Tuva.Asia / The New Research of Tuva

They were permitted to go back to their original lands only in 1982. They had to start all over again, to clear the pastures, to teach their children herding skills. That was 29 years ago. It is a short time span in the life of a nation, but the Tuvans managed to re-establish much during that time.

In the place of Honor  - Flag and heraldic crest of their Historical Homeland

To this day, they keep the customs of  their ancestors regarding introductions. Meeting a guest, they always ask from which tribe and clan he is, and his age. A person's age is very important for the carriers of the traditions - it serves to determine the etiquette of behavior with the stranger.

Because of the predominance of other language populations in the places where the Tuvans live, their language has many words borrowed from Kazakh, Mongolian, and Chinese languages. It shows, in particular, in the phonetic and lexical peculiarities of their daily speech. 

Tuvans in China live in the Altai aimak of Xinjiang -Uighur autonomous region of Chinese People's Republic, in picturesque mountains and steppes of the Altai Mountains. This territory borders in the north with Russia, in the west - Kazakhstan, and  east - with Mongolia.

Representatives of various ethnic backgrounds mingle in the Altai aimak: Chinese, Kazakhs, Dunkans, Mongols, Uighurs. Many Kazakhs can be counted in the compact Tuvan settlements (Ak-Khaba, Khanas, Khom, Ala-Khaak, Kok-Dogai). Tuvan families also live in towns Altai, Burchin, and Khaba.

Igor Irgit, who was the head of State committee for foreign economic connections at the time, was the first one to visit the Chinese Tuvans in 1992, and Marina Mongush, the scholar - ethnographer, visited them in1993.

Irina Lachugina: on 11 August of this year, the Supreme khural of Republic Tuva adopted a new national anthem of the republic. Its name is "I am a Tuvan".  The translation is: "I am a Tuvan, Son of eternally white mountaintops, I am a Tuvan,, Daughter of the land of silver rivers." And on Monday, the mayor of Kyzyl refused to hold a meeting of protest against this anthem. Tuvan intellectuals believe that the anthem not only has nationalistic hues, but that it was adopted illegally as well. On top of that, it is an ordinary song of Tuvans of Mongolia, was not composed on Tuvan territory, and as such it does not qualify as an official anthem of the republic,  in the opinion of the organizers of the meeting. We continue our series of discussions "Ethnic map of Russia". Today the topic is Tuvans. The participants in the discussion are head of  Caucasus department of RAN institute of ethnology, professor Sergei Arutyunov and Doctor of historical sciences, chief scientific worker of Tuvan Institute of Humanitarian Research, Marina Mongush.

 Menge is a birth mark, a special sign that every person has. It has a certain degree of influence on a person's health, spirit, body, mind and character. The astrological Menge is not a birth mark on a person's body, on the face, etc. it is an abstract concept that received its name from the periodic repetition of time through nine days, nine months and nine years. There are nine Menge, and each of them is associated with a color: one-white, two-black, three-blue, four-green, five-yellow, six-white, seven-red, and nine-red.

In the 7 October issue of "Ekho stolitsy", an article by journalist Mikhail Gorokhov was published about the work of a beginner artist-illustrator Mariya Chikachyova-Ondar, who in one year independently prepared for publication comics - Olonkho based on the motive of Sakha epic "Nyuryun Bootur the Impetuous".

On top of that, the entire complicated process - from the selection of the subject for the script, sketches, character creation, work-up of the subjects and their number, design, translation to a computer, and coloring, then the page-proofs, which is usually done by 3 - 4 different people, Mariya  did by herself. In Masha's words, her hand is so "charged", that sometimes she can draw on a computer straight out, bypassing the intermediate stages.

International dance festival in Cheonan, South Korea, has finished. According to the results of three stages of the contest,  the ten finalists chosen were: Kosovo, Slovakia, Indonesia, Tuva, Guam, Uzbekistan, Russia (Khabarovsk), Poland, Mexico and Philippines. The first place went to Philippines, second to Uzbekistan, and the third - to Tuva. However, the Tuvan ensemble feels morally the winner: after all, there were teams from 23 countries in the competition!

Congratulations to our artists! 

On 27 September, at the V. Kok-ool Tuvan Theater of Music and Drama, a meeting took place with the group "Hikashu", meaning "Elegy" in translation. The leader of this Japanese group, Makigami Koichi, has been to Tuva many times, and this time he brought the entire group with him: Sakaide-san, Mita-san, Shimizu-san, Sato-san (Translator's note: Sakaide Masami, Mita Freeman, Shimizu Kazuto, Sato Masaharu respectively).

The meeting was organized by the Center of Tuvan-Japanese friendship "Kargyraa". The Center, opened since march of this year, works closely with Japanese center "Khoomei", headed by Makigami Koichi himself.

