Many of these non-cow-keeping households are however playing an active role in cow-keeping via their interdependency with a kin cow-keeping household. They supply much-needed labor during the summer hay harvest in exchange for a significant supply of bovine products from kin households. In the broader context, contemporary Viliui Sakha cow-keepers are on the one hand locally revered as true Sakha maintaining ties to the land to harvest hay and pasture their herds and not fleeing the village for the “better life” in the regional center or capital. On the other hand, in the wake of the “new market economy” and overall economic restructuring, cow-keeping is considered by many a dead end occupation with no future prospect, despite its overwhelming centrality to contemporary survival. Nevertheless, the social status of being decidedly more Sakha is a positive attribute and a response to increased ethnic awareness in the post-Soviet setting.