In 2016, photographer and artist Max Sher traveled to the Republic of Tuva, a region of Russia where the remote and inaccessible nomadic communities have had the chance to develop on their own, in spite of the constant attempts at colonization by nearby empires. At our request, Max shared his photos from the trip and presented a brief history of a region with a rich heritage of completely different cultures.
Tuva, or Tyva, is one of the lesser-known and inaccessible regions of Russia. Located in the very center of the Eurasian continent, the Turkic-speaking republic is the only subject of the country to have been formally independent (from 1921-1944). Its turbulent political history is a vivid example of what could happen when a small nation finds itself between a rock and a hard place of the age-old struggle of powerful neighbors. The Turkic peoples living on the territory of today’s Tuva came under Mongol rule in the 13th century and for five centuries were part of various Mongolian states. After the final fall of the Dzungar Khanate in the middle of the 18th century, the Tuvinians, together with the Mongols, came under the rule of the Chinese Qing Empire. Having named its new distant territory Tannu-Uryankhay, China ruled it through the Ministry of Outer Mongolia with its governor appointed from the Mongol nobility and granted a seat in the city of Uliastai outside Uryankhay itself. Despite the five-hundred-years of Mongolian rule and the one and a half-century of Chinese rule, Tuvinian nomads constantly rebelled against the Chinese colonialists, their Mongol governors, and their own nobility. The most famous uprising was called Aldan-Maadyr (sixty warriors). Aldan-Maadyr broke out in 1883, lasted for the whole year, and was brutally suppressed. After the Xinhai Revolution (1911-12), the Chinese empire collapsed and Tuvinian rulers turned to “the white king” with a request to accept Uryankhay under a Russian protectorate.
Bottom left: A map of the Republic of China (1912–1949; currently Taiwan) that includes Tuva (the separated green area at the very top of the map)
Bottom right: 1941 map of the USSR. Current borders of Tuva according to Google Maps
However, Russian settlers—peasants and merchants—began to penetrate these remote Chinese outskirts much earlier, quickly realizing the benefits of colonial trade with the local herders. Back in 1885, the first permanent Russian settlement appeared there—the village of Turansky (present-day Turan), where in the early 20th century when the area was still formally under the imperial power of China, there was already a Russian school and church. When the Russian protectorate was established in April 1914, about 4,000 Russians were living in Uryankhay, while the Tuvinians were more numerous then—about 73,000. Uryankhay Krai remained a part of the Russian Empire for only three years with a number of significant changes taking place. In 1914 a permanent capital was founded—a city with the speaking name Belottsarsk [meaning “of white church” in Russian—Translator’s note], which was renamed a few years later Khem-Beldyr, and then renamed again Kyzyl (“red” in Tuvan). Two years later, the Usinsky tract, named after the Usinsky border district it passed through and the Us River, a Yenisei tributary, was laid from the neighboring Yenisei province across the Sayan Mountains to Uryankhay. To this day, the tract in fact remains the only road connecting Tuva with the rest of RussiaRussiaIn the 1970s, another road between Tuva and Khakassia was built—initially used mostly for the removal of asbestos from “Tuvaasbest” plant. After its closure, the road went into disuse.
. After the collapse of the Russian Empire, for several years Tuva was alternately ruled by the red partisans, Kolchak’s troops, and Chinese and Mongol armed detachments.
The foundation stone of the railway station and the first part of the Kyzyl-Kuragino railway line in Kundustug (Bobry—in Russian tradition). The government approved of Tuva-Trans-Siberian line project back in 2007, but so far it remains on paper only. The railway can be used to transport nothing but Tuvan coal, a resource the region is not so rich in that it will be enough to pay off the project. There is also no large passenger traffic from Tuva to Russia. 
The building of the government of Tuva on Kyzyl main square. Today, most Tuvinians are bilingual and in Kyzyl, Tuvinian is gradually replacing Russian, especially among young people. Although all road and city signs in the region, plus all state internet sites, are in Russian only, outside the predominant spoken language is Tuvan. During the 2010 census, out of the 322,000 people living in Tuva, 82% recognized themselves as Tuvinians and 16%—as Russians. 
Shaman Dugar-Syuryun “Nikolay” Oorzhak in his office. A theater artist, in 1975- 1990 he took the post of Tuvan Music and Drama Theater artistic director. After the law on freedom of conscience and religion was adopted in 1990, he founded a shamans’ society—the first in Tuva. “Shamanism is not a religion in itself, but the basis of all the religions. God is the energy of the universe, while all others —Buddha or Christ—are just images,” he says. 
This mansion was built in 1915 in the center of Kyzyl and before the revolution it housed the Migration Administration—in fact, the Russian colonial administration of Uryankhay territory. In 1921-1944, the Soviet embassy used to be located there, now it is a blood transfusion station. 
