Introducing Tuva
Independent before WWII, fascinating Tuva (Тыва in Tuvan) is culturally similar to neighbouring Mongolia but has an international cult following all of its own. Philatelists remember Tannu Tuva's curiously shaped 1930s postage stamps. World-music aficionados are mesmerised by self-harmonising Tuvan throat-singers. And millions of armchair travellers read Ralph Leighton's Tuva or Bust!, a nontravel book telling how irrepressible Nobel Prize-winning physicist Richard Feynman failed to reach Soviet-era Kyzyl despite years of trying. Now that visitors are finally allowed in, Leighton's Friends of Tuva (www.fotuva.org) organisation keeps up the inspirational work with an unsurpassed collection of Tuvan resources on its website. With forests, mountains, lakes and vast undulating waves of beautiful, barely populated steppe, Tuva's a place you'll long remember.
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Last updated: Mar 2, 2009
Thorn Tree forum discussion
Recent posts
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RE: Irkutsk, Russia to Moron, Mongolia?
by everbrite 13 September 2011
Sorry but neither the border at Borshoo (from Ak Dovurak in Tuva, Russia to the Uvs province, Mongolia) nor the one near Lake Khovsgul…
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Re: Tuva update
by Chicagobest 30 August 2011
Thanks for the helpful comments. Railroads, even in Russia, take much longer to build than anticipated. We took the BAM last summer…
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RE: Tuva update
by yblanter 30 August 2011
The construction of Kuragino - Kyzyl railroad (it actually will start east of Abakan) has not even started, I do not see any way it could…
