Wood, Ice, and Sail: Navigating the Arctic Mangazeya Sea Route. Nikita Karbasov. Documentary Screening and Lecture

To go beyond the academic circle. To present one’s research on various social and cultural phenomena to people for whom the world of others will be a revelation. To introduce people from different cultures and facilitate their dialogue.

With this mission, young researchers – sociologists, historians, cultural scholars, anthropologists – share their work with us.

How to construct a wooden boat and sail it across the Arctic Ocean? Why are these boats not built but sewn? How can you row away from the ice in July? Finally, who are the Pomors and how can their traditions inspire communities today?

In this lecture, sociocultural anthropologist Nikita Karbasov shares his experience working alongside enthusiasts in the Northern Russian city of Arkhangelsk, where the Pomor tradition of boatbuilding and navigation is actively preserved. Nikita will present and discuss the recent documentary Mangazeya Sea Route, which follows an ambitious project to reconstruct traditional Pomor boatbuilding techniques and retrace historical sea routes to the Arctic Ocean. An open discussion and Q&A will follow the lecture.

Speaker: Nikita Karbasov, PhD student in the Anthropology Department at Columbia University, songwriter, educator and sailor.

We invite everyone who wants to take a look into the lives of other people, cultures, and worlds.

Participation in the meeting is paid – 10 Dollars. The funds will go to support the project “White Rabbit’s books” – a meeting space for people of different ages, languages and cultures.

The working language of the meeting is English.

The number of places for participants is limited by the size of a small but cozy space.