Shoutout to Crusader Kings 2 for having this island be playable for some reason.

can't blame Marrk for being a little superstitious about allowing the british guy into the sacred places, given that he promptly took the first sacred object he could get his hands on

Staying with a people and enjoying their hospitality for 3 months then stealing one of their religious artifacts when leaving is peak Britishness.

If I had a nickel for every channel that talks about random-ass islands in the middle of nowhere, I'd have three nickels at least.

Tbh it sounds like Russian merchants and their local agent already knew everything there was to know about the island. Delegating herds and owning them remotely suggests complex ties. Maybe either Trevor did not ask the right people in Archangelsk, or they wouldn't tell him

My favorite character is markk the lazy and superstitious reindeer herder of the central mountains

Got a bit into the rabbithole trying to see what's up with the island today. It's quite sad,  in 2014 there was a famine that brought the reindeer population down from 12,000 to 200-400 heads. Since then the population slowly grow as they bring reindeer from the mainland, its still not what it once was. There are like 350 people there, rendieer farming is still the main source of income, but if I understood correctly they basically rely on government welfare to survive. Grocery supply is quite slow, there is a plane every two weeks, only one grocery shop. There is one village on the island, placed where the more southern semi-permanent settelment as seen in 12:43 was. There are also oil reserves discovered in 1980, but they are mined by a private company that hires temporary workers. They change every like 50 days and have no contact with the local peoples.

Legend has it that the Saxon still arrives and waits every summer for Trevor and his friend Hyland to turn up....

Watching this video i was more impressed be Trevor drawing skills on the spot that anything.

I didn't expect this, but this video has an amazing lesson, if you think an indigenous people must be somehow primitive just because they're "isolated", remember, you might just find out they're basically traders in the Russian reindeer stockmarket

Another case when Englishman “discovers” “uninhabited” island that was already well known, inhabited and had trade with the rest of the world, not english speaking world though. Also, if he had visited Mesen’ first, he’d probably could talk to the local merchants, in english, because said traders keep theirs trade with Norway and Scotland.

Awesome video! As a Russian here are more details: all the inhabitants seem to have stylized Russian/Orthodox names: Uano is probably Ivan, On Tipa is Antipas, Yenisei and Marrk are obvious. Second, the name “bolvan” is a Russian word for “dummy”, so we actually don’t get to know what the original name of the idols was. Third, there has for a long time been a link between the worship of St. Nicholas and the Siberian Sky God, so that’s why removing a pagan idol would anger a Christian saint, they’re viewed as the same entity

I recognize quit a bit of these people in the Sami of Northern Norway. I life in the northern Tip of Norway and it was basically the same here for the Sami. Reindeer are everything.

No way! Kolguev has been my favorite island since childhood, i was always disappointed by the lack of recognition it gets.

Did I just watched 17 min video about some random russian island? yes.

Maybe the real Discovery was the reindeers we made along the way

Extremely interesting stuff, I appreciated that you had both Trevor's original drawings and footage of the island on-screen, really gives a high quality sense of place

"Yed" part of the word samoyed can actually mean too distinct things. "Sam" means "self" or "their own", and "yed" either means "the one that eats" (to eat is "yest'") or "the one that drives/goes" (to drive/go is "ekhat'").
So there could be two posdible meanings: first - the cannibals, and second - ones able to travel independently / out of their own volition. I'm inclined to believe the latter, cause there is already samoyed dog breed. These are called as such cuz they are sled dogs and can move the goods through the thick snow on their own (aka drive/go).

I can see why this expedition took so long. Thanks.

this was fantastic.
I really appreciate the captions you included when showing footage of similar landscapes,
as not to mislead us on what we are actually seeing.
Some very interesting footage that I'd be interested in the sources.
Thank you for making this video, man!