RN-Uvatneftegaz Supports First Indigenous Peoples' Festival in Tyumen Region
RN-Uvatneftegaz (an enterprise of Rosneft Oil Company's upstream complex) was one of the hosts for the first Indigenous Peoples' Festival in the Tyumen region. More than 50 representatives of indigenous peoples from all the settlements in the district arrived in the district centre of Uvat.
The Festival programme included competitions in national sports, such as throwing tynzyan to a reindeer pole, throwing rings on reindeer horns and jumping over a sledge. Guests of the festival took part in workshops on beadweaving and making amulets, 
learnt folklore, tasted dishes of national cuisine – northern fish soup and tea made with taiga herbs, took a ride in a reindeer sleigh. The event included the Northern Patterns Arts and Crafts Exhibition, the National Costume Exhibition and the Demyan Khanty Photo Exhibition.
Khanty representatives and amateur hunters from the Uvat district competed in agility and overcoming obstacle course in a sport-hunting tournament. The oil workers have provided valuable prizes for the winners of the competition.
Indigenous people sold traditional handicrafts such as freshly frozen and smoked fish, meat, berries, pine nuts, furs and beads at the festival stalls. RN-Uvatneftegaz has helped to deliver indigenous handicrafts from remote camps. The Khanty came to the festival with their children and there was a separate development programme for them.
At the festival, RN-Uvatneftegaz presented equipment for traditional crafts – snowmobiles, boat engines and electric generators – to indigenous families in the Uvat district. In total, the enterprise has handed over 122 vehicles to families over several years of indigenous peoples' support.
One of the key areas of Rosneft's social policy is the preservation of the national culture of the indigenous peoples of the North and their traditional way of life. The Company's enterprises implement numerous social projects in their regions of operation, developing infrastructure in northern villages, supporting reindeer herding families, and improving the material and technical base of educational institutions and social and medical facilities in the ancestral homelands of indigenous minorities.
RN-Uvatneftegaz, together with the Uvat district administration, supports representatives of the Khanty, Mansi and Evenk peoples of the Tyumen region, providing comprehensive assistance in preserving their distinctive culture and way of life. RN-Uvatneftegaz pays annual tuition fees for young people at specialised secondary and higher education institutions and finances participation in competitions in the national sport of oblas (boat racing). The enterprise provides access to winter roads and ice crossings built for production purposes, and organises fuel distribution in the fields closest to the camps.
Note for Editors:
RN-Uvatneftegaz traditionally held a unique fair of indigenous goods in the Uvat district on the enterprise's largest field. The success of the fair and the high level of interest from indigenous people and oil workers helped to expand the format of the event into a festival. At the same time, the festival became a platform for representatives of the oil enterprise to discuss urgent issues of support for indigenous peoples with the district administration.
RN-Uvatneftegaz, a Rosneft subsidiary, is engaged in the exploration and development of the Uvat group of fields located in Tyumen Region. The Uvat project consists of 19 licence areas covering a total area of over 25,000 km2. 28 fields have been discovered.
Rosneft
Information Division
March 6, 2023