A United Methodist drive to get food to the remote Yupik people of Siberia will make its first delivery sometime in January, according to the Alaska-based pastor closely involved with the relief effort.

The food will be delivered by tracked vehicles to each of five villages inhabited by Siberian Yupiks, known also as Eskimos, in the Chukotka region of Russia's Arctic Far North, said the Reverend James A. Campbell, pastor of the Willow United Methodist Church in Willow, Alaska.

The Yupiks are among 12 million people living with food shortages and other hardships in Russia's remote northern provinces. The Chukotka region lies on Russia's northeastern extremity, some 36 miles across the Bering Strait from St. Lawrence, Island, Alaska.

Campbell said the first shipment will go forward once funds arrive from the United Methodist Committee On Relief (UMCOR), which has agreed to give $75,000 --in five payments of $15,000, for Yupik food relief.

The relief effort is being administered through the Chukotka Native Christian Ministry (CNCM), an indigenous group supported by the Alaska Missionary Conference of the United Methodist Church (UMC), and four other denominations.

The five villages to receive the shipment are outside Provideniya, a former Soviet administrative and military center with a population of at least 4,000.

Each village is slated to receive: 400 cans of meat, 400 cans of condensed milk, 400 kilograms of sugar, 400 kilograms of cereal, 400 kilograms of macaroni, 75 kilograms of apples, and 400 kilograms of an additional food item, Campbell said.

Russia's severe economic crisis, along with falling food imports and the worst grain harvest in 50 years have combined to make conditions in the Far North -- already plagued by joblessness and shortages -- even worse.

The Soviet Union under dictator Joseph Stalin first settled its Arctic regions with prisoners from political purges. Later, during the Khrushchev era, the Soviets used special stipends to foster settlement of the remote towns.