Nogliki

Nogliki is a city known by oil. The name of the city comes from Nivkh words noghl- which means "smell". In Nivkh language the name of the city is noghl-vo which means "smelling-village". Of course it concerns oil. Nivkh people who lived in villages as Chaivo Pil'tun Ngavir half a century ago now lives in the city of Nogliki.

I have worked with people in Nogliki from 1999 about a month every year. My teacher of Nivkh language and culture live there. I love Nogliki just like my home town.

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The city emblem of Nogliki is composed of fish and fern and oil drops.

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The Regional Historical Museum of Nogliki.

The museum is also a cultural center of Nivkh people in this city. There is a wonderful collection of Nivkh traditional life tools there. Of course there works Nivkh people themselves studying their own culture and history. 

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Buildings in the center of the city.

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You sometimes see caws in this modernized city.

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School children playing football.

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A fisher boat.

The pier of boats is in the Tym river. Fichermen work in the bay of Nyvo (<ngyi-vo --- "bay-village"). The boats are so little to work outside the bay. The boat in the photo is a former Soviet product and the outboard machine is made in Japan.

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Nyvo.

The village of Nyvo is composed of the houses that lie scattered in sandbar. The name of the village "Nyvo" comes from the words "ngyi" (sandbar) and "vo" (village). Nogliki is a comfortable  modern city but the air pollution seems serious just like other cities --- for example Tokyo. Many people  those who have symptom of high blood pressure suffer from headache too. Nivkh people insist that "bad air" is also a reason of their headache. The air stagnates in the cities but not in the sandbars where always wind blows. Nivkh people especialy elders love to stay in Nyvo in summer season. They catch fish make dried fish and gather berries in Nyvo just as their ancesters did.

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"tolnga ngamadj". Seal's fur.

Nivkh people have caught seals for hundreds of years. Under the government of the Russian Federation they have rights to catch seals and use their resource --- fat meat fur and so on. Europeans learned from the northern peoples that sea animals are very useful. They make vitamin preparation from seal's fat now.

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"tachrh". Scraper.

Traditional tool for scratching seal skin. It is used for removing fat.

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"ngarghorh". Cage trap to catch seals.

Guns are called  "meochng" in Nivkh and this word is from chinese. From this word it may be supposed that nivkh people first learned to use guns from chinese marchants. After 19th century Russian marchants have brought many guns. Nivkh people now usually use guns to kill animals but they don't forget former technology. They set this cage floating in the water. Seals love to stay upon anything that floats. If a seal gets on the trap the top of it drops down and the seal would be caught in it.  (photo in Venskoe)

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Wooden tray.

Wooden tray to make traditional food "mos". Traditional tools like this are not only useful but loved by poeple as a symbol of their traditional culture. (photo in Venskoe)

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