Shimitsi Khumbun (in the center, wearing a red jacket) was born and has lived all her life in the Kachyk River valley in the southeast of Tuva. She has sixteen children, ninety grandchildren and nineteen great-grandchildren. Some of them are present in the photo: grandchildren Angarmaa, Buyana, Gajidmaa, Sanchay, and Nachyn (from left to right) and children Robert and Maya (on both sides of Shimitsi). Today, it is almost impossible to see a person in traditional Tuvan clothing, except for special occasions, for example, on holidays or posing for a photographer, even if not specifically asked for. 
The village of Kachyk is situated in a remote valley three kilometers from the border with Mongolia, 120 kilometers along a mountain country road from the regional center Erzin. In total, a little more than 300 people live in the “somon” (settlement)—partly in the village itself, partly in nomadic camps around the surrounding valleys. There are no police, no doctors or shops, and no stable telephone connection. However, there is a school and internet coverage. In the 1960s, Kachyk dwellers were relocated to the village of Naryn, but over the past thirty years it has become populated again. 
Alimaa and Ertine Bandan with their sons Bimdorch and Saiyn-Belek. In summer, the family lives in a yurt in the Kachyk River valley. In autumn, they return to their home in the village of Naryn, where the children go to kindergarten and school. Alimaa and Ertine, together with their parents and other relatives, own about 2,000 head of cattle—mostly sheep, but also cows and horses. In addition, they own eighty hectares of pastureland and lease additional land for a winter camp. 
A banner with Sergey Shoygu’s portrait at the entrance to his hometown of Chadan. After Shoygu’s appointment to the post of Minister of Defense in 2012, a cult of personality began to form in Tuva: a house-museum was opened in Chadan and banners with his portraits were placed around. Shoygu is the first native of the region to make a political career outside of it. 
Aimir is a resident of the town of Chadan in the West of Tuva, a graduate of the Moscow Mining Institute. When asked if he was proud of his fellow countryman, Sergey Shoygu, Minister of Defense of the Russian Federation, Aimir, taking time to think for a while, replied smiling, “Yes, I am. When I was studying in Moscow, the police constantly stopped me for documents check, but when they saw my address in the passport—the city of Chadan, Sergey Shoygu Street—they immediately let me go.” 
In 2014, on the embankment at the confluence of the Great and the Little Yenisei in the center of Kyzyl, the “Center of Asia” monument with Scythian and Chinese motifs was erected by sculptor Dashi Namdakov. Why this particular place is considered to be the center of Asia is unclear. An alternative center of Asia can be found in Xinjiang, China. Several years ago, the Yenisei embankment was named after Kuzhuget Sereevich Shoygu—the father of the Russian Defense Minister. 
Cars of visitors and participants of the Naadym holiday in the town of Tos-Bulak near Kyzyl. The holiday is celebrated as the most important element of Tuvinian identity and includes contests (for example, related to cooking and yurts building) and sport competitions (horse racing, archery, wrestling, etc). Naadym falls on August, 15—also the Day of the Republic, which almost coincides with the day the independence of Tuva was proclaimed, on August 14, 1921. 
Center of Kyzyl, the capital of Tuva. On the right, there is a building of the Arbitration Court of the Republic. 
The preparation of the jockey and his horse before the beginning of races organized for the Naadym holiday. Horses of four years and older are allowed to take part in races with their age determined by the molars. According to the rules, neither saddles nor helmets are allowed. Maintaining horses and jockeys is an important element of prestige for Tuva’s wealthy residents. 
The newlyweds—journalist Choiganmaa and cattle breeder, entrepreneur, Shoraan Kuular—pose with their guests in front of the symbolic Chinese-style gate, built next to the foundation stone of the future Kyzyl railway station. The town of Kundustug (Bobry—in Russian tradition) is known in Kyzyl as a holy spring location (arzhan) and is a popular setting for wedding photo shots. 
Kaa-Khem Blizhny (an urban locality of Kyzyl) and Kyzyl heating and power plant. The latter runs on coal and was built without wind patterns being taken into account, thus now smog often envelops the city. The persistent problem of the electricity and heat shortage in Tuva was resolved only seven years ago. In recent decades, the private sector in Kyzyl has grown due to a large influx of population from rural areas: people often seize free plots of land to legalize their ownership later. 
The hard-to-reach Sutluk valley in the southeast of Tuva, 330 kilometers from Kyzyl. An unofficial Buddhist khuree (skete) and hostel were built there by Boris Sodunam, a monk, who has been living nearby in seclusion for the past twenty years. 
Valentina Kenden milks a yak in her parents’ nomadic camp in a remote region inaccessible even by the local standards known as somon (a rural administrative territorial unit) in the southeast of the republic. On a permanent basis, Valentina lives in the regional center Erzin where she works as a nurse; on holidays the woman helps her parents and brother with the housework. After the collapse of the USSR, many Tuvinians began to gradually return to their pastoral origins. 
