Yuri Vella

Yuri Vella, (1948 - 2013), full name Yurii Kilevich Aivaseda, known by his pseudonym Yuri Vella, was a writer, poet, environmentalist and social activist of the Forest Nenets people from West-Siberia.

Yuri Vella was born in the Varyogan village in Siberia in 1948.

He was a writer and poet writing in Forest Nenets language, Khanty language and in Russian language.

In the 1990s, he moved with his family from the Varyogan village to the tundra of the Agan River to revive the traditional Nenets way of life and become a reindeer herder.

He was a social activist - in 1990, he organised a protest on behalf of the Nenets people in the Varegansk area, Yamal, against the gas and oil industry expanding into the Yamal. The energy industry was destroying the environment, killing the reindeer, displacing and persecuting the indigenous people. The protest was recorded by Russian TV.

In 1996, he created a small Taiga school to teach the traditional reindeer herding skills to Nenets children. The school was closed in 2009, when the attending children grew older and left for other education.

In 2008, a documentary film about Vella, called "Yuri Vella's world" - the DER documentary, was created by Liivo Niglas. The preview of the film is the DER "docued" YouTube channel.

He died in September 2013, aged 65.