"Hikashu" is very popular in Japan, USA, and other countries; right now the group is touring in Russia.

The festival which began on 28 September, is gathering speed: performance after performance, the first stage is finished. Tuvan ensemble "Sayany"  has performed "Dembildei", "Ezir Kara", "Vereteno", "Shaman", and "Naadym". Aside from the contest performances, which brought in about one thousand spectators every day, the festival participants also bring pleasure to their hosts with performances on small stages, "Sayany" with a new number and new costumes every time. During a10-minute show, they presented "Doshpuluurum", "Shaman", and "Oitulaash", and during a15-minute show, "Ezir Kara", "Shaman", "Zvenyashchaya nezhnost" and "Oitulaash".

The film "Disappearance of a witness"  turned into a trampoline for Papa that gave him the final boost into cinematographic Olympus. Akira Kurosawa, the director of world-renown, when he saw the movie, cast the Tuvan actor Maxim Munzuk for the title role of his film "Dersu Uzala".

Papa used to tell us that Kurosawa, after reading Vladimir Arseniev's books "Po Ussuriyskomu krayu" (In the Ussuri land) and "Dersu Uzala"  was so absorbed with the image of Dersu, that he simply dreamed about bringing the books to the screen, and he was happy when such an opportunity presented itself.

The filming of the Soviet-Japanese co-production film took place in 1974 in the Ussuri taiga, in the district of  the town of Arsenievo; Maxim Munzuk received the honorary citizenship of this town on 23 October 1975, after the filming was finished.

Yesterday the official opening ceremony of the International dance Festival in South Korea took place. The ceremony began with performance by Korean artists, who performed vividly and professionally, introducing the participants in the festival with their dance art. The mayor of the city and the president of the city council presented good wishes to the contestant collectives. Leaders of the collectives also presented greetings. The Tuvans brought a present for the mayor: national men's' hat. The artistic leader presented a speech, which divulged the depth of vivid folk culture of Tuva.

In the next few days, the contest and other performances will begin, which will be observed by the citizens of Cheonan.

My childhood impression: Mama and Papa were real wizards - they could turn into anybody they wanted!

We children were the witnesses of the birth of these transformations. They were complicated births: sometimes there were arguments during the rehearsal process, which sometimes, even though rarely, turned into quarrels.

"Why are they so tormented about it? Why?" - I found the answer to my childish question already as a grown-up, in Papa's notes:

"There is this rule - any role, even without words, should be wrung out , to the maximum of all the possibilities; any role should be played to the utmost."

And that is how they played.

Early fall in the republic was marked by visits by high-ranking spiritual personages. in early September, Patriarch of Moscow and Whole Russia Kirill visited Tuva. last week, the Supreme lama of Kalmykia Telo Tulku Rinpoche  took part in rituals  performed in Kyzyl by monks of Tibetan monastery Gyudmed. I had the good fortune to meet with Telo Tulku Rinpoche, talk with him, and ask him several questions.

End of summer 1935. Maxim Munzuk brought Chairman of the Soviet of Ministers, Sat Churmit-Dazhy to Chadan. And while the minister was deciding important state matters, he decided to work on his own no less important personal matter: to offer his hand and heart to Kara-kys.

He knew that his beloved was very close by - in Bora-Khol. A mass campaign in liquidation of illiteracy was in progress in the republic, and then student from Kyzyl co-educational school was teaching the local people to read and write.

He decided to make an impressive entrance - not on foot, not on a horse, but behind the wheel. However, he did not risk taking his boss's car; he talked a local tractor driver to lend him the iron horse for one evening. The tank driver training he received in Moscow came in useful: he could easily handle any technology that was then available.

From 7 to 10 October 2011, on the invitation of the Gosduma delegate Larisa Shoigu and with the support of the Foundation for  preservation of cultural and philosophical traditions  of Tibetan Buddhism "Save Tibet ", the famous physician and Buddhist monk Barry Kerzin has been visiting Tuva.

B. Kerzin is an American, who received classical medical education in the USA.  In his own word, he had experienced many sufferings in his life since young age: he had been seriously ill, had been comatose, his mother died and then his young wife… Then he began his path of spiritual search, which took him to Tibet and  turned him to Buddhist philosophy.

"Life can't be stopped, that means that time can't be stopped either. The saying - a time for everything - is not in vain. It really is like that: everybody is born in his own time and lives in his own times.

Do we have the right not to respect the past times? Do we have the right to pass judgment on the past?

Do we have the right not to forgive mistakes?

We have no such right. But we do have the right to analyze, to make choices and to prevent repeating mistakes. And mainly - to remember and to keep."

 This quotation comes from Maxim Munzuk's notes from 1994. He had such a habit to first concentrate the ideas on small fragments, then to develop his ideas based on these notes on  large pages.