A study on the revitalization of Russian far east, Sikachi-alyan village by using ancient petroglyphs as touristic resources from the perspective of group dynamics : Cultural identity and cultural protection

神奈川県茅ヶ崎市Nanai people are the indigenous minority group who live on the banks of the Amur river. And currently reside both in Russian and China. Sikachi-Alyan is the small village in Russia with the population of 350 people famous as the residence of Nanai people as well as for petroglyphs that are estimated to be as much as 12 000 years old. Many ethnic minorities are dealing with a difficult challenge of maintaining their language, culture and traditional livelihood and Nanai people are no exception. Promotion of the migration by Russians and Han Chinese to the areas along Amur river by Russian and Chinese governments contributed greatly in spreading Russian and Chinese language and culture in the region. Moreover, the explosions at the chemical plant in Jilin province, China, in 2005 severely polluted Amur river that provides livelihood for Sikachi-Alyan causing the government to ban fishing and therefore putting Nanai village on the verge of survival. On the other hand, we can see some tendencies towards legal recognition of the land ownership for indigenous peoples and the recovery of the indigenous languages and culture as it is being promoted by the “United Nations Declaration on the Rights of Indigenous People” adopted by UN General Assembly in 2007. For many years petroglyphs as the national cultural heritage were under the jurisdiction of the Government of Khabarovsk region however recently its jurisdiction was attributed to the village. Petroglyphs are the cornerstone of the cultural identity of the Nanai people. The NPO Eurasian Club to which the presenter belongs in collaboration with the people of Sikachi-Alyan has launched a project that intends to revitalize the village by turning it into a tourist destination with petroglyphs being the main attraction. For the preservation of the existing petroglyphs we rubbed them in 2008. Rubbing technique is an important method of the documentation of the cultural heritage as it allows faithfully reproduce the original without causing any damage to it. Cultural heritage itself might deteriorate with time, and rubbing technique allows recording it in full-scale at some point of it existence as well as creating the twodimensional copies from three-dimensional original heritage. Currently we are planning on holding the exhibition of rubbings for tourism promotion in Japan and its success greatly relies on the cooperation of the NPO and the village. Finally the theory of group dynamics is adopted to describe this project