thumb|Residents of Uelen, 1913

thumb|383x383px|Uelen Orthodox church, August 2018

Uelen is a rural locality (a selo) in Chukotsky District, just south of the Arctic Circle in Chukotka Autonomous Okrug in the Russian Far East. As of the 2010 Census, its population was 720.

There is a local legend which offers a second explanation for the origin of the name. It describes the life of a strong local man called Uvelel'yn (literally translated as "slob"), named so because he was an orphan who was dressed solely in tattered rags. As he grew older, he used his strength to gain his revenge over the local people that bullied him during his childhood because of his background. In fear for their lives, the villagers killed Uvelel'yn. However they realised that in order to prevent these events repeating themselves in the future, they should take better care of their orphans and the village soon got its name to remind the villagers of their duty to those less fortunate than themselves. Olyk in Yupik

Pre-Soviet

Prior to the Russian Revolution, Uelen was, in 1912, a settlement of around 300 individuals divided into four communes and the headquarters of the Russian administration in the Chukotka Region ("Uyezd") and was an important trading port with both local Russian people and America.

In the first half of the twentieth century, Uelen was the site of one of the first Russian arctic research stations. and called Keniskun by the local Chukchi was an important regional coastal trading centre in the late 19th and early 20th centuries, but was deemed unviable by the Soviet government and the villagers were moved to Uelen. The addition of Dezhnevo carvers to the existing artistic school in Uelen served to strengthen Uelen's cultural reputation not just in the region but across Russia with notable carvers such as Pyotr Penkok and Stepan Ettugi working in Uelen. which itself had absorbed the population of a number of small villages from the Cape Dezhnev/Diomede Islands area.

Demographics

The population according to the most recent census results was 740,) Other villagers are Russian.

The village also serves as a base for archaeology expeditions to the area, which have uncovered a burial ground containing more than 300 burials of Early Whale Hunter cultures, covering a time span from 500 BCE to 1000 CE. These excavations have shown that Uelen was a major settlement in the area in the first few centuries CE, as well as revealing the existence of a culture dependent on whale and walrus hunting, archeologists have also unearthed early examples of the indigenous peoples ivory carvings, a number of which are now held at the Peter the Great Museum of Anthropology and Ethnography in St. Petersburg.

  • Улица Дежнева (Ulitsa Dezhneva, lit. Dezhnyov Street)
  • Улица Ленина (Ulitsa Lenina, lit. Lenin Street)
  • Улица Набережная (Ulitsa Naberezhnaya, lit. Quay Street)

Climate

Uelen has a tundra climate (Köppen ET). Chukotsky district endures extreme Arctic weather, with an average winter low of in January, though Uelen's average January temperature is slightly higher at . February is the coldest month. The average July temperature is slightly higher at than the district average for the month of ,

|source 2 = allmetsat.com (sunshine hours)

|date=November 2019

See also

  • List of inhabited localities in Chukotsky District

Notes

References

Sources

  • Strogoff, M, Brochet, P-C and Auzias, D. Petit Futé: Chukotka, "Avant-Garde" Publishing House, 2006.
  • Krupnik, Igor and Mikhail Chlenov (2007). The end of “Eskimo land”: Yupik relocation in Chukotka, 1958–1959 Études/Inuit/Studies 31 (1–2) pp 59–81. Includes some material on Dezhnevo relocation.
  • Aerial photo of Uelen
  • Photo gallery of Uelen