A Treacherous Beauty

Visiting Tuva – Russia's Most Dangerous Region

Tuva is one of Russia’s most treacherous regions, which is probably why it isn’t particularly known as a tourist destination. Travelers coming here in a typical year number in the dozens, or hundreds at most, and the locals are all surprised when you tell them you’ve come to Tuva as a tourist.

It’s morning, and I’m walking along the streets of Kyzyl. Snow crunches underfoot (it’s -22° F outside). The rare passerby pays me almost no mind; however, a few peer at my face, their gaze lingering for a couple of seconds. Tourists in the Tuva Republic are few and far between, and it’s easy to spot them. According to the 2010 All-Russia Census, Tuva is one of the most monoethnic republics in Russia. Tuvans make up some 80 percent of the republic’s population. The remaining 20 percent is predominately comprised of Russians, whose numbers have fallen by half since the collapse of the Soviet Union. News from the region occasionally features stories about ethnic conflicts. Overall, the Russian media calls the area nothing less than the “most dangerous place in the country.”

The statistics back this up. According to figures from 2020, there were 26 crimes recorded for every 1,000 Tuvans. By comparison, Moscow had 11 per 1,000, and Dagestan had just 4. In fact, the republic has Russia’s highest murder rate (with domestic violence accounting for most). And Tuva also lies on the other end of the spectrum regarding quality of life in Russia, ranking last.

For anyone equipped with this information, walking the streets of Kyzyl can be a bit scary. Mind you, nothing out of the ordinary is happening nearby. Someone is taking a child to school, and a group of older guys is heatedly discussing something by the Tuvan Volunteers Monument (commemorating the Tuvans who fought alongside the Soviets against Nazi Germany when Tuva was an independent nation).

A Khuresh wrestler stares down at me from a poster, urging me to give up alcohol.* The poster reads, “Sobriety is the choice of the strong.” Alcohol is thought to be one of the republic’s most critical issues. Local authorities are doing everything they can to limit alcohol consumption; alcohol is only sold in stores on weekdays between 11 a.m. and 3 p.m. Plus, the number of stores selling hard liquor is quite limited. On weekends, no alcohol is sold in the republic’s stores (at least not legally). However, there are a few bars and nightclubs in the capital where you can buy alcohol anytime. You can also purchase moonshine, which is sold in abundance in Tuva. Until recently, the most dangerous part of town was Shnakhai, a ghetto without electricity or communication lines. Last year, however, authorities knocked down most of its unauthorized shanties and resettled its residents.

It must be said that, during the day, there is nothing to threaten a tourist in Kyzyl’s downtown. The locals are gruff but friendly, and the asocial elements who roam the streets at night in spades are still asleep at this early hour.

I enter the city’s central square, where a massive Buddhist prayer drum is set up. Inside the drum are scrolls with prayers that would take months to read. If you rotate the drum around its axis, the reading of the scroll is “counted” automatically. For some reason, I make a wish and give the drum a spin.

The next item on the agenda is the National Museum. According to my local contacts, it’s the only place in the city worth one’s time.

At first glance, it seems unlikely that the museum could offer anything new to someone who has paid a visit or two to local history museums in Russia. There are traditional costumes, shards from ancient plates found in the area, and local flora and fauna (in taxidermy form, of course). This first impression is deceptive, however. For starters, there’s an entire room here dedicated to Sergey Shoygu, the Russian Minister of Defense, who was born in Tuva back in the day. Today, he regularly brings President Putin on fishing trips to the republic.

The museum’s main attraction, however, is hidden behind a massive armored door on the second floor. This is where the legendary Scythian gold is kept. The seventh-century-B.C. objects that make up this collection were discovered at the Arzhan II burial mounds in Siberia’s Valley of the Kings.* The discovery was a veritable sensation in the scientific world, leading to significant corrections both in terms of the empire’s timeframe (it emerged that the Scythian civilization was significantly older) and its geography: it turns out that this mighty civilization originated in Asia rather than the Black Sea region. There are about 44 pounds of gold artifacts in the museum’s collection. At the exhibition’s center is a pectoral, a female breastplate. The necklace weighs just over three pounds and is worth more than one million dollars.

Beldir Kezhim

Along the way to Beldir Kezhim, an ethnocultural complex about 80 miles from Kyzyl, I was struck by the landscape. People picture Siberia as an endless expanse of taiga, but I was seeing something different: vast snow-swept stretches and mountains everywhere. They are in fact the first thing you see when you fly into Kyzyl, and they follow you the whole time you’re traveling around the republic. Unlike the mountains of the Caucasus or the Urals, these are small and squat, as if ashamed of themselves, much like the Tuvans, who are constantly apologizing for their republic and who also seem a bit embarrassed by it.

