INSUBCONTINENT EXCLUSIVE:
Thursday marks five years since Yakutian shaman Alexander Gabyshev was detained by Russian police during his arduous journey from the Far
afraid to speak up, afraid of being fired from their jobs, of losing their salaries
and returning power to the people was cut short by his arrest in the Siberian republic of Buryatia later that year, he managed to amass a
summon rain to battle the Siberian wildfires
Vladimir Baikalsky / TASSThe Yakutian shaman has spent most of the past five years in psychiatric hospitals, where he has been subjected to
in the August 1 prisoner swap between Russia and the West
Russian political prisoner list and was only added when it was already too late, Pryanishnikov told the Poland-based news outlet Vot
Indigenous communities.Since his arrest, Gabyshev has not only gained new supporters on social media, but he has also become the subject of
artwork, songs and a documentary film by prominent Yakutia-born filmmaker Beata Bubenec that premiered at One World Film Festival in Czechia
shamanistic practices are deeply intertwined with Indigenous traditions and have been preserved despite the Soviet-era crackdown on
in the republic of Tyva.Kirill Kukhmar / TASS Tyvans, a Turkic ethnic group Indigenous to the modern-day republic of Tyva, are among
drawn sympathy from many Siberian natives, others view the wartime popularity of shamanism with concern.Indigenous people often say that a
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