This ethnography of the Russian North focuses on post-Soviet relations of domination between an indigenous minority and a non-indigenous majority in an urban setting. Patty Gray charts the political transformation in Chukotka as its administration sought to represent itself as 'democratic' while becoming ever more repressive, especially toward the indigenous population. The 'predicament' refers to how the nascent indigenous movement was prepared to address Soviet-style domination, and instead was confronted with this 'new Russian' style.