“I built Beldir Kezhim with my own money,” recounts the director of the Tuvan National Museum, Kaadyr-ool Bicheldey. “I spent my entire pension. It’s a wonder my wife didn’t send me packing.” In times gone by, the area where the ethnocultural complex lies used to be home to the village of Pestunovka, where Bicheldey spent his childhood. By the 1950s, however, locals had moved out to make way for a reservoir. The water never came, and Bicheldey began construction on Beldir Kezhim in 2016.

Bicheldey’s goal was to educate tourists and locals alike about Tuvan history and culture. An enormous monument to the letter ъ stands at the complex’s entrance. Along with the letters Ө, Ң, and Ү, this letter, which looks like the silent Russian “hard sign,” plays a unique phonetic role in the Tuvan language, making it exceptionally melodic.

A Buddhist stupa monument to the goddess Nogaan Dariygi (Green Tara) stands near the sign.* Most Tuvans are Buddhists, but many of them still practice shamanism. In fact, Tuva is one of the few places in the world where shamanism is recognized as an official religion. Locals celebrate holidays with shamanic rituals, and there are even shamanist medical clinics in the cities.

The complex’s centerpiece is a monument to the military commander Subutai. This ordinary Tuvan blacksmith managed to rise to the rank of commander in Genghis Khan’s army. Later, he defeated the Russian and Polovtsian (Cuman) armies and reached the Adriatic Sea. According to Bicheldey, it took him three years and a loan of R600,000 (around $8,200) to build the monument.

Not far from the monument, the locals play buga shydyraa (bull chess), the local equivalent of chess, played with pawns and bulls. One person plays as the bulls with the objective of beating all the pawns. The second player, in turn, must corner the bulls and immobilize them to win.

I’m called into a yurt, where a table has been set with huge chunks of lamb, smaller pieces of lamb, large and small blood sausages made of lamb, and even lard-coated lamb blood sausages. More lamb is cooking in a large cast-iron pot at the yurt’s center. Everything is quite tasty, although terribly unsalted.

I am also treated to millet with sour cream, tea with milk, baursak (sweet fried dough), and araga – a mild, milky vodka that is only 10-20 proof. Rumor has it that Yeltsin once visited Tuva during his presidency. The locals gave him araga, and he remarked how easy it was to drink. He hadn’t calculated how treacherous it can be. You don’t feel it in your head but in your legs. As a result, for the rest of the day Boris Nikolayevich needed help walking.

Ak-Dovurak

Beldir Kezhim is about halfway between Kyzyl and Ak-Dovurak, Tuva’s largest town, with a population of about 14,000 people – often called the most criminal place in Russia. It’s considered dangerous even by Tuvan standards. Going anywhere without a local companion is inadvisable.

The Tuvans I spoke to warned me that if I were to go to Ak-Dovurak, I shouldn’t talk to anyone, especially drunk people. In fact, I would be better off not leaving the hotel at all.

Speaking of hotels, there is no tourism industry as such in Ak-Dovurak. The rare traveler or businessperson is lodged in a kind of hostel at the local House of Culture, which also houses the town’s main – and only – entertainment venue: the movie theater. When hostel guests go outside, the community center’s security guard locks the door behind them; safety is paramount here. In general, it’s not recommended for visitors to be outside at night in Ak-Dovurak. Local lowlifes think nothing of killing tourists not to their liking. Ideally, you should go for a walk in the morning, since undesirables will still be asleep after their nighttime revelries.

The town was originally built to mine local asbestos deposits. Most of the locals worked at the asbestos factory, but in the 1990s it went bankrupt and closed. Several attempts to restore the factory have been unsuccessful.

New Year’s

New Year’s (Shagaa) in Tuva is celebrated according to the Lunar Calendar, so usually sometime in mid- to late February. On February 12, 2021, the thermometer in Kyzyl reads -18° F. I grudgingly awake at 4 a.m., pulling on every item of clothing I have: two pairs of socks and mittens, two T-shirts, and a fleece jacket with another extremely warm knee-length coat layered on top, and set off to celebrate Shagaa in the central park.

Here Shagaa is celebrated according to shamanic precepts. A stockpile of enormous logs for a bonfire is at the center of the action. Locals bring sacrifices to the bonfire, most often in the form of baked goods containing dairy.

Several shamans dance nearby, either to keep warm or because of spirit-world inspiration. Each of them offers a rite of cleansing. I walk up to a young, 30-something fellow. At first, he carefully envelopes me in smoke from a blazing sprig of juniper. Then he begins to lightly but palpably beat my rear end with a whip. This process is intended to cleanse my soul of evil spirits.

Behind me, a fire begins to crackle; the head shaman and his associates have finally started a fire. Completely frozen, I wait for the fire like manna from heaven. I’m laying high hopes on the fire. To be honest, these hopes have little to do with magic or spirits: I just want to get warm.