Allemann, L. The sami of the Kola Peninsula : about the life of an ethnic minority in the Soviet Union / Lukas Allemann ; [transl. by Michael Lomax]. - Rovaniemi : University of Lapland Printing Centre, 2013. - 151 p. : ill., map, portr. ; 25 см. - (Senter for samiske studier, Skriftserie ; 19).

The Sami of the Kola Peninsula rates as very positive. Compared to the pre-Soviet period the situation was also bet­ ter, according to Anastasija Nikolaevna, as regards food and clothing. Cows, sheep and goats were brought in from 1934 and supplemented the reindeer stocks. There was also a small vegetable garden, which also produced the most essential products during the short summer. The entire family - with a total of 13 children, also from the father's previous marriages - lived in a well-built log cabin. The father had always been a reindeer herder. In addition he hunted in the winter and fished in the summer, both for him­ self and later for the kolkhoz. Once the Communist Party had penetrated as far as Lumbovka, Anastasija's parents both fairly soon, before Anastasija Nikolaevna's birth, became party members and kolkhoz employees. Anastasija's mother worked in the kolkhoz as a baker. According to Anastasija Nikolaevna, at the start of World War II, all of the rein­ deer and goats which were their private property were taken away by the state. This was the small amount of livestock still privately owned, as collectivization was al­ ready completed on the entire Kola Peninsula in the late 1930s. Only at age 11, in 1939, was Anastasija Nikolaevna enrolled at school. The exact reasons could not be elicited, but she was no exception. The fact that schools were only gradually opened in the small settlements and not always simultaneously may explain the late enrolment. For example, in Varzino, Nina Afanas'eva's home village, the first school was not opened until 1939. 101 A nastasija Nikolaevna's first language was Sami, and only at school, at age 11, did she begin to learn Russian. She reports that, since collectivization, Russian was the official language in her village, and that for this reason only Russian was spoken in the school. In 1941, when the war came, Anastasija Nikolaevna had to leave school after just three years and, as a teenager, work in supplying the front, i.e. de facto military service. The whole family, including Anastasija's younger sisters were yoked in for work which Anastasija does not de­ scribe in greater detail, while herbrothers and the father were drafted and sent to the front. For the work done, they received food. This was rationed, but they did not suf­ 101 Cf.: Afanas'eva interview, lines 142-145. Senterfor samiske studier, Skriftserie nr. 19 53