The reindeer herders had it hard, but they’ve survived and herd numbers, while still well below their peak, have increased since those difficult days. What’s really extraordinary is that these people still live within their traditional cultures at all for, although the herders’ administrative village has electricity and mod cons, out on the tundra they still live as nomads, moving their reindeer skin tents with the reindeer as the pasture demands.

The journey to the Chukchi reindeer herders’ camp was a long one. We travelled a fifteen hours by snowmobile over two days; then we took a bus to the administrative village of Amguema. From there we climbed into a Caterpillar (a vehicle with a belt track that can cross the roadless tundra) and travelled for another several hours before reaching the camp.

It was worth the journey. On many overseas travels, I’ve been invited to visit tribes of indigenous minorities, but I’ve never been to a settlement quite so unique and authentic as this one. We were welcomed with a bowl of boiled reindeer chunks. (They were grisly. “What I do with the bits I can’t chew? I quietly asked one of our group. “I don’t know, I just swallowed mine,” he said. But I couldn’t swallow it – it was huge and in the end I had to surreptitiously bury it in the snow.) We slept on reindeer pelts in the yaranga – the reindeer skin tent – which was surprisingly warm and comfortable, though reindeer hair stuck to everything and was almost impossible to remove. And the next day, once the herd had been gathered and the chosen animals lassooed, we watched the annual reindeer driving competitions.

There were only eight teams in the main event. Each man sat on a simple wooden sledge; his two reindeer hauled him across the tundra to the start line. And then the race began. Some animals were fast; others were truculent. In all cases, the driver seemed to balance precariously on his sledge as it leapt over the bumps, and he enthusiastically spurred on his steeds with a long, willowy stick.

We sat in the yaranga and drank tea, and ate homemade bread that was freshly baked and deliciously salty. The nomads told us about their fears that this way of life could not for much longer be sustained. These people were far from the idiots that the jokes surmised. They were peaceful and wise, at one with the land and tremendously welcoming. As we left, they had one parting plea. “Please,” they said, “When you go back to the city, could you tell everyone you know to stop telling those awful jokes.”

Take a look at the photos from my trip.

Getting there: You can book a snowmobiling trip to Chukotka, including visits to an Eskimo village and the Chukchi reindeer camp, though Go Russia.