The Saami National Museum was closed on Monday, but it didn’t bother me. This museum claimed to be one of the best museums in the world for Saami history. The only thing I wanted to see was the stone with the pictographs, supposedly found not long ago, but still there is no guarantee that I have missed something; it may not even have been an authentic piece of Saami culture. He already had enough materials to draw accurate conclusions.

It is quite possible that the Saami ancestors achieved more goals than we used to think. They have achieved harmony in mutual relationships with nature, while for us it is unattainable. The nature of the north gave the Saami everything they needed. Nature clothed them and provided them with food and drink. Saami found happiness in dialogue with nature for her spiritual needs. The Kola Saami lived in harmony with nature. They have been part of nature. Saami elders are less appreciative of the benefits of modern civilization and more in tune with the way of life led by their ancestors centuries and even millennia ago.

The Saami ethnic group never had a written language, not even a small state or any kind of government helping to protect and protect their own people and their land. They have natural needs hunting wild animals and reindeer, fishing, picking berries and living in caves, digging holes and friends. Deer skins were his clothing, and food was everything and anything that could be safely digested. They didn’t need anything. They were the happiest people on Earth, leaving no traces of their culture except seyds, various legends and stories, and the art of communicating with nature. The labyrinths and pictographs are the only real remains of other civilizations that existed before the Saami or that were brought by travelers from other parts of the world. They lived on the edge of civilizations.

The Kola Saami during pagan times idolized animals and birds, stones (seyds), ​​trees and the Earth, but a special place in Saami folklore undoubtedly belonged to a deer, more precisely, to a person called Mjandash. This Mjandash deer could voluntarily become a person. One of the legends tells of Mjandash’s marriage to a woman named Matryonoj who turned out to be Saami. Another legend is that his children turn into deer and have to leave the tundra following their father.

We also took a tour of my hostess’s childhood home. Many local houses were relocated in times of centralization to Lovozero. When his family moved into the high-rise building in Revdas, they sold this house. Now someone occupied the house with the same utilities still in the backyard. It was interesting to compare housing for newcomers and people who lived in this area for thousands of years. A modern time and a past coexisted. Housing continues to be a big problem for Lovozero. Many promises were made and they have not yet been kept, and the problems did not go away.

Next, we look at the hotel. It was a nice, homey, warm and small place with rooms waiting for guests, and it definitely had a welcoming energy to it. It had an exotic exterior and the interior was completely different from others I had seen and stayed in before, designed in popular taste with the intention of pleasing tourists. The atmosphere or energy was incredibly warm. It was worth the visit just to see the architecture and interior of this remarkable building. I felt that a future tourism industry could develop here with improved infrastructure and locals making efforts to learn how to have fun and please tourists. I thought now is the time to expand marketing nationally and internationally. The right investors from neighboring countries with a similar ethnic origin could be found if the right marketing plan could be offered. Everything is possible.

At the end of our travels, we stopped at the local grocery store. It was a small store located in a corner of one of the five-store apartment buildings. On display were the same products as in a big city, but more of a selection than in Revda. We tried to find a local meal, but all the products (including sausages, cheese, and pirogues) were brought from Murmansk. However, we found a local bakery that baked some very tasty white bread. Later, I found out that local deer meal production plants operate only for export to Sweden and other countries. As in former Soviet times, this is a somewhat silly paradox.

To my surprise, during the weekday, many people roamed the streets. I forgot to mention the high level of unemployment, not only in the Saami community, but also in others. More than sixty percent of the entire eligible workforce is now unemployed. Also, alcohol is a great pleasure for the existence of Kola Saami because the bio-system of their bodies in the Arctic Pole is different from that of Westerners.

Kola Saami’s Russianism is almost over, and it is only a matter of time before its existence on the Kola Peninsula is seriously questioned. However, anything is possible, and the miracle of the resurrection of the Saami traditions, their way of life and their language could be possible. History has examples. © Rachel madorsky