Leonid Vasilyevich Laptsuy

Leonid Vasilyevich Laptsuy was a Nenets writer. He was born in the Yamal tundra into the family of a hired reindeer herder. From the age of 10 Laptsuy worked as a reindeer herder. In 1951 Laptsuy completed seven-year schooling in Novy Port, and three years later graduated from the medical school in Salekhard, where he qualified as a feldsher (medical assistant). At the same time he worked as a translator for the newspaper "Krasny Sever" ("Red North"). From 1954 to 1956 he studied in Moscow at the Central Komsomol School under the Central Committee of the Komsomol (VLKSM). After that he worked in Komsomol and party institutions of the Yamalo-Nenets Autonomous Okrug.

In 1963 Laptsuy graduated from the Higher Party School under the Central Committee of the Communist Party of the USSR and again held leadership positions in the Yamalo-Nenets Autonomous Okrug. From 1974 until the end of his life he served as editor of the Nenets newspaper "Nyaryana Nerm". In 1962 he wrote his first story, "In the Snows of the Arctic Foxes", which received high acclaim. Laptsuy published in various periodicals, depicting the life and everyday existence of the Nenets and the nature of Yamal. He was called the "Nenets Yesenin" and the "poet of Yamal". In 1964 he joined the Union of Soviet Writers. Leonid Vasilyevich Laptsuy died in 1982.