The Koryaks. General Information

Koryaks, a people of Russia, live in the Koryak area of the Kamchatka territory. The area was formed on July 1, 2007, when the Kamchatka region was merged with the Koryak autonomous area. The area spans the north of the peninsula, the Kamchatka Isthmus, and adjacent mainland areas.

The 2010 Census determined the number of Koryaks at 7.953 people; 6.640 out of them lived in the Kamchatka territory and 900 - in the Magadan region. A small number of Koryaks were recorded as living in the Chukotka autonomous area (69), the Khabarovsk territory (55), the Primorye territory (34), as well as the Krasnoyarsk territory, Yakutia, the Sverdlovsk region, St. Petersburg, and Moscow.

The number of Koryaks, according to the All-Russian Census 2020–2021, was 7,485 people (3,582 men, 3,983 women), of which 6,413 people lived in the Kamchatka Territory.

The Resolution of the Government of the Russian Federation No. 536-r dated April 17, 2006 lists Koryaks as indigenous small-numbered peoples of the North, Siberia, and the Russian Far East.

In the past, Koryaks did not have a common endonym. Renowned Kamchatka researchers Georg Steller and Stepan Krasheninnikov believed that the name “Koryaks” comes from the Koryak word “ khora ” meaning reindeer. Later, its use was popularized by Russian Cossacks. With time, the name “Koryaks” meaning “at reindeer, being with reindeer” came to be used as an endonym.

Koryaks are divided into two large groups depending on their occupations and cultures: Chuvchuvens (their endonym is chav’chyv’ , “rich in reindeer”) are reindeer (tundra) people, the nomadic population of Kamchatka’s northern and central areas, and Nymylans (their endonym is Nymylgyns , meaning “local resident,” “peasant”) who are mostly fishermen and maritime trappers living in coastal hamlets.

Nomadic Chuvchuvens were relatively homogeneous both linguistically and culturally, while settled Nymylans included local groups with different dialects and cultural elements. Nymylans include the following principal ethnographic groups:

 – Palanans, who live on the west coast of Kamchatka (the hamlets of Palana, Voyampolka, Lesnaya) and traditionally do fishing and fur trapping;

  – the Kaments, who live in several villages (Manily etc.) of the Penzhina Bay and do maritime trapping and fishing;

 – Parenians, who live in the village of Paren’ on the coast of the Penzhina Bay and are traditionally occupied in fishing, maritime trapping, and blacksmithing;

 – Itkanans live on the east coast of the Taygonos Peninsula. They largely have the same occupations as the Kaments;

 – Karagans live in the village of Karaga on the eastern coast of Kamchatka and do fishing.

            Alyutors constitute a special group; their ethnic status is ambiguous. Some scholars consider Alyutors to be an ethnic subgroup of Koryaks, while others consider them to be a separate people. Alyutors account for about 25 % of the overall number of Koryaks and are divided into nomadic and settled groups. Apukans are very close to Alyutors in their language and culture. They traditionally live on the coast of the Bering Sea from the river Pakhacha in the south to the Natalya Cove in the north.

            During the Soviet era, the culture and languages of Koryaks’ ethnographic groups were largely homogenized because of the administrative practice of inducing nomads to settle, and particularly the campaign for phasing out “unpromising” villages held in the 1950s-1980s. These steps bolstered the indigenous population’s migration and erased their dialectal and cultural differences. Nonetheless, Koryaks still retain their endonyms indicating their affiliation with a particular local ethnographic group; their dialects survive as well.

Post-Soviet policies aimed to revive traditions helped maintain the cultural diversity of the Koryak ethnic community.