November 1999
GALINA ANDREEVA NUTELKHUT
(vice-chairman of the youth organisation 'Ethnoinitiative', Kamchatka, yupik@elrus.kamchatka.su )
The village of Paren' is situated in the Penzhinsk Community, on the western coast of the Kamchatkan Peninsula, where mainly Koryak people live. Because of the difficult economic situation*, the village receives a very small supply of food and vital industrial products, compared with the other parts of the population of the Penzhinsk Community. The kindergarten, the school and the hospital are in critical condition. The absence of industry in the village has led to a high unemployment rate. People cannot acquire motors for their boats and other fishing equipment anymore. Fuel is not sufficiently available either.
We would be very grateful for humanitarian aid to the Poytel"o tribe of the Koryak people.
* The infrastructure of the national villages is in general less developed, and the economic situation worse, than in other settlements.
-- The Editor