Narty

Narty 

a long narrow sledge with a flat wooden platform. The narty may be pulled by hand or drawn by a team of reindeer (one to seven) or dogs (six to ten in tandem or ten to 16 side by side). Similar sledges are used in northern Europe, Asia, and America. Runners from narty from the second and first millennia B.C. have been found in peat bogs in Finland and in the Northern Urals of the USSR. The oldest type of narty was hand-drawn; it was from this form that the different types of dog and reindeer narty developed.

The Russian population of Siberia created efficient living quarters on the reindeer narty known as a nartianyi chum or balok. A nartianyi chum is a light frame dwelling mounted on long, wide runners and covered on top with skins and canvas; it has windows and an iron stove. This type of narty is used as mobile winter quarters by kolkhoz reindeer breeders and hunters in the Taimyr (Dolgan-Nenets) National Okrug.