SNOW RAVEN – Web of Life (2023)

SNOW RAVEN (SUOR) was born in one of the most remote and coldest inhabited places in the world, the Republic of Sakha, or Yakutia, in Arctic Siberia. She was three years old when she started to learn the language of birds and animals. Her voice takes its breath from traditional Sakha culture and is truly an instrument of healing power.

As an initiate of the ancient indigenous shamanic lore of her region (the word ‘shaman’ actually derives from the Tungus culture in Arctic Siberia) she has been tasked with the unique role of bridging ancient wisdom with modern culture. Her chosen medium for this is her powerful, versatile and beautiful voice.

After graduating from the University of Yakutsk in Economics, Snow Raven began a musical career, traveling globally and becoming a widely sought-after performer, creating a unique combination of authentic Sakha (Yakut) traditional shamanic sounds deeply rooted in nature, and modern, cutting-edge, electronic musical forms. Snow Raven is also passionately engaged with activism on behalf of the rights and lands of all far northern Indigenous peoples.

Sakha Republic(Yakutia)

Sakha, officially the Republic of Sakha (Yakutia), is the largest republic of Russia, located in the Russian Far East, along the Arctic Ocean, with a population of one million. Sakha comprises half of the area of its governing Far Eastern Federal District, and is the world’s largest country subdivision, covering over 3,083,523 square kilometers (1,190,555 sq mi). Yakutsk, which is the world’s coldest major city, is its capital and largest city.

The republic has a reputation for an extreme and severe climate, with the second lowest temperatures in the Northern Hemisphere being recorded in Verkhoyansk and Oymyakon (second only to Summit Camp, Greenland), and regular winter averages commonly dipping below −35 °C (−31 °F) in Yakutsk. The hypercontinental tendencies also result in warm summers for much of the republic.

Sakha was first home to hunting-gathering and reindeer herding Tungusic and Paleosiberian peoples such as the Evenks and Yukaghir. Migrating from the area around Lake Baikal, the Turkic Sakha people first settled along the middle Lena river sometime between the 9th and 16th centuries, likely in several waves, bringing the pastoral economic system of Central Asia with them.

The Russians colonised and incorporated the area as Yakutsk Oblast into the Tsardom of Russia in the early-mid 17th century, obliging the indigenous peoples of the area to pay fur tribute. While the initial period following the Russian conquest saw the Sakha population drop by 70%, the Imperial period also saw the expansion of the native Yakuts from the middle Lena along the Vilyuy River to the north and the east displacing other indigenous groups. Yakutia saw some of the last battles of the Russian Civil War, and the Bolshevik authorities re-organized Yakutsk Oblast into the autonomous Yakut ASSR in 1922. The Soviet era saw the migration of many Slavs, specifically Russians and Ukrainians, into the area.

The exonym Yakut comes from the Evenk term Yako (also yoqo, ñoqa, or ñoka), which was the term the Evenks used to describe the Sakha. This was in turn picked up by the Russians. The Yukaghirs, another neighboring people in Siberia, use the exonym yoqol ~ yoqod– ~ yoqon– (Tundra Yukaghir) or yaqal ~ yaqad- ~ yaqan– (Kolyma Yukaghir).

The self-designation Sakha is probably of the same origin (*jaqa > Sakha following regular sound changes in the course of development of the Yakut language) as the Evenk and Yukaghir exonyms for the Yakuts. It is pronounced as Haka by the Dolgans, whose language is a close relative of the Yakut language.