The Taimyr Peninsula, the northernmost in Eurasia, is known mainly for the Putorana Plateau, which is popular among tourists, and the Nornickel Company. Few people know about the nations who were the first to cross the Putorana Mountains and became the first metallurgists here. The Volochanka village is located exactly in the middle of Taimyr. Half of its inhabitants are Dolgans, a Turkic people related to the Yakuts. Half are Nganasans, the Samoyed nomadic hunters. Officially, fewer than 900 Nganasan remain in the world. In reality, no more than a hundred speaks the native language. According to scientists' forecasts, wild reindeer, the major prey of local indigenous hunters, may disappear by 2025 due to global warming, pollution and poaching. Then the traditional way of life will be completely lost.Nganasan people believed that powerful local shamans from the clan of the crow could change their color from white to dark and back to be able to contact both upper and lower worlds. Now all small nations of the Russian Arctic region are on the border of great transition from traditional life to modernity.
