Tuva.Asia / The New Research of Tuva

It is possible to get here by a highway running along the Angara and the Baikal shore. Then you take a ferry. A day of travel, and we are on Olkhon Island - the ancient home of Buryat shamanism. The Buryats, their shamans, and also magicians, healers and priests of the whole world believe that this is precisely the sacred place, where it is easiest to come into contact with spirits, enter a trance, and exchange occult experiences. "The consecrated ones" call this piece of land, shaped like a stretched-out body of a Baikal seal 80 km long, with walls in the south and mountains in the north, the "energetic heart" of the deepest fresh-water lake-sea of the plane, and Cape Burkhan is one of the nine sacred places of North Asia. This is where Siberian shamans sought sanctuary from Genghis Khan's cavalry and from the guns of the revolution. Key words such as "sacral center", "nature preserve of spirits", "chosen land" "ancient homeland", "last bastion of shamanism" find a lively response and empathy from the islanders. "Yes, friend, - the locals nod, pointing around the beach and mountain, - this is where they live, the spirits. Look at the teeth of Burkhan!"

On 1 - 5 June, Tuvan capital will host the interregional festival "Musical Summer in Tuva".  Ministry of culture of the republic is one of its main organizers. As the minister of culture, Vyacheslav Dongak informed us, composers and performers from Moscow, Tatarstan, Buryatia, Kalmykia, Khakassia as well as from Belorussia and Siberian cities will  participate. The Chairman of the Union of Composers of Russia, Vladislav Igorevich Kazenin, a man who brought significant contribution to the development of musical art in Tuva will be the honored guest. It was precisely Kazenin who stood at the sources of founding the Union of Composers of Tuva.