The People

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The latest statement about the population of Khakassia is from 1995 with ca. 585,000 citizen. The urbanisation is 71%. The capital has 169,200 citizen from which only about 5% are Khakass.

The following table divides the nationalities in their respective areas:

 

In the whole Republic

In the Cities

In Villages

Russians

79,5 %

85,5 %

63,6 %

Khakass

11,1 %

5,4  %

25,8 %

Ukrains

2,3 %

2,7 %

1,4 %

Germans

2,0 %

1,2 %

4,0 %

Others

5,1 %

5,2 %

5,2 %

Repeatedly I heard that people had been in contact with Germans. But I doubt that this big amount of Germans are still in the Republic.

 

The population density is according to the above already described circles ("The Country a.-d."): Around the capital it is about 20 people/sqkm and in the following circles 15 people/sqkm and less. The tips in the very South (100km from border) and in the very North (50km from border) are practically not inhabited.

The Khakass people group is according to different statements 70,000 to 80,000 people. About 65,000 of them live in the Republic of Khakassia. Because the republic has only 5 cities with more than 10,000 citizen (all of them together have 334,000) the amount of Khakass people in those 5 cities according to the table above is only 18,050 people.

Therefore, the majority of Khakass (ca. 47,000) in their republic live in villages. The main centres are: Askis (ca.3600 Khak. + 2400 Rus.); the villages in the rayon Askis; further Tashtib (less Khak. here) and the villages of the West of the Ust-Abakan rayon. "The majority of Khakass move during the summertime with their yurts and herds to higher areas of the steppe," the tourist agency, Chakassien-Info Berlin describes.  

Anthropologically the Khakass people are part of the Mongoloid-Central Asiatic race. They have dark skin, not particularly slit eyes, and nearly black hair. Their face is wide with marked cheekbones. Khakass are not particularly large people.

According to the statistics, half of the Khakass are married with Russians. It might be one reason for their constantly declining population.

It is said that Khakass are rather poor people, devoted to superstition and alcohol. In their villages are neither industry nor kholckoses, they live in wooden houses and grow their own vegetables in the garden and do stock raising.

The Khakass language belongs to the Uiguric group of the East Turkic language or the Altai Uiguric-Turkic group. The language is also called Abakan-Turkic, Abakan-Tartar or Yenissey-Turkic. The structure and is vocabulary has Turkic-Tartar origin. But in difference to other  languages of this group, Khakass does not have loan words from Arabic or Iranian.

The relation to the Turkic language produced in 1995 a school in Abakan, the "Khakass-Turkic-Lyceum", which is founded and supported by the Turkish Government. As in a normal Russian school all subjects are taught but they emphasize the Khakass, Turkic and English languages. (An obvious declaration of the Islam is not known.) There is a direct relation to the Tuvin language. Khakass dialects are: Sangai (Sagay), Beltir, Kacha (Kaca), Kysil, Shor, Kamassia, whereas Sangai is the main dialect. Two newspapers are in this language and also a TV-program in Khakass for 2 hrs. daily. Literature in Khakass exists as well as Khakass writers.

It is said, that the Khakass language has a lot of loan words from Russian. This could indicate that Khakass disappearing more and more. As I listened to a testimony of a Khakass woman I could recognise some Russian words. In any case, this fact is reflected in the Bible translation. For a better and clear understanding the translator uses Russian terms (such as the word "sin") rather than Khakass terms which people often like more but don't understand. Therefore his conclusion: Khakass also need to be taught their own language.

A detailed survey of how many Khakass really speak their language needs to be done. Statistics say, that except for rural areas all Khakass speak Russian fluently. In 1979 81% of Khakass people stated that Khakass was their mother tongue. This figure probably has declined in the last years.

My observation in a total Khakass village are the following:

In our small Sunday service in Nizhnaya Tyeya, Alexey was aware that some of his audience did not understand Russian well. He choose simple words and sentences, asked for feedback to check understanding and had core sentences translated into Khakass.

Besides this natural development of the Khakass language one can recognise attempts of resuscitation of Khakass culture as well as language: According to the pamphlet 2/3 of the Khakass children will learn their mother tongue in school - according to the schedule of the public school. In praxis it looks probably different: "Parents want their kids to learn Khakass but there are not enough teachers and textbooks."  

The Khakass language is written in Cyrillic Alphabet with six extra letters. A woman was showing me a Khakass text as when she fond out that I was German and asking me to read. It was interesting that the text had 'German' vocal mutations (umlaut). So straight away I was able to  pronounce it right. Then she said that Germans could always speak better Khakass than Russians.

Some parts of the Khakass culture are preserved till today. The most well-known feast of the Khakass people is the "Thun-Pairam" which is held on the first Sunday in June on the open steppe. On this day some competitions in archery, wrestling and horse racing are held. All these kinds of sport remind us on the relation to the Mongols. According to observation, this year for the first time, they included Russian sports, probably to draw the interest of Russians, too.

     Naturally, Khakass music is not unimportant. Throat singing is possible for a real Khakass to do as he plays on his two-stringed "guitar" the khomos. Khakass folk music does not necessary have a unmelodic sound for our western ears like the Mongol music does. One peace that was played for me on the khomos had the sound of a cheerful song - even in our sense.

     The wive of Alexey, Ludmila, is a lecture for Khakass music at the state university in Abakan. She is interested to write Christian songs in Khakass. Ludmila has a student, who played and sang for me some folk and Christian songs. Also, I have heard that the speaker of the Khakass Jesus-Film is a Khakass singer. There is probably good potential to produce Christian songs in Khakass language and music.

     In the village Verkhniy Askis lives Sverta. She reflects on her culture: "I think we have lost everything. I wish I were able to sing. Since I became a Christian I have made progress in this. Culture was not taught in our school."

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