Yamal shared experience of preservation and determination of sacred places

There are 39 sacred places in Yamal, including 12 of regional and 8 of local significance.

This information was given by the head of the service for state protection of objects of cultural heritage Elena Dubkova within the international forum of indigenous peoples of the North, Siberia and the Far East, which is taking place in Salekhard.
In her report she notes that the topic of preservation of sacred places of indigenous ethnic minorities of the North is very significant, and many indigenous peoples are interested in this issue. Sacred places are the most important component of culture of indigenous ethnic minorities of the North, as she says.
Yelena Dubkova underlines that it is not enough just to have sacred places, it needs to have mechanisms, which will help to make a sacred place an object of cultural heritage with a protected territory. It is withdrawn from turnover and cannot be used for any building process, including by fuel and energy enterprises, and it means that it is preserved in its original form. This is a long process, which takes not a one year. All objects of cultural heritage on the territory of the region have their borders and zones, as she notes.
According to her words, not each sacred place can be cultural heritage. First, there were data on 200 sacred places, now their number makes 70. Many of them are related to a definite family, worshiping of some places was started recently. “We take those places, which have been known since the 19th century. The work on such place – Numto Lake – has been completed recently. It is related to the cult of the main god Noom, as by the head of the service for state protection of objects of cultural heritage notes.