By
Marina Khachaturova

akut University is younger than any

of the young people applying for
admission. It was founded in 1956, an
outgrowth of a teachers college that was
the only institution of higher learning in
the republic. In the twenties and early
thirties, young men and women from Ka-
kutia went to colleges and universities
elsewhere in Siberia. as well as to Mos-
cow, Leningrad and other big cities. The
reason there were no schools of higher
education earlier was that Yakutia was
not ready to use them. Before the Revolu-
tion. its literacy rate was 0.7%. First
everyone had to be given at least four
years of schooling.

The Yakut language belongs to the
Turkic group, and although linguists say
it is richly. connotative, the Yakuts had
no written language. An alphabet based
on the Russian was created in 1922, after
the formation of the Yakut Autonomous
Republic.

The new republic needed teachers, a
great many of them. They were trained in
other parts of the country until 1934,
when a teachers college was established
in Yakutsk. The first year, the college had
only two departments and 57 students.
Today Yakut University has seven de-

partments, a student body of 6,500 and a
teaching staff of 500. Almost half of the
students and faculty are Yakuts. I learned

_ that later since there is no way of telling
Yakuts from Russians by their names. By

Russian first names and last names. But
when you look at these Ivanovs, Popovs,
Petrovs and Sidorovs, you know their
nationality immediately. The Yakuts
have blue-black hair, dark, narrow, slant-
ing eyes and small rather flat noses. This
is their collective image. But as in music,
it is a theme on which there are many
variations, since the local people fre-
quently marry Russians.

WORLD MAGAZINE

long-standing tradition, all Yakuts have —

PACIFIC TRIBUNE—FRIDAY, SEPTEMBER 7, 19732-PAGE 6

A
university
younger
than its
students

Yakutia is 13 times larger than Eng-
land. It is the most sparsely populated
section of the Soviet Union. Some districts
have no more than one person per 19
square miles, about 500 times less than the
average for the USSR.

The names of the indigenous peoples,
the Oduls, Chukchi, Eveny, Venki and
Yukagirs, sound exotic even to the Russian
ear. The largest of the more than 10 na-
tionalities who live in the area are the
Yakuts. Their forebears, belonging to a
Turkic tribe, migrated from the southern
plains of Siberia in the thirteenth and four-
teenth centuries.

This article is reprinted, slightly abridg-
ed, from Soviet Life.

Like the American Indians, the peo-
ples of the Soviet North are agile and
hardy, fine hunters and fishermen. al-
though the Yakut or Evenk attending the
university has shifted his targets. He
now needs a keen eye to look through a
microscope and a steady hand-to guide a
surgeon's knife. But ‘hunting is still the
favorite sport of a great many of the peo-
ple at the university. As faculty members
from Moscow or Leningrad universities
spend their weekends mushroom hunting.
so those from Yakut University go out
after the bears. deer and hares. to say
nothing of birds. with which the forests
abound. And often when they do some-
thing as traditional as hunting. they wear
the national costume of furs, not for its
decorative qualities but because it is
comfortable and warm. In. the towns it is
the fashion for both men and women to
wear torbaza, the Yakutian deerskin
boots decorated with beads or strips of
leather.

@

In our industrial age Yakutia has
naturally lost some of its exotic flavor.
But for the most part it is those aspects
of the exotic from which the native popu-
lation suffered that are gone. Thanks to
the Soviet nationalities policy. that one-
time land of penal servitude and exile.
with a poverty-stricken. hungry. illit-
erate people on the verge of extinction
has. in some four decades. attained a lev-
el where it can be called a civilized
nation.

But this is only the beginning of a road
that differs sharply from the one traveled
by many of our other republics. with cen-
turies of culture behind them. Yakut
University has to solve problems native
to the region. The structure of the uni-
versity is therefore unusual. Although
Yakutia desperately needs trained per-
sonnel in all fields. it has too small a
population for- independent colleges of
medicine. geology. construction engineer-
ing. or agriculture. So all these schools
are. concentrated under a single univer-
sitv roof as departments: history and
philology. medicine. agriculture. biology
and geography. engineering. physics and
mathematics. and foreign languages

