Uilta. Demographics

The Uilta (Ulta, Orochen/Orochon, Orok) are an ethnic group with some of the smallest numbers in Russia.

The 2002 Census recorded the highest number of 346 persons including 298 on Sakhalin (more information is available in Valery V. Stepanov’s works). These numbers reflect not only the demographic trends  but also public expectations of targeted support for indigenous small-numbered peoples on the federal government’s 2000 list. The increase in numbers was also linked with a new census methodology that recorded as the Ulta (Orok) not only those who self-identify as Orok, the Ulta, Uilta, but also those Oroch, Orochen, and Ulcha whose native tongue is Ulta.

The 2010 Census recorded a smaller number of 295 persons listing them under the common name “Uilta”; that number includes 259 persons in Sakhalin; in 2020/21, their number fell to 269 persons, including 216 in Sakhalin. The 2020/21 Census recorded 125 men and 144 women, including 93 men and 123 women in Sakhalin. Urban population includes only 178 persons, including 140 in Sakhalin. Of those 178, 79 are men and 99 are women, including 55 men and 85 women in the Sakhalin region. 91 persons were recorded as rural population, including 76 in the Sakhalin region; that number comprises equal numbers of men and women (46 and 45 respectively), of them 38 men and 38 women in the Sakhalin region.

Currently, despite the Uilta’s small numbers, the Sakhalin region has several Uilta settlement areas. The larger Nogliki and Poronaisk areas that have approximately equal Uilta numbers are located in the middle of the island, while the smaller Okha and Yuzhno-Sakhalinks groups live in the northern and southern parts of the island.

The village of Val has the largest number of the rural Uilta (about 90 Uilta among Russians, the Ewenki, Nivkh, etc.); it is located in the Nogliki municipality. The village also has the highest percentage of the Uilta among the locals. The village is situated on the flat plain eastern coast of the island in the lower reaches of the river Nogliki that flows into the Sea of Okhotsk. The village has an old section and a new section, and the Uilta live in the so-called “old” Val, a former reindeer herding state-owned farm. Prior to the 1960s, this locality had various reindeer herders’ villages, but they had been eliminated as part of the village consolidation process. The district’s administrative center, the urban-type settlement of Nogliki, is 60 km away from the village; Nogliki is home to about 30 Uilta. The village of Nysh is situated deeper into the island; it has a train station, and it is home to less than ten Uilta. Several more persons recorded as Uilta in the Census live in the urban-type settlement of Tymovskoe in the eponymous municipal district and in the nearest city of Aleksandrovsk-Sakhalinsky.

The Poronaisk municipality stands out in that, as Valeriy V. Stepanov calculated, its administrative center, the city of Poronaisk, is home to the largest number of the Uilta (about 100), which is 40% of their overall number in Russia. The Census recorded only a few Uilta in the vicinity of Poronaisk: several persons in the urban-type settlement of Vakhrushev, about ten persons in the village of Buyukly of the Smirnykh municipality. There is one Uilta living in the urban-type settlement of Smirnykh and one Uilta living in the village of Pugachevo of the nearby Makarov municipality.

There are only a few Uilta in the northern part of Sakhalin, in the city of Okha and in the village of Nekrasovka, and less than ten Uilta live in the south of the island in the city of Yuzhno-Sakhalinsk and a few persons in the city of Kholmsk.

It is important to take into account the considerable number of interethnic families in the Sakhalin region (historically, this region has been home to members of nearly all of Russia’s ethnic groups). In the 21st century, the Uilta most frequently intermarried with the Ewenki (the most traditional marriage), and they also intermarried with Koreans, the Nivkh, Russians, Tatars, and many other peoples of Russia.