She is able to do many things that are beyond the imagination of an ordinary woman: she climbs mountains, understands the peculiarities of a steppe ecosystem, easily reads the taiga like a book, hunts armed poachers, and plays billiards. 27 people work under her leadership. Twenty-three of them are men who are sparse of word and quick to act, who do not sit in offices, but perform their work of guarding the protected territories in their care. Animals are not afraid to meet them, but hardened poachers and criminals are; to win their sincere respect is a very rare thing. Outwardly fragile but hard inside, she believes that everybody needs the protection of the Direction of specially protected natural territories of Republic Tyva that she leads: forest and water, hare and bear, little fish and small birds, but most of all - people themselves. Her family speaks in four languages, but the are rarely all in one place. Her husband is the American scientist Brian Donahoe, who is also an ecologist.
Sayana Ondur, Center of Asia. Translated by Heda Jindrak
