Reindeer owners write to the Lukoil company

A letter of Yuri Vella, president of the private reindeer owners association in the Khanty-Mansi Area to V.J Alekperov, CEO of one of the biggest oil companies in Russia.

Most Honourable Mr. Alekperov!

Your subordinates stick to canceling the agreements, on the basis of which Lukoil obtained the right to work on our reindeer pastures, the land of our forefathers and their forefathers. We the private reindeer owners also want to cancel those economic agreements because they do not in the least make up for the damage that oil workers have caused to our lives. Your subordinates have never fulfilled the most important obligation of the agreements, environmental protection. We are not asking back the profits that were gained from our land, the land where our ancestors and we have lived.

We demand your company to dismantle all the oil equipment in the Povkhovskoje oil field and return our reindeer pastures so that we can live on our land by the use of our labour.

Respectfully, yours

Private reindeer owners

Signed by five signatories