Shamanism, sanity and remoteness in Russia
The trek of a warrior shaman. In spring 2019, a Sakha (Yakut) shaman, Aleksandr Gabyshev, embarked on an 8,000 km trek from Yakutsk to Moscow. His stated goal was to ‘expel demon-Putin’ (izgnat’ Putina-demona) from the Kremlin and thus liberate the people of Russia. Drawing a cart with supplies and...
| Published in: | Anthropology Today |
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| Main Author: | |
| Format: | Article in Journal/Newspaper |
| Language: | English |
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2020
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| Online Access: | https://hdl.handle.net/20.500.12259/109028 https://doi.org/10.1111/1467-8322.12560 |
| Summary: | The trek of a warrior shaman. In spring 2019, a Sakha (Yakut) shaman, Aleksandr Gabyshev, embarked on an 8,000 km trek from Yakutsk to Moscow. His stated goal was to ‘expel demon-Putin’ (izgnat’ Putina-demona) from the Kremlin and thus liberate the people of Russia. Drawing a cart with supplies and necessities, he slowly progressed along Siberian highways, camping on roadsides along the way. While initially, his journey attracted little attention beyond local cybernauts, by the end of the summer, word of Gabyshev’s campaign had spread far and wide. Gradually, people started joining his trek – some only briefly to chat and take a selfie, while others travelled from afar and sought him out along the way. Dutiful bloggers, fundraisers and impromptu managers emerged in the group, attracting further interest and support. By September, Sasha-shaman, as he is popularly known, had attracted the interest of the international media, from The New York Times to The Guardian. Within Russia, too, Gabyshev was under the spotlight. Predictably, however, it was online reports, blogs and social media that promulgated his story, while Russian television and state-run media mostly ignored it, possibly in an attempt to avoid drawing additional attention to his cause Socialinės antropologijos centras Vytauto Didžiojo universitetas |
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