Tuva.Asia / The New Research of Tuva

In Almaty, presentation of documentary film of famous Kazakhstan director Rustem Abdrashov "In Search of Tengri" (Tengir Zharylkasyn) took place. Why this journey of a group of scientists, ethnographers, artists and journalists is based on Genghis Khan's route,  the origin of the idea, and what happened as a result - journalists present at the press-showing received the answers to these questions during 2.5 hours of the film. The main sponsor of the expedition since the planning stage in June 2011 is the media firm "Alash Media Group". Information support was provided by channel STV, Seventh Channel, radio station TengriFM, and newspaper "Alash Ainasy".  A journalist from Tengrinews.kz joined the scientific-artistic collective of  turkologist Napil Bazylkhan, turkologist-arabologist Robert Ermes; artist-restorer Krym Altynbekov, film director and cinematographer Sabit Kurmanbekov, musician-ethnographer, kobyz-player Erlan Sabitov, dombra player Abulkhair Abdrash; rock-singer Asem, photographer Rustem Rakhimjan and others.  From that moment, light was thrown on every step of the expedition for 15 days of travel.

This Year of the Dragon has, de facto, started off in Tuva somewhat earlier before its usual calendar term, announcing its coming with an earthquake, which, as a matter of fact, did not cause serious injuries to the population; that is fully understandable, because ancient Uriangkhai can be considered the homeland of dragons. Professional astrologists warned that unpredictability, unexpectedness, and spontaneity of events are quite characteristic of this calendar-mythological personage, and mentioned his habit of showing up before the usual term, suddenly changing all the established rules and norms. There are many misconceptions in western astrology and mythology about the coming Year of the Dragon and its totemic protector spirit, Fire-Breathing Serpent-Dragon, which are very offensive to this totally noble, valiant and wise personage of Central Asian nomad folklore.