Yuvan Nikolaevich Shestalov

Yuvan Nikolaevich Shestalov was a Mansi writer and poet. He was born in the village of Kamratka in the Omsk region into the family of a collective farm chairman. At the age of eight he became an orphan and moved to live with his father in the Khanty settlement of Tegi. He studied at a Russian school and wrote his first poem in Russian at the age of twelve.

After finishing school, Shestalov enrolled at the Herzen Leningrad Pedagogical Institute in the Faculty of the Peoples of the Far North. Far from home, he rediscovered the beauty of his native Mansi language. After graduating from the institute he returned to Khanty-Mansiysk and worked in various media: writing articles, short stories and sketches about his native region. In 1962 he joined the Union of Writers of Russia, and in 1965 he graduated from the Faculty of Philology of the Tyumen Pedagogical Institute.

Shestalov was actively involved in the revival of traditional culture and in 1985 organized the performance “Tulyglap” (“Bear Games”). He was president of the Foundation of Cosmic Consciousness (1995), was a member of the Hungarian Writers' Union (1997) and held the position of professor at Yugra State University (2002–2011). Many of his works were published in Hungarian. Yuvan Nikolaevich Shestalov died on November 5, 2011, and was buried in Khanty-Mansiysk.