Vasiliy Uarov

Vasiliy Alexandrovich Uarov is an international-class khomus maker and a Master of Folk Arts and Crafts of the Sakha Republic (Yakutia). He makes khomuses and Yakut knives in the village of Suntar. Uarov was born in 1983 in Deputatsky, in the Ust-Yansky District, and spent his childhood in the village of Bordon in Suntarsky Ulus.

Uarov’s first mentor was his father, Alexander Ilyich, a technology teacher who studied khomus making under Ivan Fyodorovich Zakharov — Kylyady Uus in 1990. Vasiliy studied jewellery making first at a vocational school and later at the Institute of Physics and Technology of Yakut State University. Until 2009, he worked for jewellery companies. After he returned to Suntar, his father advised him to begin learning smithing by making khomuses.

Uarov recalls that his first instruments were unsuccessful and that it took him about two months of daily work to make his first good khomus. After his father’s death in 2010, he began teaching in the same practical arts class where Alexander Ilyich had taught children to make khomuses. Uarov later continued his training under Roman Gotovtsev, whom he names as one of his principal mentors. He forges his khomuses and emphasises his commitment to traditional craft practices.

In 2011, at the first international competition he entered, Uarov took third place in the “World’s Best Khomus” category. In the assessment of musical qualities, his instrument received the same score as the second-place khomus. The jury noted its traditional Sakha decoration, including incised ornamentation at the base. One of the three khomuses Uarov made for the International Congress became part of the collection of the Museum and Centre of the Khomus of the Peoples of the World.

At the 2012 republic-wide competition, Uarov again took third place, presenting a traditional khomus and a set of three instruments entitled “Sakham Alaaha”. At the time, he headed the Suntar branch of the Association of Blacksmiths and Metallurgists of the Sakha Republic and was already training his own students. He now teaches jewellery making at the Suntar Children’s School of Arts. His students have become winners and prize-winners in professional competitions, and one of his former pupils has opened a workshop of his own.

In 2025, Uarov took part in the “Uuskhomusfest” project together with Roman Gotovtsev. The makers helped improve the sound and refine the reeds of twenty khomuses intended for children, forged from iron smelted from local ore.

The catalogue features “Ambardkh” and its stainless-steel version. These are classic Yakut khomuses with a loud, colourful sound, designed primarily for a sweeping direct strike and simple articulation.

Yakut Khomuses