Tuva.Asia / The New Research of Tuva

XIV international music festival "Spirit of Japan" will take place at the Moscow conservatorium. The first concerts will begin in early September. On September 7, at the Rakhmaninov hall in a program "Where the gods live", gogaku music, shigin singing, shibu dance and calligraphic art will be introduced by the ensemble headed by Okabayashi Yaeko (from Miyazaki in Kyushu).

On 9 September, a program "Unexpected Japan" will be shown by an ensemble with Kano Taeko, Kuzume Junichi, Terada Ryohei, and Yoshino Akira. They will introduce songs from Okinawa and Tuvan throat-singing. One pf the performers, Terada Ryohei, has long been practicing khoomei in its homeland of Tuva. He speaks fluent Tuvan and has Tuvan friends, including those on his page of VKONTAKTE.

Festival "Spirit of Japan" has been held at the Moscow conservatorium since 1999. It was initiated by the Center "Music cultures of the world", on which basis, by the joint efforts of Moscow composer Dzh.K. Mikhailov (1938-1995) and the famous gogaku music performer Iwahori Keiko, classes in Japanese music were began at the Moscow conservatorium (1993), and the ensemble of Japanese music "Wa-On" (1996) and Russian-Japanese center of music culture (1998) were founded.

For the first time, medical research study in field conditions was organized in Tuva at the remote arzhaan "Choigan". The medical team consists of eight practicing specialists from various therapeutic-prophylactic health care centers of the republic. The team includes a physiotherapist, neuropathologist, surgeon, a specialist in clinical laboratory diagnostics, otolaryngologist physician's aide-laboratory technologist, and one student of Republic medical College.

The study was performed during the summer season of active visiting by vacationers seeking healing at medicinal springs of arzhaan Choigan, from 9 to 23 July 2012. This research used instructions for examining patients, tests, questionnaires, worked out by I.N. Smirnova, the head of the therapeutic department of Tomsk institute of balneology and physiotherapy. Medical-clinical studies of all parameters of function were performed on 93 patients twice: when they arrived at the arzhaan, before beginning therapy, and just before departure (after the course of therapy. Consequently, varying periods of therapeutic procedures were noted, but in most cases the vacationers came for a week's stay.

A notice about a find of an ancient burial came to the editorial office of "Plus Inform". Because the information arrived through three or four different hands, it was not clear at first who and how discovered the burial. It was something like: somebody dug and uncovered some bones by chance. In reality, it was something quite different. But it was very strange anyway.
A team of workers from the Service for protection of objects of cultural heritage went to Mezhegei, where the announcement originated. And young people from the village took us to examine the "autopsied" kurgan. It was quite a long trip through the steppe. Suspicions began creeping up: but just what could they have been digging "by chance" in the steppe?
They stopped. Not far from the road, we could see a white flat round area, with a little bit of grey. Maybe there was a salt lake here, which had dried out?

Yesterday was the birthday of one of the best known Tuvan throat-singers - Kaigal-ool Kim-oolovich Khovalyg. On the occasion of his 50th birthday, which was widely celebrated in the republic in 2010, his colleague khoomeizhi Otkun Dostai took an interview with the celebrant. It was published in the Live Journal on the tuvamedee page.. We are now publishing this material in full.
He was born on 20 August 1960 at the foot of Mt. Bayan-Dugai, near Chadaana river in the deepest night, and sang khoomei.
His father was of the Bora-Khol Khovalygs. Kim-ool Chaptygbayevich Khovalyg was born in 1935 in the Bazhyn-Alaak village of Dzun-Khemchik kozhuun. He was a teacher at the local high school. He taught children to understand automobiles in the villages Bayan-Tala, Chyrgaky, and Bazhyn-Alaak. People said about him that he could diagnose a car problem from its sound at a distance.
His mother, Chudur Enchek-Kulakovna Oorzhak, was born in 1936 in Dzun-Khemchik kozhuun.

The NTV, one of the largest Turkish television channels, intends to make a film about Tuva. The news was announced by Elena Kara-Sal, the manager of the Consular section of the Russian Embassy in Turkey, during the meeting with the Head of Tuva Sholban Kara-ool.

According to Elena Kara-Sal, the management of the NTV channel had contacted with the Russian Embassy requesting assistance in initiation of friendly ties with Tuva that could help to make more productive filming and to show different sides of the Tuvan culture. The journalists are interested in the republic, its history, its cultural potential and, particularly, in the phenomenon of the throat singing that hands down from generation to generation. Interestingly, the Turkish journalists know about distinguished Tuvan khoomeizhi Kongar-ool Ondar, the Honoured Artist of Tuva and Russia. They would love to get to know the performer and to present him to Turkish people.

On the way to Kobdo, on the mountain where the Tuvan Arats Rebellion against the Manchu-Chinese invaders took place, starting from July, 8-10 the International Festival of Mongolian throat singing was held. We were invited to the ceremony. The Culture Minister of Tuva Vyacheslav Dongak led the delegation, comprised of the Dyngylday ensemble, the members of Khoomei center, and the National Orchestra of the Republic of Tuva. Descendants of Kobdo battle participants (already being elderly people), writers, and a group from Kyzyl City Hall were on a visit to Mongolian people apart from us.

Officially, I was invited as a khoomei expert. Many professors and academicians gathered at the event, and it was a great pleasure to get on well with all of them and to find a common language. Ingenious throat singing performers being the guardians of music treasures and poetry of the peoples of Mongolia used to be highly respected persons among all the social stratums and the communities of Kobdo.

The 3nd International Felt Festival "Patterns of Life" will take place on 15 August on Arat square within the framework of Naadym, cattle-breeders’ holiday. It will be possible to see and obtain felt products and souvenirs made in various corners of Russia and Mongolia. Master craftsmen from Kazachstan, Republic Altai, Bashkortostan, Khakassia, as well as from many aimaks of Mongolia will participate in the festival. There will be an exhibition and sale of yurts, a fair of folk industries products, felt-making workshops by artisans who have preserved traditional methods, and competitions.

The aim of the festival is to develop international co-operation, widening the scope of possibilities of utilization the valuable raw material by exchange of experiences and establishment of working relationships, renewal and further development of traditions of decorative-applied art, increase in the professionalism if the artisans who produce felt and products made of it.