One of the most interesting holidays celebrated by the indigenous peoples of northern Russia is Reindeer Herder's Day. It is rooted in antiquity and is timed to coincide with the Spring Equinox, when the Arctic wakes up from the long polar night. This is a real festival of culture for residents of the Yamal Peninsula: the Nenets, Khanty, Mansi, Komi, and Selkup peoples. The festival usually begins in a certain place at the end of February and is celebrated in all major cities of the region, passed on as in a relay-race from one place to another until the end of April.

IBT Russia has recently published a new edition of OT Scripture portions in the Kabardian language, spoken by over half a million people in the North Caucasus region of the Russian Federation. This edition contains three books of the Bible. Proverbs was first published in Kabardian in 2017 and has proved to be quite popular with readers. Ecclesiastes was published in 2020 in a bilingual edition together with a translation of this book into the closely related Adyghe language. Esther has now been published in Kabardian for the first time. The edition also includes a glossary, a subject index, and a map of Biblical places found in the book of Esther. An audio recording of these books on CD comes with the printed edition, and can also be found in the Kabardian Scripture app “ФIыцIагъэ ЛъапIэ” in Google Play and AppStore.

In continuation of our Old Testament translation project into Sakha (a.k.a. Yakut), the Institute for Bible Translation has published the books of Ruth and Esther in a single edition. These are the only two books of the Bible named after women, and they are being printed in Sakha for the first time ever.

The books were translated by Dmitri Sivtsev and Raisa Sibiryakova, and edited by Sargylana Leontyeva and Nikolai Efremov. The text was checked by IBT consultant Alexei Somov, and the foreword to the edition was written by Roman, the Orthodox Archbishop of Yakutia. A new set of illustrations was produced for this edition by Yakut artist Maria Adamova, who had earlier produced illustrations for the book of Jonah...

The Institute for Bible Translation has just published the second book of Scripture portions in Siberian Tatar. Following the book of Jonah, which came out in the beginning of 2020, the present publication contains a collection of nine parables from the Gospel of Luke: the Parable of the Sower (8:4-15), the Good Samaritan (10:29-35), the Rich Fool (12:16-21), the Pharisee and the Tax Collector (18:9-14), the Rich Man and Lazarus (16:19-31), the Wedding Feast (14:15-24) , the Lost Coin (15:8-10), the Lost Sheep (15:3-7) and the Prodigal Son (15:11-32).

Gospel parables are allegorical lessons and examples borrowed from nature and everyday life. Jesus Christ (known as the Prophet Isa in Muslim ethnic groups such as the Siberian Tatars) often used such short, simple stories in his sermons. They may seem to be about ordinary life situations familiar to anyone, but Jesus uses them to communicate profound spiritual truths...