Evens

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The Evens or Eveny (formerly known as the Lamuts) (Эвены in Russian) are a people in Siberia and the Russian Far East. They live in some of the regions of the Magadan and Kamchatka Oblasts and northern parts of Sakha east of the Lena River. According to the 2002 census, there were 19,071 Evens in Russia. They speak their own Even language, one of the Tungusic languages. The Evens are close to the Evenks by their origins and culture. Officially, they were considered to be of Orthodox faith since the 19th century, but the Evens managed to preserve different forms of pre-Christian beliefs, such as shamanism and the like. The Evens used to be engaged in reindeer-breeding, hunting, fishing and trapping. There were 104 Evens in Ukraine, 19 of whom speaking Eveni. (Ukr. Cen. 2001)

The Soviet years marked significant changes for the Evens. The Soviets created a written language for them and did away with illiteracy among the Evens in the 1930s. Many nomadic Evens chose to settle down, joined the kolkhozes and engaged themselves in cattle-breeding and agriculture.

However, the journalist David Remnick mentions in his book Lenin's Tomb that the forcible settlement of the Eveni, who are essentially nomadic hunter-gatherers, into towns and villages during the Stalinist era created significant social and psychological problems among them, particularly alcoholism and substance abuse. He also mentions that children of the Eveni were taken away from their families to be educated in state schools, mainly with the goal of suppressing the Eveni language and culture.

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