In the process of integrating the Northern areas into the Russian world, both missionaries and Soviet activists have endeavoured to change the local population’s minds and worldview, in order to get it in compliance with the new world they were bringing. But the indigenous population was nomadic. This presented a considerable challenge to the enlighteners. How did they cope with it? Did they attempt to become “temporarily” nomads themselves or did they try to compel the people to change also their way of life? Were there differences in strategies between the Christian missionaries of the turn of the 19th and 20th centuries and the Soviet “cultural construction” activists? These are the questions this article attempts to find an answer to.