Northern peoples have their own idea of beauty. To them, a beautiful woman is first and foremost skilled in handicrafts and is a smart and resourceful housekeeper and a caring mother. If a girl is beautiful but does not know how to make clothes and food for her family, she will not be appreciated in the North.

A tuchan is a women’s handbag of Yamal nomads. It was every woman’s main household attribute. In ancient times it was used to store flint or, more recently, matches. Such a handbag was also used to store jewelry, tools and sewing accessories: beads, needles, buttons, ribbons, pieces of animal skins and amulets. Mothers also kept umbilical cords of their children in their tuchan bag. The contents of a tuchan bag had to be in order. No matter if she was at a camp or in a forest, the woman never parted with her tuchan — nomad women still carry it with them at all times. A nomad woman is inseparable from her handbag even when the time comes for her to leave this world for the next at the call of the spirit Nga.

The sewing bag was made of tanned deer skins and accompanied its owner through all the ups and downs of life. When a girl made herself a tuchan, it meant that she came of age. The bride to be had to sew herself a tuchan with her own hands. A girl’s worth as a future wife was judged by her tuchan and yagushka (traditional women’s robe-like fur clothes). They were indicators of the girl’s diligence and skill. This refers to folk legends, in which the bride is always depicted “dressed in good clothes” and holding a “fur bag”.

Like the clothes of every woman of the chum tent, the tuchan was unique. It was decorated with fur, leather mosaic, protective patterns, beaded fringes, beads, buttons, coins and circles cut from light metals. Only sacred objects were decorated in such a way to protect the owner from the dark forces of the Lower World. Such bags had no clasp and were always kept tightened with a string — keeping it this way was supposed to bring good luck and happiness to its owner. In the tundra, like many centuries ago, a light waterproof tuchan never goes out of fashion. It stores the fire, which for the peoples of the North is life itself and the warmth and light of the family hearth. That is why it is entrusted to a woman, the mistress of the chum tent.