It was natural that before the univer-
sity opened. Yakutia’s only institution of
higher learning should be a teachers col-

lege. The important thing was to give
everyone the eight years of schooling
Soviet law required. In 1970 Yakutia
joined the rest of the country in mak-
ing 10 years of schooling compulsory. And
it now produces other college-trained per-
sonnel beside teachers. The university
graduates geologists. mining engineers,
construction engineers, researchers,
doctors, veterinarians and livestock spec-
ialists, as well as high-school teachers
of history. the Russian language and lit-
erature. the Yakutian language and it-
erature. foreign languages, biology,
chemistry. geography. physics and math
ematics. It is impossible for the faculty
to complain that their students are not
prepared for university study. because
they themselves have trained the men and
women who teach in the secondary
schools of Yakutia. Unlike other univer-
sities, whose graduates work all over the
country. Yakut University trains person-
nel only for the republic. -

The close ties between the university
and all spheres of the Yakutian economy
enable the rector and the deans of the de-
partments to follow the work of their

graduates. The feeling of being one close-~

knit family influences the selection of the
university's economic and cultural pro-
jects. Priority is given such subjects as
“The Choice of Suitable Parameters for
Boring and Blasting on the Kangalass
Profile’ or *‘The Protective Grounding
of Mining Structures in Conditions of
Permafrost.’’ Techniques of core drilling
in permafrost conditions, regional path-
ology. and Russian dialects in the upper
reaches of the Lena are being studied.
The university is taking part in the In-
ternational Biological Program and is
conducting an artificial Earth satellite
surveillance program through the IBP’s
Astronomical Council. The university's
electronic computer laboratory has
working relations with the Institute of
Space Physics of the USSR Academy of
Sciences.

Reindeer- or dog-sleigh transportation
is used by some of the students who come
to Yakut University. Every year up to
100 representatives of the smallest Far
Northern nationalities. such as the Chuk-
chi and Yukagirs. are admitted without
competitive examinations. They are com-
pletely supported by the state and get.
as do all Yakut University students.
monthly maintenance allowances. The
student body is composed of men and wo-
men of more than 20 nationalities. There
are even southerners like Azerbaijanians
and Georgians — heaven knows how they
landed in Yakutia — who feel completely
at home.

‘What would you say were your biggest
difficulties?"" I asked the rector. Inno-
kenti Repey. We were seated. in his.office
in one of the eight university buildings.

“Ours are the difficulties of a tran-
sitional period. We have no traditions vet.
and we do not have our own scientific
school. What we lack most are people to
teach the natural and engineering
sciences. But the country’s oldest and
largest universities are helping out. They
admit 300 men and women from Yakutia

annually without entrance exa
Besides, half of our 70 graduate s¥
do advanced work in their special) |
at Moscow, Leningrad and other Um |
sities. Yakut University gives them
‘tenance scholarships that are 40%
er than the usual for graduate
All those working or studying in Yi
including undergraduates, get al
tional 40% in wages or scholarship
ances because of the rigorous Ii

working conditions in the Far North.

‘How does your university diffel™
others?”’

‘Our orientation is somewhat Uf
Other universities train people chieé
research, but our main job it to Wi)”
teachers and specialists for of
public. Only 10%. of our most
graduates go into scientific re
Then too, our university is bl
Every student speaks and write
Yakut and Russian. This is true, f@
matter,.of practically everyone If
tia, which is one of Russia’s oldest

‘I was told that you have a larg?
ber of women in your student ™
that so?” a

“People are always surprised?)
that 62 percent of our undergradual™
women.’ Prerevolutionary Yakut 7
not like Central Asia, where womet
domestic slaves. Through the cé
women here have been equals of Mg
cause of the climate, which ei. a
not be able to cope with withol 4
help. The indigenous people of
shouldered all the burdens of thé
development of our extensive ty
They were the onés who set up lif, |
farms, did commercial hunting 4! A a
ing. and figured out ways to re §
working and living conditions eas!

|
|

“How do you see the future ©
ment of the university?’* de!

“We plan to turn some of wn a
ments into independent colleges: _ i
have a polytechnic institute, 4 ©
college and an_ agricultural not
among others. It looks right tg R
though the medical students WY | jy
first to leave us, some three "|
now.”

a  h-

Dinosaur dug up by students

ow
ve eee
few Se