or any of the usual suspects that could lead to a person living on his own to take his life. “It’s because of the unrest of his ancestors’ spirits; they were buried too close to the home.”

Traditionally, Mansi are polytheists who, among other things, believe in the power of shamans and spirits and hold sacred certain animal species, forests and rivers. Olga and her brothers and sisters follow that Mansi tradition; but the modern world too is taking that away. There are no new shamans and the last of the older shamans are dying out – with them any hope that the healing powers of shamanism might keep the Mansi culture alive.

There is now 200 kilometers between Olga’s Village of Sholtitpaul and the next village downstream, Ust’-Tapsui, which boasts a population of four people: a mother and her three adult sons. Among these few Mansi still left in the forest, it is hard to come by a strong sense of identity. Although Olga still follows many ways of the traditional life, and holds many traditional beliefs, she is not troubled by the fact none of her children speak Mansi, even if it was the only language she spoke until the age of nine, before she was sent to a far-off school.

Her sister, Liuda, speaks Mansi with her husband, but speaks only Russian with their three-year-old daughter.

Language source of shame

“Mansi would be of no use to her,” said Liuda, referring to her young daughter. “A lot of us Mansi will speak our language among ourselves, but if there are Russians nearby, many of us are ashamed of our language and will change to Russian.”

Natasha, an 18-year old Mansi who speaks the language, expressed scorn toward her people, claiming, “They’re all alcoholics.” The larger fishing Village of Nyaksimvol, population 300, where the Mansi live sideby- side with Russians and another ethnic group, the Zyryan Komi, underscores both Liuda’s and Natasha’s claims.

According to the Mansi teacher in the local school, many Mansi children no longer speak the language, and it is rare to even hear parents speaking the language either. As for alcohol abuse, while it is hard to measure the levels of alcoholism in Nyaksimvol, one small food store in the village, despite having half-empty shelves and a very limited selection even by Russian standards, still manages 10 different vodka brands for locals to choose from.

The fact these languages are most closely related to Hungarian could, in theory, contribute to saving these distant relatives. The first anthropologists and linguists to systematically study the Mansi came from Hungary in the 19th century. Even today Hungarian interest in Khanty remains strong with Finno-Ugric language departments in six different Hungarian universities.

Little interest in Mansi

Due to either high levels of "Russification" of Mansi, or because there are so many more Khanty, far fewer Hungarian anthropologists or linguists are attracted to the Mansi language and culture. At the department for Finno-Ugric languages at the Hungarian Academy Sciences, only one known researcher deals specifically with Mansi.

It seems that Hungary too has decided these cousins cannot be saved. Apart from the scholastic interest in the Khanty, the only substantial interest from Hungarians in the region may be the very heart of the problem: oil. Since the end of 2002, Hungary’s oil giant, MOL, has been a 50 percent stakeholder in Zapadno-Malobalik, one of the companies extracting oil in the Khanty-Mansiisk region. There is no clear evidence that MOL has contributed – from the oil wealth it exploits – to the development, enrichment and empowerment of the indigenous people here. Perhaps, in this way, MOL could well become a part of the solution.

Research being undertaken

The people of western Siberia, however, are helping themselves, and some of the oil revenue is trickling into the communities. In the administrative capital of Khanty-Mansiisk, oil revenue and the regional government have contributed to the development of a recently- opened university where Khanty and Mansi languages are taught. It is here Olga’s sister is studying to become a Mansi linguist.

Ethnic Mansi and Khanty have also been given shares in a fund specifically designated for natives of the Khanty-Mansiisk region. The regional government also claims that up to a quarter of the land has now been set aside for indigenous people who live the traditional way of life.

Still, it is evident that unless some miracle happens, the few young Mansi and Khanty scholars attending the university, including Olga’s sister, will be involved in the study of a dead language: a language that was their own for centuries.

This is a fate shared by many other languages and ethnic groups in Russia. These two peoples seem beyond the critical point for the survival of their language and culture. Their sense of national pride has eroded and they see no use in their language. Outside pressures and prejudices have led the people to be almost ashamed of their culture, a culture which has become too "Russified" to be of any real interest to scholars.