Innokenty Gotovtsev | Oberton Pro

The melody I heard on a small record released by a Leningrad record company in the early 1970s, performed by jaw harp player and great enthusiast Ivan Yegorovich Alexeyev, set me on the broad and luminous path of the khomus; that is, it awakened a true love for this instrument in my soul. The enchanting sounds of the khomus captivated my whole being so powerfully that I became eager to make the instrument myself and play it for my own enjoyment. I did just that and was very pleased.

Innokenty Nikitich Gotovtsev is a teacher of the highest professional category, head of the khomus-making school he founded at Nam Pedagogical College, a recipient of the Excellence in Public Education of the RSFSR badge and an Honoured Schoolteacher of the Sakha Republic (Yakutia).

Innokenty Nikitich was born in 1942 in the Batagay Nasleg of the Ust-Aldan District of Yakutia. He graduated from Dyupsyn Secondary School in 1962. From 1962 to 1965, he served in the Soviet Army. In 1965, he began working as a primary school teacher. In 1972, he graduated from Yakut State University with qualifications as a teacher of the Yakut language and literature. From 1970 to 1974, he taught at the Second Khamustakh Secondary School in the Namsky District. In 1994, he joined the faculty of Nam Pedagogical College.

He holds qualifications as a driver, tractor operator, welder, khomus maker and teacher. In 1994, a special republican council conferred on him the honorary title of Folk Master for making the khomus, the Yakut folk musical instrument. In 1980, he was awarded the Excellence in Public Education of the RSFSR badge. He has held the rank of teacher-methodologist since 1991. He developed innovations in agricultural machinery, for which he received certificate No. 5 in 1992 and No. 7 in 1993 from the Ministry of Agriculture of the Sakha Republic (Yakutia). He took part in the First and Second World Congresses of Jaw Harp Music and received a diploma at the Third. He is the author of the booklet “Gotovtsev’s Khomus”. In 1993, he was awarded the honorary title of Honoured Schoolteacher of the Sakha Republic (Yakutia). He won the Grand Prix at the S. Gogolev–Amynnyky Uus Republican Competition for Khomus Makers. In 1997, he became a laureate of the European Jaw Harp Festival held in Oslo, Norway. In 1999, he founded his own khomus school (Order No. 01-06/01 of the Ministry of Education of the Sakha Republic (Yakutia), dated 5 January 1999).

He developed a new machine-based technology for making the khomus and is the author of two inventions concerning the Yakut khomus (Russian Federation patent, 1998).

According to Gotovtsev himself, by 2017 he had made around 13,500 khomuses and taught the craft to approximately 60 people. Among the students who continued making instruments, he named Aysen Dyachkovsky and Nyrgustan Uvarov. In 2010, laser cutting began to be used to produce the blanks, although the final finishing of every khomus continued to be done by hand.

Innokenty Nikitich is a man of rare diligence and determination. He is an active advocate of a healthy lifestyle and practises body conditioning and breathing exercises. He has 38 years of teaching experience, including 15 years as a teacher of the Yakut language and literature. He and his wife, Matryona Alexeyevna, have raised a daughter and four sons and have ten grandchildren.

(“New Technologies of the Yakut Khomus” / Gotovtsev I. N.; Sakhapoligrafizdat, 2003)