A post that appeared on the VKontakte (VK) social media site, Russia’s Facebook equivalent, underlined yet another of the hidden tragedies of President Vladimir Putin’s illegal war in Ukraine. It was the notification on the group “Died in the North-Eastern Military District,” of the death on Sept. 13 of 56-year-old Ivan Taymagyr in Russia’s Kursk region, who served with the Sevastopol 810th separate guards marine brigade of the Black Sea Fleet.
The reason why this notice was so noteworthy is that Taymagyr hailed from the Chukotka Autonomous Okrug – Russia’s easternmost federal region which at its easternmost point is less than 100 kilometers (62.5 miles) from Alaska.
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The other significant aspect is that he was an ethnic Kerek, an indigenous people whose name means “seaside people,” a group that has all but died out.
During the twentieth century, Kereks were almost completely assimilated into the larger Chukchi ethnic group, with just 102 surviving Kereks registered in Russia’s 1897 census. By 2021, only 23 identified as Kereks and only four said they spoke their native language.
The VK announcement said: “His life ended at the age of 56, leaving behind not only the bitterness of loss, but also the realization that with his death the story of a representative of a dying people ended.”
Only one man from an estimated 700,000, but one whose death brings the final disappearance of a people closer than the pressures of modern life were already bringing about.
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