Russia THE HORSEMEN OF THE WILD HONEY OF THE URALS

Russia

THE HORSEMEN OF THE WILD HONEY OF THE URALS

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The village of Gadel-Gareyéro, population 400, where half the men practice beekeeping. A hundred or so Isbas, made from pine trunks, with brightly colored windows make up the village, surrounded by forests of oak, birches, aspen, maple and linden trees.

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In front of an isba, babushkas in multi-colored scarves compete for the prize of flowering village. The national drink of Bashkir is a sort of mead made from plants called “hitabalé”.

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Gadel-Gareyero is an exclusively Bashkir village. Since the disappearance of the Kolkhozes, the young have left the village to go settle in the cities and find work. The pines for the Isbas are cut to more easily transport the wood by dragging it on the snow.

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The grocery shop in Gadel-Gareyero. Bashkir villagers live self-sufficiently; they only purchase in the shop products that they can’t make themselves: flour, sugar, clothing…

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The Shulgan Tash Reserve is situated on the southern foothills of the Urals and its mountainous nature protects its from industrial exploitation of its forests.

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Child gazing through a window of sculpted wood adorned with white curtains and flowerpots.

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The village of Gadel-Gareyéro, population 400, where half the men practice beekeeping. A hundred or so Isbas, made from pine trunks, with brightly colored windows make up the village, surrounded by forests of oak, birches, aspen, maple and linden trees.

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Friday at the mosque in Gadel-Gareyero: women praying. In this republic, Islam is above all practiced by the older generations, those that suffered the least from the atheist education of Soviet schools.

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Portrait of a babushka who shows in her features the oriental origins of her people.

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The Bashkirs are a quite rural population, and one that has many children. The population of the republic of Bashkortostan is 4 million and that of Bashkir 1.5 million.

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On the main street of Gadel-Gareyéro, the village children on bicycles play in front of the geese warming themselves in the sun.

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On the main street of Gadel-Gareyéro, the village children take advantage of a sun-filled day.

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A rural population, the Bashkirs have many children, trusting in the protection of the God of Islam.

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To organize the harvest, we need several horses and the neighbors in Sabit Galin are asked to contribute. A forest warden inspects a wooden jar of honey named “Batman”.

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In the garden of Sabit Galin, the forest wardens get together to organize the harvest.

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Issangugin Sentimir coming out of his Isba, a jar of Batman honey in his hand.

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Having always been horse breeders, the rural Bashkirs still use them as a means of transport and for working the fields. In the past, also, the meat and the mare’s milk were the main foods for the Bashkirs.

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The entrance to the Shulgan Tash Reserve. In July and August, the park welcomes 20,000 visitors. After the Second World War, with the spread of frame hives in the kolkhozes and the emphasis put on high productivity, scientists of the time searched for a higher yield of honey and imported bees of Caucasian and Italian stock. In 1979, the Soviet government began protecting the genetic heritage of the Burzyan species, the bees that can bear the cold of winter.

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Sabit Galin on horseback, en route for the harvest, stops to fill out a transit form that he puts in a letterbox attached to a tree. All the beekeeper’s essentials can be found on Salim’s mount: the smoker, the support board, the leather rope for climbing the hundred-year-old pine trees holding the hives.

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Sculpted bortyes near the reserve’s apiculture museum. In the communist era, the “bortyes” had not been collectivized. The bortyevics could harvest the honey, which at the time was less expensive than honey from modern hives.

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The Shulgan Tash Reserve’s apiculture museum recounts the life of the bortyevics.

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Alkar Isanomatov and Issangugin Sentimir, forest wardens and beekeepers, leave on horseback to harvest their bortyes on behalf of the reserve.

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Sabit Galin, on horseback, eating wild berries. The knowledge of nature allows the rural Bashkirs to live in quasi-autarky.

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Sabit Galin unloads his horse and sets up the necessary for a night in one of the reserve’s cabins.

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Sabit Galin and Aglam Ramujin, forest wardens, set up the camp during the honey harvest. Depending on the rainfall in September, the temperatures vary from 25°C / 77°F on sunny days to 8°C / 46°F on rainy days. At night, the temperature can fall as low as –5°C / 23°F. Then, snow covers the landscape for 6 months.

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Sabit Galin and Aglam Ramujin, forest wardens, around a makeshift table in the camp.

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Sabit Galin crosses a part of the steppe on a plateau surrounded by wooded hills.

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Sabit Galin on horseback at the foot of an immense pine. The honey trees for a family are used for 200 to 300 years.

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The symbol for the family is called Tamga. This tradition became widespread under the Golden Horde to make an inventory of the number of hives and levy the “Yasak” tax.

