Advertisement
Published: July 20th 2011
Edit Blog Post
Photo 10
Tuvan steppe - just amazing For the trip from Abakan to Kyzyl I got a seat in a shared taxi . A white station wagon picked me up at 2.30pm – I sat in front 😊 The first part of the trip led us out of the Khakas steppe back into the Taiga and away from most civilization – it reminded me a bit of Canada: the street making its way along deep blue rivers surrounded by dense forest . We made our way up to the famous Ergaki mountains – granted these are actually real mountains and the scenery is beautiful, but for a Swiss not necessarily the most impressive part of the route. On the way down we drove again through extensive part of forest up until the moment where in front of us all of a sudden the beautiful Tuvan steppe with its Sayan Mountains opened up. That was definitely my highlight – one of those moments in life which cannot be described or
Photo 8
Tuvan steppe captured in pictures, so I’m not even gonna try – just be sure I was absolutely amazed by the beauty of it! I’m not sure how long we still drove from that point to Kyzyl, but I could have looked at this scenery for hours and hours – it makes you realize how small you actually are compared to the big world – I completely switched off my brain for a moment and just stared out of the car window…
It was hard to imagine that anytime soon a roughly 100’000 inhabitant city would show up in the middle of this vast steppe. Eventually we did arrive in Kyzyl, the center of Asia , the capital of the Repbulic of Tuva – an independent Republic up until the creation of the Soviet Union. The Tuvan language is somewhat similar to Turkish – the appearance of Tuvan people however is really hard to describe, everyone has a different touch. Some resemble Indians, some Japanese, some Koreans, … I could definitely not point out a Tuvan if met
Photo 7
Tuvan steppe somewhere outside of Tuva 😊 I stayed with Aya, Artysh and their three kids Ayrana, Maxim and Alexander . Aya is 22 years old, Artysh 24 – this young and three kids was my first thought – somehow they seem to manage very well though! Three days at their place explained the mystery: They have a huge family and everyone seems to help out! They got an apartment on credit with the financial help of Aya’s dad ; the kids usually stay 2 – 3 days a week at their grand parents’ place; they have plenty of cousins who sporadically show up at their apartment to clean up, take the kids for a walk or just look after them at home. Alex the Great is probably the first kid they actually more or less bring up themselves. Consequently, they don’t need to be 24/7 parents – it seems that this applies also to many other young parents in Russia. In general parents in Russia tend to financially support their kids longer than in Western Europe as
Photo 14
Center of Asia monument the salaries are often too low to rent a place, so they help them to get a credit to buy an apartment , or the kids still live at home where the parents pay for food, utilities etc.. Like in Western Europe there are some more and some less ambitious people when it comes to earning some extra money – there are quite a few who try to get some summer jobs when they are on holidays during their studies or work extra hours to get additional money, some however just content themselves with what they have, even if it means eating less or unhealthy because they can’t afford fresh products.
Sunday, Aya’s dad took me to the regional museum. In 2001 during an archeological excavation in several graves artefacts dating back to the 7th century were found – these are now exhibited in the museum. The most precious ones include pure golden jewelry and accessories of Scythian “royals’’ . Nowadays no one really knows how they were capable of creating
Photo 12
Buddhism in Tuva such fine jewelry – even nowadays with our laser technology it would be hard to recreate similar pieces of art . The remaining part of the museum explains more or less how Tuvan people live on the countryside – the ones in the Taiga live mainly in tents and nourish themselves with meat and anything else that can be found in the forest, whereas the ones in the steppe live in yurts with their herds of goats, sheep, camels, reindeers, cattle or yaks .
In the evening, Aya and I went to the club 😉 She goes there probably once or twice a year, but apparently most of her school friends finished university and came back to Kyzyl to celebrate together on that evening! In the club probably around 80%!w(MISSING)ere girls, no one cares everyone just dances , and at 2.15 the club got closed with the announcement: “дискотека закрывается по причине пьянства” [the club is
Photo 21
blue bluer, bluest? :) closing due to drunkenness] – Aya’s comment: ‘’ah, it happens all the time’’ 😉 Yes, it did kinda confirm the prejudice we have about Russians and alcohol, however I also have to admit that this happens in Switzerland as well, just that our security is a bit more efficient – they don’t need to close down the whole club, they just kick out the people who don’t behave correctly . After travelling in Russia for a while now, I do think the young generation isn’t drinking nearly as much as we presume they are – it’s rather the Soviet generation which still needs their alcohol every day – or rather, they are retired now and just don’t know what to do with themselves, so they drink out of boredom…
The next day, a visit to the Shaman was planned! In Tuva there’s a healthy coexistence between Buddhism and Shamanism – being a Buddhist doesn’t exclude believing in Shamans as well as the other way round. However, as opposed to Shamanism, Buddhism is an officially recognized religion – that explains the shabby wooden barrack they are practicing in . As with
Photo 24
The happy family :) every religion, Shamanism only works to the extent you believe in it – I decided to go and see how they do their rituals and get some input on my future – it was interesting, but I couldn’t fully embrace it 😉 Tuvans, however do seem to believe in it – the shaman center was quite well frequented. Aya told me that when someone dies, they have a few days to call a Shaman in order to resolve the last ‘’issues’’ between the bereaved and the deceased person. Aya also went twice with Sandroshka to the Shaman in order to deal with some health issues – she says that her mom usually wants her to go there, but I think if she didn’t believe in it herself, she either wouldn’t go or it wouldn’t actually help 😊
On my last day in Tuva, we went to two lakes roughly an hour drive out of Kyzyl
. The lakes in Tuva are highly frequented by Photo 26
Ergaki mountains on the way up to Krasnoyarsk [the guy sitting at the window wasn't very talented at picture taking :)] locals, Russian and I guess international tourists/travellers to relax 😉 First, we arrived at Lake Dus Khol – a salt lake like the Dead Sea. You can go into the lake with a book or newspaper and just float in the water! Once you’re out you do have a white salt layer on your skin, though… So after a little pick nick we decided to drive to freshwater lake close-by to wash off the salt – salt lakes are funny, but I do prefer freshwater! That was my first day in Russia in my bikini 😊
The next day I caught the minibus back up to Krasnoyarsk…
Advertisement
Tot: 0.083s; Tpl: 0.011s; cc: 8; qc: 26; dbt: 0.0314s; 1; m:domysql w:travelblog (10.17.0.13); sld: 1;
; mem: 1.1mb