Kostantin Dyachkov

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Smells in Chukotka

        Inscription on a lodge reads “…collective farmers, do not let meat of marine animals go bad”. But to a Chukchi man these words look like mockery or, at least, nonsense.

Hunters | settlement Pinakul, Chukotka, Russia

        Here meat is only eaten fresh on the first day. Then they put it in so-called meat pits. Carcasses are only taken away after three or four days, not straight off. Till then heaps of dressed carcasses lie scattered all over the coast which makes bears and gluttons very happy. At a depth of no less than one metre meat stays in a relative cool. But it stays there for weeks or even months, and in summer (at 4-7 degrees above zero) it inevitably goes bad after a few days. Russians are the only people disturbed by this circumstance, and Chukchi people eat any meat – both with rotten smell and without it.

Dried meat | settlement Pinakul, Chukotka, Russia

        There are many jokes about Chukchi favourite seasoning – sand. They cut meat and fish right on sand, so it is impossible to get rid of it later. You can wash it, soak it but it won’t help – it is going to crunch in the teeth anyway. They would just wash off the blood and drag a piece (a heavy one!) behind them on sand, stones and asphalt. One of the reasons Chukchi people cannot make caviar is that this process requires cleanness.
        Yuri Senkevich wrote that the most exotic dish he tasted in his travels was Chukchi kopayka. First they make a ‘potato’: walrus meat is cleared of bones and sewn up in the animal skin. Then the ‘potato’ stays immersed in water for a couple of weeks. There it gets rotten and fermented in an anoxic environment. This is how pickled meat is made. It smells disgustingly (resembles sourcrout to some extent) but they say it is extremely good for health and very nutritious (a small piece is enough for the whole day). It would definitely be enough for me – after its ‘aroma’ I try not to think about food at all.
        When a Chukchi family opens up another ‘potato’, Russians leave the apartment building to stay with their relatives or friends because even experienced northerners find it impossible to live in such stink.

Lorinsky huskies | settlement Lorino, Chukotka, Russia

        One can tell at length about Chukchi smells. The first thing you pay attention at is total absence of smells away from the coast and Chukchi habitation. Vegetation is very poor there, air is tasteless and water in mountain streams resembles rainwater and smells like the sky. It is not so by the sea – sea ‘potatoes’, sea kale, crabs and fish turn into a pickling solution and slowly become rotten. May God keep you from stepping into this mush. If you do so, your boots will stink even after you thoroughly clean them (with a tooth-pick and a brush that should be thrown away straight off).
        The moral of the story is pretty simple. Friends, if you happen to come to a distant land, do not trust a smiling Indian but do not get mad at him either – he does not mean to hurt you. Just remember – his stomach works differently.

Konstantin Dyachkov