Anna M. Kerttula, an anthropologist, offers a vivid portrayal of life in Sireniki, a Siberian village on the Bering Sea. Once a traditional Yup'ik community, it was by the final years of the Soviet Empire home to three cultural groups: the Yup'ik, native hunters of sea mammals; the Chukchi, nomadic reindeer herders who had been required by the state to turn their animals over to cooperative farms; and Russians of European ancestry enticed to the region by incentive programs designed to colonize the Russian Far East. Kerttula, who lived among the villagers for eighteen months, draws on her...