In the 7 October issue of "Ekho stolitsy", an article by journalist Mikhail Gorokhov was published about the work of a beginner artist-illustrator Mariya Chikachyova-Ondar, who in one year independently prepared for publication comics - Olonkho based on the motive of Sakha epic "Nyuryun Bootur the Impetuous".

On top of that, the entire complicated process - from the selection of the subject for the script, sketches, character creation, work-up of the subjects and their number, design, translation to a computer, and coloring, then the page-proofs, which is usually done by 3 - 4 different people, Mariya  did by herself. In Masha's words, her hand is so "charged", that sometimes she can draw on a computer straight out, bypassing the intermediate stages.

Mariya, with her fresh new look, truly made a break-through, discovered and laid a foundation to a new genre, which de facto already has branched out from Yakut Olonkho!

This is what Aiza Reshetnikova , musician and a well-known expert in the folklore of peoples of Yakutia, wrote about this in her short annotation to this unexpected and totally new concept of reading olonkho: "The work of Mariya Chikachyova-Ondar, her attempt to present the subject of olonkho in a graphic, concise, and short form, can definitely attract the interest of adolescents and to awaken a wish to turn to the original sources, the extremely rich cultural heritage of the Sakha people."

Mariya herself wrote in the prologue to the comics: "Yakut Olonkho epics are of very ancient origin. The sources date to those times when the ancestors of the Yakuts lived in their previous homeland in close contact with their brothers - ancient ancestors of Turko-Mongol  people of Altai and Sayan mountains. The many common subjects of  olonkho and  epics of these nations bear witness to that. Because the entire volume of the "Nyuryun Bootur the Impetuous" olonkho is huge and specific for a large number of subject lines, lyrical digressions, repeats and lengthy descriptions used to beautify the text, it is difficult for children and adolescents to follow. That is why I got this idea to present it as a series of drawings with short explanations, or, in other words, in the comics format.

The subject of the comics has no pretensions of originality or full encompassment of  such a complicated genre as Olonkho, but, I hope, it will help to awaken the interest of contemporary youth in this rare genre, and  encourage them to develop a more detailed acquaintance with heroic epics of the Sakha people."

The correspondent of IA SakhaNews contacted the author of the comics and asked her several questions.

-  Mariya, how did you get this interesting last name, are you from Tuva? What is your relationship to the actor Eduard Ondar, who played the role of Genghis Khan?

-  No, I was born in Yakutsk - my roots on my father's side are from Russkoye Ustye, and on my mother's side, it is Yukaghir and Yakut, but my husband is from the large Tuvan family Ondar, to which Eduard also belongs.

-  Where did you go to school and how did you get the idea  of comics on the olonkho motifs?

-  I graduated from the 26^th School in Yakutsk, then I went to the Moscow economic college, and Stroganov school in the specialty of "computer graphics and computer design". As a child I loved to draw, even on wallpaper. Once I participated in and was one of ten winners of a competition of children's drawings by YUKOS. The idea of comics on Olonkho subjects has been in the air for a long time, I know that many have tried it. My comics is a result of a lot6 of hard work, sleep deprivation and creative pains.

-  What are you working on now, and what are your artistic plans for the future?

-  Now I am home with my child, my son Kirilka, he will soon be two. And when I think of his future, my  mind turns to the human roots.  My comic strip is one of  the expressions of this - as soon as the boy gets bigger, I will tell him about his ancestors, and it will work best with the help of comics, beautiful and easy for a child to Assimilate. I am planning to continue what I started if there is any interest, including of the  commercial kind. I would like to make a version in Yakut language, and perhaps in English and Chinese. If there is any interest.

-  Have you asked any companies or foundations involved in support of Olonkho for help ?

-  No, so far I have not, and I think that it is senseless. I am sure that they have tasks of global significance, I heard that they wanted to build a Palace of Olonkho in Yakutsk. I am looking for a sponsor now, who would support and help with the distribution of Olonkho-comics, at least in the beginning stage.

-  What does Olonkho mean to you, how do you perceive it?

-  Our republic is called the Land of Olonkho, and it is certainly true. The task of preserving olonkho in its pure from is very complicated. The world has changed, now everybody can read, unlike earlier. I know that much has been recorded on tapes and in manuscripts, and a lot has been published. Aiza Petrovna Reshetnikova said on the subject that contemporary readers already perceive the Olonkho epic in a way as something external, in contrast as internal like in the old times, when the olonkhosut (epic bards), just like shamans, would sing for days at a time, and the audience would participate in the events and tribulations of the heroes. For illiterate audiences, the olonkhosut was a one-man theatre: script-writer, director, narrator, singer, actor - all in one person. Contemporary people are not entertained by Olonkho epics anymore, on the contrary, it demands a specialized education and erudition, and effort in comprehension.

-  Do you believe that olonkho in its original form is already impossible?

-  I am not an Olonkho specialist. The world is changing. The  arts of performance and production of Olonkho subjects are changing. Many Olonkho and the information they contain have been re-done into books, operas, drama plays. They were re-done by the patriarchs of Yakut culture; they probably knew what they were doing when they translated them into a classic European form, different from the old Olonkho, which was more like a shamanic ritual.

-  So what does the contemporary person need?

-  The contemporary person is used to TV and film, where the subject matter is concentrated and is presented in a dense stream. The young people especially like blockbusters, which you can swallow just by opening your mouth without any special mental effort. However, it should be noted that stuff that does not require any mental effort is quickly forgotten, opening the way for more and more consumer-products.

As an economist-friend explained to me, this is the principle of inflation, the foundation of today's world. That is why the genre of fairy-tale Olonkho, rich in fantasy and imagination, will be inferior in profit to the contemporary commercialized genres, produced in an industrialized way, like feature films and animated films.  That means that the Olonkho will need government support and a special status, it can't count on ever having mass attraction.

-  But the Olonkho-comics genre does have a future?

-  I think that the answer is simple - yes. But with a little bit of government support for this direction, Yakutia could flood the world with intricate subjects of Yakut olonkho, improved by the imagination of specialists and artists-illustrators. Among the Yakuts, every second one is a painter. The world's interest in comics is not getting any weaker, it is getting stronger, and that way, the world would find out what Yakut olonkho is.  The comics can be read forward or backward, you can leaf through at random, put it away or come back to it and look again. Look at little kids that like to look at beautiful colored pictures, and you will understand right away.