Uelen[a] is a rural locality (a selo) in Chukotsky District, just south of the Arctic Circle in Chukotka Autonomous Okrug in the Russian Far East.

It describes the life of a strong local man called Uvelel'yn (literally translated as "slob"), named so because he was an orphan who was dressed solely in tattered rags.

[11] Prior to being named Uelen, the village was called Ulyk (Russian: Улык,[12] Olyk in Yupik[12] and Pok’ytkyn in Chukchi),[12] meaning land's end and flooded place respectively.

[11] In the 1950s, Uelen became a focal point in the region, along with Lavrentiya, Lorino and Inchoun (see diagram) for the relocation of indigenous peoples following the decision to close a large number of uneconomical villages.

Uelen absorbed the population from the nearby village of Dezhnevo (named, like the neighbouring cape, after the explorer Semyon Dezhnev).

At the end of summer, storms in the Chukchi Sea can make it impossible for ships to dock at Uelen to unload their supplies.

[11] In more recent history, Uelen is where Dimitri Kieffer and Karl Bushby entered Russia during their Goliath Expedition after crossing the Bering Strait.

It has long been a major artistic centre in the region, with Several of the leading exponents of the craft, such as Vukvutagin, Vukvol, Tukkai and Khukhutan working out of Uelen.

His book A Dream in Polar Fog deals with the Chukchi people's efforts to adapt when a foreigner is shipwrecked on their shores.

[19] The village also serves as a base for archaeology expeditions to the area, which have uncovered a burial ground containing more than 300 burials of Early Whale Hunter cultures, covering a time span from 500 BCE to 1000 CE.These excavations have shown that Uelen was a major settlement in the area in the first few centuries CE, as well as revealing the existence of a culture dependent on whale and walrus hunting, archeologists have also unearthed early examples of the indigenous peoples ivory carvings, a number of which are now held at the Peter the Great Museum of Anthropology and Ethnography in St.

[21] Due to the position of Uelen by the sea coast there are also many instances of fog and mist per year[21] with the result that sunshine hours are very low especially when the adjacent ocean begins to thaw.