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Sabit Galin prepares his smoker before the harvest.

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Sabit Galin gets ready to climb the hundred-year-old pine. A leather cord around his waist, he climbs in the manner of tree pruners, his feet supported by the notches hollowed out by his great-grandfather.

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Sabit Galin climbs the hundred-year-old pine. A leather cord around his waist, he climbs in the manner of tree pruners, his feet supported by the notches hollowed out by his great-grandfather.

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A leather cord around his waist, the bortyevic climbs in the manner of pruners, his feet supported by the notches hollowed out by his ancestors.

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Sabit Galin, busy harvesting, chases away the bees with his smoker. The Burzyan bee is particularly mild-mannered and rarely attacks a scrupulous beekeeper.

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Sabit Galin, perched 8 or 9 meters above the ground, sends smoke into the entrance of the hive before beginning to harvest.

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An episode in the harvest. The beekeeper takes away the protective trellis of leaves and wire netting. Then, he unseals the wooden hatches to reach the honeycombs.

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Sabit Galin serves the camp a freshly harvested honeycomb. Even if this traditional honey comes from the varied and many flowers in the reserve, it has a very pronounced taste of linden. Bashkortostan has the biggest linden tree forest in Russia.

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Bashkortostan is a region of mountains, immense steppes, verdant forests and valleys. It counts 600 rivers and 800 lakes. Here the Belaya River or White Volga crosses the reserve.

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Rafic Yumaguzhin, 54 years old, beekeeper like his father, surrounded by his 40 hives in his garden in the village of Gadel-Gareyéro.

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In the school, Rafic Yumaguzhin teaches beekeeping to the young of the village since 1993.

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Rafic Yumaguzhin, surrounded by his students, opens a hive at the apiary of the secondary school of Gadel-Gareyero. The Bashkirs esteem courage and know-how. They are quite conservative and look down on cupidity.

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The bees begin their activity and leave the hives around the beginning of March for the flowers of the willows: the season ends in mid-October.

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Alkar Isanomatov and Issangugin Sentimir, beekeeping forest wardens. The director of the Shulgan Tash reserve, Mikhail Nikolaevich Kosarev, had proposed to the government an extension of the reserve of 37,000 hectares to better protect the Bashkir bee. Private apiculture rapidly developed and the risk of hybridization increases each year.

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Portrait of Alkar Isanomatov, ranger-beekeeper. This particular post had been created by the reserve’s director Mikhail Nikolaevich Kosarev. Today there are 15 forest wardens-beekeepers, all descendants of the wild bee wardens.

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Issangugin Sentimir, 35 years old, has two young daughters. He had the luck of finding, the year before, two bear dens outside of the reserve and pointed out the location to hunters for the sum of 1500€ per den. Bear hunting is authorized outside of the reserve with a license.

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An episode in the harvest. The beekeeper takes away the protective trellis of leaves and wire netting. Then, he unseals the wooden hatches to reach the honeycombs. He leaves 10 to 12 kilos of honey so that the colony can survive the winter.

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An episode in the harvest. The beekeeper takes away the protective trellis of leaves and wire netting. Then, he unseals the wooden hatches to reach the honeycombs. He leaves 10 to 12 kilos of honey so that the colony can survive the winter.

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An episode in the harvest. The beekeeper takes away the protective trellis of leaves and wire netting. Then, he unseals the wooden hatches to reach the honeycombs. He leaves 10 to 12 kilos of honey so that the colony can survive the winter.

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An episode in the harvest. The beekeeper takes away the protective trellis of leaves and wire netting. Then, he unseals the wooden hatches to reach the honeycombs. He leaves 10 to 12 kilos of honey so that the colony can survive the winter.

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An episode in the harvest. The beekeeper takes away the protective trellis of leaves and wire netting. Then, he unseals the wooden hatches to reach the honeycombs. He leaves 10 to 12 kilos of honey so that the colony can survive the winter.

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Issangugin Sentimir with his Batman jar full of 8 kg of honey.

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Bashkortostan is a region of mountains, immense steppes, verdant forests and valleys. It counts 600 rivers and 800 lakes.

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Near the reserve’s apiculture museum, a modern apiary allows for the production of colonies and queens for the Burzyan bee repopulation program.

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Issangugin Sentimir harvests a bortye on a honey fir tree surrounded by silver birches. The bortyes are supposed to deter bears. In the past, Bashkirs went bear hunting, bringing along their sons to initiate them in the practice. The bear was a source of food.

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The Kapova cave is located in the Shugan Tash Reserve. Tourists can see here rock paintings of mammoths and rhinoceros (14,000 BC). During the Ice Age, the glaciers stopped at 100 Km to the north of this cave