Daily Life
the Nenets have educational opportunities at all levels and many go on to follow modern careers as doctors, teachers, lawyers & vets etc. Despite this, reindeer breeding remains important, both economically and culturally. Their reindeer herding activity is based around family groups with the herders and their families leading a semi-nomadic lifestyle and staying with their reindeer the whole year round. Nenets herders live in tepee style tents ‘mya’ the covers of which are made from reindeer skin for use in winter and canvas in the summer. Their herding involves seasonal migrations with their reindeer. For the Nenets who migrate up to the north the Yamal Peninsula, migrations can be as long as 1,000km each way. During the winter most herders graze their reindeer on tundra or in forests in the southern part of their region, before migrating northwards again in the spring up to the Arctic coast. In the autumn they begin their journey south again.