Thousands of Kilometers Along the Northern Rivers and Taiga

She was entrusted with work among the Tungus population of Siberia. The tasks of the North Committee were reconnaissance in nature: a general survey of Evenks, with clarification of the situation on the ground, establishing contacts, as well as collecting ethnographic and linguistic materials.

A year later G.M. Vasilevich went on a second expedition to the Evenks, also through the Northern Committee - from September 1926 to April 1927. This time, the region of the middle part of the Podkamennaya Tunguska basin, the Krasnoyarsk district - the Boguchansky and Taimba districts was chosen.

Due to the short time, G. M. Vasilievich developed the following expeditionary route : from the Mogocha station of the Trans-Baikal Railway, to the village of Tupik on the Tungir River, from Tupik along Tungir and Olekma to the mouth of the Nyukzhi River with stops on the parking of the Tungus.

During the trip, statistics were collected on the population, key activities such as reindeer herding and hunting.

In this area, she collects extensive material on the ethnography and language of the Symsky Tungus.

According to the collected data, G.M.Vasilevich opportunity to present of the peculiarities of the ethnogenesis of the Symsky Tungus, the specifics of their language and culture.

This time G.M. Vasilevich chose an area she had not been to before - the area of the Nizhnyaya Tunguska basin. She rode a boat throughout the Nizhnyaya Tunguska from its headwaters to the confluence of the Yenisei.

Thanks to this, G.M. Vasilevich supplemented her materials with data on the linguistic features of the Nizhnyaya Tunguska Evenks and, upon her return to Leningrad, she began writing a dialectological dictionary.

The expedition's goals were to check the quality of textbooks published for Evenk schools, consultations and assist teachers, as well as collect materials on the methodology of teaching the native and Russian languages.

At the same time, the ethnographic direction was not forgotten, and, as always, among the Evenks, G.M. Vasilevich not only works as a linguist, but also as an ethnographer, carefully recorded all her observations on life and culture.

The study of this region was associated with the continuation of work on the problem of ethnogenesis of the Tungus. During this expedition, missing materials were collected for all the main groups of the eastern distribution area of Evenks.

Evenks of this region were dispersed over hunting and reindeer herding farms, which were located at distances from 300 to over 1000 km from each other.

This time, in the field of his research, G.M. Vasilyevich passed through Khabarovsk, and from there to the upper reaches of the tributaries of Urmi, Amguni and Bureya in Kur-Urmi and Verkhne-Bureinsky districts.

As a result of recent expeditions, G.M. Vasilevich collected not only materials on ethnography, language and folklore, but also a new collection with a total complexity of about 150 objects, containing wooden and birch bark toys, as well as traditional ornaments and stencils.

She went on this expedition together with her colleagues from Moscow: ethnographer Yuri Borisovich Strakach and anthropologist Yuri Grigoryevich Rychkov.

At this time, G.M. Vasilevich worked on her monograph "Evenks" and specially went to the "field" to get acquainted with the changes on the spot and bring the study to the end.

Evenks living in these places during the years of Soviet rule became almost settled, but some reindeer herders remained, who have been living in the forest for most of the year.

The outbuildings became more diverse under the influence of time, their location on the land used to correspond to the nomadic, and now semi-sedentary life of the Evenks.

Part of the outbuildings is being built and located in camps, the other part is in the taiga, near roads or in the field of trade.

The expedition visited five Evenks collective farms in the Baikitsky and Ilimpiysky areas.

They traveled the entire western part of the Evenk district, having visited 7 villages (Tura, Nidym, Baykit, Polygus, Kuyumba, Tutonchany, Uchi) and the neighboring taiga camps, where they had to travel by seaplane, helicopters, and also by river in boats.

In these years, G.M. Vasilevich was especially attracted by data on the clothes and cradle of the Tungus, in the appeal to which she saw a good scientific perspective.

After these expeditions G.M. Vasilevich published two significant publications “The Tunguska Cradle” and “Types of shoes of the peoples of Siberia”.

In the expeditions of 1959-1960 G.M. Vasilevich managed to collect enough field materials, which would later be included in her monographic works.

G.M. Vasilievich continues to get acquainted with the life and mode of life of Evenks, and also meets old friends who remember her from the 1947 expedition.

G. M. Vasilievich until the last years retained an inexhaustible strength of mind and his scientific vision, not yielding to any doubt.

Glafira Makaryevna Vasilevich, having devoted her whole life to the chosen business once and for all, made an invaluable contribution to the ethnographic and linguistic study of Evenks. She photographed the state of the realities of the culture of Evenki groups of Siberia and the Far East, ranging from Symsky living to the west of the Yenisei to Sakhalin Island.
During her life, Glafira Makaryevna managed to do a lot, her work, covering almost all aspects of the Evenki life, opens up the widest opportunities for studying various aspects of the life of this people.