Descendants of the old-timers-Chaldons in the Tom River area: culture and identity in the second half of the XX – early XXI centuries

This article analyzes the identity of the descendants of the Russian old-timers known as Chaldons in the Tom Area. The Chaldon identity was developed through the transmission of cultural traditions from older generations born in the late 19th to early 20th centuries and cultural interactions between the descendants of the Chaldons and bearers of other cultures of the region. The research is based on interviews with Chaldon descendants born in the 1920s to 1950s in the Yurginsky District of the Kemerovo region. The source base of the study was accumulated during the ethnographic expedition of 2022-2023. In the second half of the 20th century, the descendants of the Russian old-timers of Siberia continued to partially retain the historical memory of the origin of the Chaldons, as "indigenous " Siberians, whose ancestors came from the areas near the Chal and Don Rivers. The historical memory of Chaldons survived in the names of ethnocultural groups in the region; the descendants of Russian old-timers of Siberia retained the self-name Chaldons distinguishing them from the descendants of recent migrants to the territory of Western Siberia in the early twentieth century. Members of this group were associated with certain cultural traits, such as the purity of their Russian speech, prosperity, and features of traditional cuisine (skills of baking muffins, tradition to take tea with sauerkraut), and others. While preserving, The modern descendants of Russian old-timers keep the memory of Chaldon culture in the Tom region, but gradually lose their "Chaldon" identity and prefer other forms of self-identification, such as "Siberian", "resident of Kuzbass", "Russian", and others. Modern villagers, whose ancestors previously considered themselves Chaldоns, perceive the "Chaldon" identity as a phenomenon of the outgoing culture of their predecessors.