This Buddhist stupa Dupten-Sheduplin near the village of Sug-Aksy in the West of Tuva was built in 2010. In the background, there are the Alash Highlands. In this area in 1883, an uprising of Tuvan cattle breeders broke out, later given the name Aldan-Maadyr (sixty warriors). 
Residential buildings in the center of Kyzyl. The city with more than a century-old history and a population of 100, 000 people cannot boast of high-quality amenities and housing: Kyzylers live mainly in the private sector, wooden two-story barracks, and rare late Soviet high-rises. 
Founded in 1885, Turansky settlement (now—the city of Turan with a population of about 5,000 inhabitants) became the first permanent Russian settlement in Tannu-Uryankhay, when the region was still part of China. 
A shepherd with a flock of sheep crosses the highway. After the construction of the Sayano-Shushenskaya Dam on the Yenisei in the 1980s, according to the observations of residents and ecologists, the climate changed, becoming warmer and more humid with frequent sudden showers. Another infrastructural consequence related to the construction was the blocking of the only waterway that connected Tuva with the rest of Russia, as well as settlements and pastures flooding. 
Ovaa-Khoomei—a place of rituals and holidays associated with Tuvan throat singing (khoomei in Tuvan)—is located in the Balyktyg-Kharaar tract on the Yenisei banks in central Tuva. 
Crowned with the coat of arms of Tuva, a Chinese-style entry sign on the Nolevka pass marking the administrative border between Krasnoyarsk Krai and Tuva. Before 1912, the border between Russia and China used to pass through here. The Chinese cultural influence in Tuva, generally forgotten, manifests itself in new Tuvinian structures such as this sign. On the left there is an ovaa—a sacred Tuvinian sign made of poles, stones, prayer ribbons, and ceremonial scarves (khatas).
In 1921, the independence of Tuva, or the Tannu Tuva People's Republic (TPR), was proclaimed—although it was recognized only by Soviet Russia and neighboring Mongolia, which at that point was itself recognized as an independent state, again, by Russia only. Other countries considered both Mongolia and TuvaTuvaMongolia received universal diplomatic recognition only many years later: England recognized it in 1963, France—in 1965, Japan and the Federal Republic of Germany—in 1972, and the United States—only in 1987. a part of China for a long time. However, Tuvan sovereignty was limited. Despite gaining almost all the attributes of statehood, including its own currency akşa, the country delegated its defense and foreign relations to the Soviet Union. In fact, Tuva was completely dependent on the USSR and its political position resembled modern Northern Cyprus or Abkhazia. The first decade of independence was marked by the building of a nation state led by a nation-focused tribal nobility, but in 1932 Salchak Toka came to power, marking the beginning of the period of the fast and violent Sovietization of the republic.
A former farm laborer, Toka (real name—Kol Tyvyky) was sent to the Communist University of the Toilers of the East named after Stalin by the Tuvan government. Armed there with the only correct social doctrine and practices of violent political struggle (the knowledge with which he was indoctrinated there), he returned to Tuva and soon, together with his classmates, staged a coup d'etat. The members of the government, headed by Prime Minister Mongush Buyan-Badyrgy, as well as practically all the Buddhist lamas and shamans of Tuva were repressed, herders were forced into collective farms, and the age-old and self-sufficient nomadic way of life of the Tuvinians was virtually destroyed. On the other hand, Sovietization allowed for improved health care and spread literacy. By the purposeful efforts of its leader, Tuvan Soviet culture was created—“national in form, socialist in content.”
Lieutenant General of the Red Army and Chairman of the Union of Soviet Writers of Tuva, Toka ruled the republic until his death in 1973. In 1944, together with several of his closest associates including his wife Khertek Anchimaa who served as Chairwoman of Little KhuralLittle KhuralThe Little Khural was one of the supreme bodies of power in the Tuva, its delegates convened at least twice a year. At that time, Khertek Anchimaa was the first woman in the world to hold a formally elected public office at such a high level., Salchak Toka made a secret decision regarding TPR joining the USSR. In Tuva, many still consider this action to be illegal, since neither a referendum nor even a parliamentary vote was held, and in general the details of the circumstances of that fateful step still remain unknown. The new Soviet region received the status of an autonomous region, which in 1961 was “upgraded” to the status of republic. At the same time, the borders of Tuva, soon after its entry into the Russian Soviet Federative Socialist Republic, underwent significant changes: a large territory of the former TPR, adjacent to Lake Huvsgul, became a part of Mongolia, while some lands south of the Tannu-Ola ridge were cut off from Mongolia and given to Tuva. Some Tuvan territories were recognized as Russian regions and vice versa. Border changes took place later, tootooAt the end of 2020, the head of Tuva, Sholban Kara-ool suddenly brought up the issue of territorial “ambiguities” between Tuva and its neighboring countries.. During the Soviet years, several fairly large enterprises were created in Tuva, mainly associated with the extraction of natural resources: asbestos, cobalt, gold, and coal. This caused an influx of Russian-speaking engineers, workers, intellectuals, and service personnel from other regions of the USSR. The local population meanwhile continued to be engaged mainly in agriculture and suffered severe discrimination in everyday life and in terms of career opportunities. After the collapse of the USSR, most of these enterprises were closed and those who had come to Tuva from other regions began to leave the country—now it is some of the remaining Russian-speaking residents who complain about discrimination.
