The Northern Forum at Ysyakh
These past two weeks turned out to be incredibly busy with meetings for the Northern Forum, its colleagues, and partners in Yakutsk during the national holiday of Ysyakh. On June 19–21, an expanded meeting of the Russian Academy of Sciences (RAS) took place. For three days, scientists and practitioners discussed the most pressing topics for the development of the Yakut Arctic: human resources, permafrost thaw, mineral and raw material resources, and the trans-Arctic transport corridor, including the railway to Magadan. Special attention was paid to the Samoylovsky Research Station in the Lena River Delta. Anton Vsevolodovich Vasilyev—Ambassador Extraordinary and Plenipotentiary of Russia, Goodwill Ambassador of the Northern Forum, Advisor to the Rector of NEFU, Deputy Director of the Arctic and Climate Research Center at RSHMU, and Vice President of ASPOL—participated in an expert meeting on Samoylovsky Island and proposed several solutions for advancing international scientific cooperation at the station.
The expanded meeting of the RAS was also attended by Valery Anatolyevich Kryukov, Academician of the RAS, Goodwill Ambassador of the Northern Forum, and Scientific Director of the IEIE SB RAS, as well as Vasily Sergeyevich Ustinov, Advisor to the President of the Kurchatov Institute (M.V. Kovalchuk), with both of whom the Northern Forum has been actively collaborating over the past few years. On June 26, a meeting was held at the Northern Forum office between Deputy Executive Director Daryana Maximova and Kang Ye-ji, Consul of the Republic of Korea in Vladivostok. They agreed on cooperation within the framework of the Northern Forum Schools Association and, in general, decided to work towards restoring collaboration regarding Gangwon Province’s membership in the Northern Forum.
From June 25 to 28, our partner Olga Viktorovna Sanarova—Director of Special Projects at the Oleg Deripaska "Volnoe Delo" Charitable Foundation and Chair of the Organizing Committee of the Russian Partnership for Climate Conservation—held meetings in Yakutsk with a number of agencies and experts. The purpose of O.V. Sanarova's visit to Yakutia was to study ethnoculture as part of a project dedicated to the Year of National Unity in Russia. They attended all the events of Ysyakh Tuymaada. We express our deep gratitude to our colleagues from the Government of the Republic of Sakha (Yakutia), the State Assembly of the Republic of Sakha (Yakutia) (Il Tumen), the Yakut Science Center of the Siberian Branch of the RAS, NEFU, and the A.E. Kulakovsky House of Friendship of Peoples for their cooperation and hospitality during our national holiday. Furthermore, the delegation took part in the All-Russian Scientific and Practical Conference titled "Ethnosocial Processes in Siberia and the Far East: Challenges and Opportunities for Interethnic Accord" at the Institute for Humanities Research and Indigenous Studies of the North (YSC SB RAS).