“Bright Future?” The Knowledge, Practices and Strategies of the Young People in a South Siberian Evenki Village

The article deals with young people’s ideas, activities and lifestylesin an Evenki village in Southern Siberia, interprets the differences of the value orders of generations in the narratives and practices in the context of the local, surrounding the society and Russia in general. Through research into youth we can get a more wholesome picture of the community. Furthermore, after the collapse of the Soviet Union the future of a society depends more and more on the new intelligentsia, the members of which have not grown up in the Soviet period. The young people living in the taiga, the edge of the civilized world, share the activities of their parents: that is, they hold on to their roots while the authorities persuade them to leave their village. The responses of the youth in relation to the desires and the possibilities are more openminded, and in these opinions the social expectations of these young people are less conformist. Different generations have different value orders. The events which have not happened in the life of young individuals do not serve as a standing-ground in life, and the activities of everyday life and the ideas are intertwined, and become the lifestyles of different generations.