Mark was born in Chukotka; he is Chukcha by nationality. In 2020, he graduated from the College of Physical Education and Sports at St. Petersburg State University, specializing in Chukchi wrestling coaching. From 2019 to 2021, he was a member of the Youth Council of the Russian Association of Indigenous Peoples of the North, Siberia, and the Far East (RAIPON) in St. Petersburg.
In 2021, he left the organization, protesting against the RAIPON’s support of the anti-democratic change of the Russian Constitution by President Putin. From 2020 to 2022, Mark studied at the Russian State Pedagogical University named after A. I. Herzen at the faculty of the Institute of the Peoples of the North. In 2022, he was forced to leave Russia due to persecution by Russian authorities for participating in protests against Russia’s invasion of Ukraine and expelled from the University because of his political beliefs.
Today, Mark lives in Germany, where he studies anthropology. He is passionate about Chukchi’s traditional wrestling struggle and dreams of Russia becoming a democratic country.
Mark Zdor: “In RAIPON I was threatened with arrest”. Interview with Mark Zdor, youth activist of indigenous peoples of the Russian North – (in Russian)