Chukchee - Sociopolitical Organization

In the beginning of the nineteenth century the fundamental units of socioeconomic organization for the coastal Chukchee were the canoe-making cooperatives. Relatives formed the core of a cooperative. Groups of relatives lived together and formed settlements. Sometimes all members of the settlement were related, whereas at other times it consisted of several groups of relatives. For quite some time a natural exchange existed between the herding and the maritime Chukchee.

In the early 1950s reindeer and maritime Chukchee households were united in large reindeer-herding industrial kolkhozy, from which a number of sovkhozy were created in the 1960s and 1970s. The life-style and culture of the Chukchee changed. Settlements were erected with well-built houses and multistory buildings made of concrete. Chukotka became a region with a rapidly developing mining industry. A national intelligentsia was born, which included writers, doctors, teachers, scientists, livestock specialists, and others. Newspapers, a journal, and literature are published today.