National Museum

Top choice


One of Tuva’s ‘must sees’, the National Museum’s huge modern home contains the usual arrangements of stuffed animals, WWII artefacts and dusty minerals, as well as more impressive halls dedicated to shamanism, Buddhist art and traditional Tuvan sports. However, all of this is just a teasing appetiser before the main course: a single, atmospherically lit and well-guarded room containing kilograms of Scythian gold jewellery, unearthed at Arzhaan I in the Valley of the Kings.

The 3000-year-old gold pieces, which can only be seen on a 40-minute Russian-language guided tour (interpreters available or bring your own), are exquisitely displayed against dark-blue felt and seem to illuminate the room with their ancient gleam. Look out for the 1.5kg solid-gold torque, never removed by the Scythian emperor, and thousands of millimetrically fashioned sequins, the likes of which modern-day jewellers claim not to have the skills or tools to reproduce.


Lonely Planet's must-see attractions

Nearby attractions

1. National Theatre

0.45 MILES

This Tibetan-styled white building with oriental wooden flourishes is the city’s most architecturally distinctive structure.

2. Museum of Oppression

0.71 MILES

The tiny and obviously underfunded Museum of Oppression has touching dog-eared photographs of those who disappeared in the Stalin years. Across the grass…

3. Centre of Asia Monument

0.74 MILES

If you take a map of the world, cut out Asia and balance the continent on a pin, the centre of gravity would be Kyzyl. Well, only if you’ve used the…

4. Centre for Tuvan Culture

0.84 MILES

The attractive two-storey timber building of the Centre for Tuvan Culture was founded in 2012 by legendary Tuvan musician Kongar-ol Ondar, who was its…

5. Tsechenling Datsan

0.97 MILES

Brightly coloured prayer flags flutter in the breeze outside this white pagoda-style Buddhist temple, but it’s disappointingly plain inside. There's a…