MAIN CHARACTERS

Most personal names are pseudonyms that are chosen from an existing pool of Nenets personal names. Reindeer nomads have usually both Nenets and Russian names.

Yamb-To Baptists

Ivan, the first Nenets to convert to Baptism, a trader, and the unofficial leader of the Yamb-To community in the 1990s. Ivan moved to Vorkuta city and became an ordained preacher in 2012.

Andrei, Ivan’s elder brother, the second convert and presbyter of “the Nenets church.”

Lyuba, Andrei’s wife, born into a family of Ural Independents whose reindeer were collectivized in 1976.

Vera, eldest daughter of Andrei and Lyuba. Vera dreamed of leaving the tundra but ended up having her own family there.

Yegor, elder brother of Ivan and Andrei, demands obedience from himself and others.

Lida, Yegor’s wife, is from a Komi-speaking Nenets (kholva yaran) collective-farm hunting family. She is school educated.

Ngarka, Yegor and Lida’s oldest son, was the first to be baptized in his family but convinced others to follow.

Ksenya, younger sister of Yegor, is cheerful and skillful with a lasso.

Yevgeni, Ksenya’s husband and Lida’s brother, is also a Komi-speaking Nenets (kholva yaran) and boarding school boy. Once in the tundra he quickly learned Nenets and reindeer herding.

Tyepas, daughter of Vata and Tado, their only married child and the only Baptist in the family. In 1983, she and her brother were taken to school without their parents’ knowledge or permission.

Nyeteta, suffered a mental breakdown after conversion and marriage. Missionaries suspected she was possessed.

Syado, Lyuba’s younger sister, lives with her Baptist husband. They live in a separate tent next to the husband’s non-Christian family.

Yamb-To Nonconverts

Granny Marina, mother of Ivan, Andrei, Yegor, and Ksenya, immune to the “good news,” lived with her daughter Ksenya, died a “pagan” in 2018.

Tyepan, Granny Marina’s youngest son, first to leave for the state farm, now lives in Vorkuta, sometimes visits an Orthodox church, fights for the land rights of the Ural Nenets.

Vata, Ivan’s uncle, remained silent in the presence of missionaries and died a recalcitrant non-Christian in 2018.

Tado, Vata’s wife, the only woman in the camp, died in 2015.

Poru, one of the very few Independent men fluent in the Russian world, was already so during the Soviet period and a self-proclaimed “atheist.”

Ancestors

Yarki Veli, a half-mythic ancestor whose soul-image, ngytarma, was burned by his great-great-great-grandson Yegor when he converted to Baptism.

Taras, grandson of Yarki, died in the early twentieth century in an epidemic after most of his reindeer had died.

Mikul, Taras’s son, father of Vata and Sem, was also called pop vesako (“old priest”). Inspired by Russian Orthodoxy, he baptized children and died in 1976.

Mikhail, Mikul’s brother, was chairman of a collective farm during the Stalinist era.

Ngel, Mikul’s brother, was sent to the front in Second World War in 1942 and never returned.

Vas, Mikul’s brother, joined the mandalada, a Nenets uprising in 1943. He was arrested and perished in the Gulag.

Sem, Mikul’s son, father of Ivan, Andrei, Yegor, Ksenya, and Tyepan, died a recalcitrant non-Christian in 1999.

Ural Nenets Pentecostals or “Almost” Pentecostals

Iriko, a wealthy reindeer herder, became Pentecostal against his will.

Pukhutsya, Iriko’s wife, always in good humor, was baptized with his husband.

Their Children, All Illiterate

Tikynye, a lively young woman with some shamanic skills, being attracted by the Russian world and church network. She became the first Pentecostal in the family.

Netyu, daughter, despite being illiterate, tried hard to read the Bible. Netyu would later marry a non-Christian Khanty collective farmer and stop being an active believer.

Maranga, youngest daughter, is a Pentecostal who dreams about joining the Baptist church, in which there are many more young Nenets.

Pubta, son, takes care of the family herd. He is recently married.

Tyakalyu, son, is a good traveling companion.

Ngelya, son, is the last to be baptized among the children.

Kolye, youngest son, is a tempestuous person.

Missionaries

Pavel, Baptist presbyter of the Vorkuta Unregistered Baptist church, is the initiator of the conversion campaign among the Nenets. He is a former coal miner, originally from Ukraine.

Vladislav, a Pentecostal missionary from Vorkuta, works as a railway inspector and is originally from Ukraine.