Philip and Shonchalai Kozenyuk with their daughter Daria in front of their house in the center of Kyzyl. In Tuva, mixed marriages are still quite rare. Philip grew up in Moscow, studied psychology, and then worked as a chef in a Japanese restaurant, where he met Shonchalai, who had come to Moscow to enter the university but did not manage to do that and found a job as a waitress. After several years of traveling and working across Asia together, the Kozenyuks settled down in Kyzyl. 
Konstantin Chugunov, Senior Researcher of Hermitage Museum, heads the excavation of Chinge-Tei-1 burial mound in the Turan-Uyuk hollow—“the Valley of the Kings.” In the early 2000s, together with Herman Parzinger and Anatoly Nagler, he examined the nearby Arzhan-2 mound—the burial of the Scythian leader of the 7th century BC where numerous cult and household animal-themed gold items were discovered. Most of them are now kept in the National Museum of Tuva, some are a part of the Hermitage Collection. 
Iraida Baldyr was a kindergarten educator and after her retirement she started working as a housekeeper in the Sunrap-Gyatsoling Buddhist temple in Erzin near the border with Mongolia. 
Lama Geshe Dakpa Gyaltsen visits the Ustuu-Khuree monastery near the town of Chadan in Western Tuva. He was born in Nepal in 1968 and has been living in Russia since 2002. Geshe Dakpa Gyaltsen became a Russian citizen and is now heading the Lobsum-Norbu-Choytsok Buddhist center in Ulan-Ude. The Ustuu-Khuree Monastery is an important center of Tuvinian statehood: in the early 1920s, the Tuvinian alphabet was developed there and the first coin—akşa—was minted. In the 1930s, the monastery was destroyed and the monks were repressed. Reopening became possible only in 2008. 
Chechekmaa Ishina, using her own funds, built a retreat house in Chadan where Shivalha Rinpoche, a popular Buddhist teacher from Tibet (pictured on the right), preached. He arrived in Tuva in the early 2000s at the invitation of the then head of the republic, Sherig-ool Oorzhak, but was deported at the request of the Federal Security Service in 2015. 
Boris Erenchinovich Sodunam, or simply Bashky—“teacher”—has been living in seclusion for the last twenty years in the remote Sutluk valley, 330 kilometers from Kyzyl. In 1990, when the law on freedom of conscience and religion was adopted, thus legalizing religious activity in the USSR, in Kyzyl he founded the first Buddhist community in Tuva. On his later return to the native valley, he built there an unofficial khuree (monastery) where he now receives pilgrims, including high-ranking generals from Moscow.
A week after the August 1991 CoupCoupOn August 18-21, members of the State Committee on the State of Emergency, including the leaders of the Communist Party, the army, and the KGB, tried to oust Mikhail Gorbachev, the then president of the USSR, and prevent the abolition of the Soviet Union. They were all arrested., the Tuvan Autonomous Soviet Socialist Republic was renamed the Tuvan Republic. Its constitution included clauses allowing secession from Russia and Tuvan citizenship, however, when Vladimir Putin came to power they were withdrawn. In modern Russian media, Tuva is often presented in only two contexts—either as the exotic homeland of Minister of Defense Sergey Shoygu, or as a dangerous wild land, a hotbed of crime and interethnic tension between the Tuvan and Russian-speaking communities. Although the representatives of both do live in rather segregated conditions, all the problems of Tuva are rather typical for the whole country and are related to the difficult economic situation, unemployment, clannishness, and corruption. The republic remains subsidized and is listed as one of the poorest regions of the Russian Federation. It is interesting to mention that China, which recognized the independence of its former province of Outer Mongolia (Tannu-Uryankhay was a part of) in 1949, did not officially renounce its sovereignty over Tuva. The situation is similar with that of Taiwan: the independence of Mongolia was recognized only in 2002, and the fact that Tuva is now part of Russia is still not recognized there.
Right: A fragment of the flag of the Central Committee of the Tuvan People's Revolutionary Party, which was also the state flag of the Tuvan People's Republic in 1921. Kept in the Tuva Republic National Museum named after Aldan-Maadyr.
Translated from Russian by Olga Bubich
