How was this Muslim community born in Arctic Russia ? How does it cope with extreme living conditions ?

4The end of the USSR in December 1991 provoked multifarious breaks and unprecedented upheavals in the former Soviet republics when they became independent, and each of them had to reshape their own identity. Socio-economic and political transformations had a major impact on the migration of people from Central Asia and from South – and North – Caucasus. These populations are either Sunni Muslims from Hanafi (Central Asia), or Shafi’i Sunnis (North Caucasus), or mainly Shi’a (Azerbaijan) ; they are also very influenced by Sufi Islam (Naqshbandiya, Yassawiya, Qadiriya). These societies found themselves confronted with the incapacity of the new states to cope with immense socio-economic challenges and with the needs of the young adults (youth bulge) without economic opportunities. The disintegration of social safety nets, formerly guaranteed by the Soviet state, pushed the working-age population to seek work in Russia. This old “metropolis” became then for many a kind of reference, where the Russian language and the understanding of perennial modes of operation provided an alternative to the void of the 1990s. Let us recall that population growth was negative in Russia between 1992 and 2013 because of very low fertility rates. This situation created a need for importing a large workforce, in the context of the economic recovery that took place in Russia in the 2000s, reflected among other things by an impressive boom in construction work. It is in this context that labor migration of Muslim populations accelerated. These migrations are not new, because in the Soviet era professional mobility already existed and was widespread, but they were organized in precise frameworks and according to trajectories following central planning : industrialization policies, large infrastructure projects, the army, academic studies, etc.

Mosque in the city of Salekhard, Autonomous district of Yamalo-nenets, July, 20 2018.

5After the collapse of the USSR, these migrations took another form : they continued to fit, for some time, into existing trajectories, then evolved, transformed themselves depending on the local contexts, on the evolution of relationships between nationalities in a landscape of economic and political change. A striking example is the emergence of a true economic “aristocracy” among the Azeri diaspora that has secured its access to various economic and political resources, and has developed links with powerful local networks. Exploitation of the ground wealth (hydrocarbons, ores, etc.) in the highly industrialized cities of the Russian Arctic accelerated after 2003. This created new job opportunities, invested in parts by young men from the Caucasus and Central Asia who had training in engineering, mining, geology, and by others without any training. The Russian Arctic (2.5 million inhabitants in 2015) then became a new “Klondike” with a strong attractive power for young men. The Russian Arctic cities are the most populous cities in the global Arctic : Murmansk has 305,000 inhabitants, Norilsk has 176,000, Novij-Urengoj has 116,000 inhabitants. Most arctic cities developed around ground riches, the extraction and transformation of which are sadly associated with the gulag, whose economic function is well established. Muslim populations are increasingly present, numerous and visible : the proportion of Muslims is estimated between 5 % and more than 20 % in the Arctic industrial cities. This presence materializes by the revitalization of the religion in the Northern public space : mosques are built, imams from different nationalities (Uzbek, Tajik, Kyrgyz, Dagestan, etc.) are appointed by religious leaders, themselves often former migrants who acquired Russian citizenship and a new social and religious legitimacy, either through training at an Islamic university in Russia or elsewhere, or through a certificate from a Spiritual Direction. Let us recall, here, that religious authorities are very divided in Russia : there are three spiritual directorates, more than 80 sub-directorates, and hundreds of associations. These authorities are competing for the control of local communities, and of regional associations of believers, in a complex Islamic and political context. In this competitive logic, the idea of forming an Arctic Ummah was mentioned in the Yamal region, an area which holds a substantial share of hydrocarbon resources and where the proportion of Muslim migrants is high.

Copper factory in Norilsk: Blast furnaces, pause during melting operation, 31 October 2018.

6In the industrial cities of Arctic Russia, often created in the 1930s as part of the exploitation of ground riches by Gulag prisoners, the climate is hostile, as well as the nature around. The need for spirituality meets these living conditions, and responds to the isolation of these cities located outside the “continent” (materik). These cities are located in the middle of nowhere, are isolated during many months in winter ; the work there is organized around the extraction of very polluting ores (copper, coal, nickel, palladium, etc.) in Norilsk, Vorkuta, Yamal Peninsula, as well as hydrocarbons. Other jobs exist in fish factories, canneries, as well as different types of services (in ports such as in Murmansk and Dudinka, for example).

Mosque Nurd Kamal, Norilsk, 12 July 2015.

7Islam adapts to a polar environment through the construction of mosques on stilts, with architectures often made to resist the erosion caused by blizzard storms (purga), and to cold temperatures at minus 50 degrees Celsius, which sometimes last more than half of the year. The mosque in the city of Norilsk is the most polar in the world, it deploys an octagonal minaret that has the ability to withstand high winds. These mosques are financed mostly by local Muslim entrepreneurs of Tatar origin, and the believers community participates to the financing through Muslim charity (sadaka). Practicing Islam must also adapt to the polar nights and days : there are tensions around the question already evoked earlier of cumulating – or not – prayers of dusk and night, a question which varies according to theologians and schools of Islamic law. Nevertheless, solutions are proposed by the spiritual directions, such as aligning the polar schedules with the schedules of the region of Moscow, or Tyumen, or Mecca… Are we going to the creation of an Arctic Umma (Muslim community) in Russia ? This question is often posed by spiritual associations and sub-divisions in the Russian Arctic regions seeking to consolidate their own identity. Migrants from Central Asia are re-Islamizing in Russia and are re-constructing their masculinity in this increasingly important and complex process of religiosity, especially in isolated cities where vulnerabilities are exacerbated and could serve other projects.

Russian Arctic : renewal of a pioneer front in local imaginaries ?

8The Arctic environment creates special conditions that influence religious practice. Geographical isolation and the highly industrial nature of these often militarized arctic cities, located in strategic areas (pogran zona), the last frontier before the ocean, contributes to accentuate certain characteristics that shape the social landscape in which Muslims live. Identities find themselves in competition : the long-standing Slavic populations (Russians, Ukrainians, Byelorussians), the animist indigenous peoples, even if they are a minority in the polar cities, and the migrants from the republics of Central Asia and the Southern Caucasus. This regional case study of the development of Islam in an extreme and atypical environment also shows how the crisis of post-Soviet ideals engendered a sort of “re-enchantment” by the religion through a need to believe and a whole universe of meanings.