This is a picture of an abandoned kolkhoz way out in the Tuvan steppe.

It seems like I should write about my experience in Tuva a little bit, but I've been putting it off because I don't really know what to say. It's all kind of a jumble of moments in my brain, and I don't know quite how to organize them into a blog post.

First, a little background. Tuva is a part of Russia, but there certainly is a very different culture there. Tuva is isolated--accessible only by taxi from the nearest train station and a few flights into Kyzyl. It's not nearly as hooked up to the modern world as most of Russia, with limited internet access, etc. Kyzyl makes Krasnoyarsk seem like a booming modern metropolis. Which I guess it kind of is. So, what to say?

Tuva was one of the most beautiful places I've ever seen. Maybe it was really the most beautiful place I've ever seen. When I was looking out the taxi window on the way from Kyzyl to Abakan I felt like I needed to DO something. That is to say, it was so beautiful I didn't know what to do. I needed to save it or something. I just wanted to somehow take it in, fully appreciate the magic of that landscape.

But there was more than just majestic mountainous steppe in Tuva. Riley's students were very impressive. We saw Tuvan wrestling and a buddhist temple. Tuva claims to be the center of Asia, which is I guess why it regularly gets down to -60 in the winter.

There was one day when Riley's students took me and my ETA compatriots out into the country, to a shepherd encampment. We rented a bus, and at a certain point it was necessary to turn off the road and into the steppe. We barreled along, about every ten minutes stopping to strategize around a gnarly pocket of mud and give the bus a good push. Our driver faced this obstacle course with impressive calm, never seeming to get annoyed or doubt for a moment that he would, in the end, get us to our destination (and back--in the dark). Eventually we had to stop and walk the rest of the way.

We were travelling along with a group of young throat singers, who played and sang all the way to and from the shepherd camp, and gave a little concert in the evening. Up at the camp we participated in a traditional goat slaughtering and hung around, chatting and chewing on goat parts.

It was an experience I never imagined I could ever have. At one point I got to take a little horse ride around the field. Horses are historically a very important part of Tuvan life--and are still the way people get into the wilderness to herd their livestock. It seemed like people enjoyed putting foreigners on horses, this opportunity came up several times. My horse jaunt lasted about 7 minutes, but during those minutes I thought to myself "if only the 7 year old Helen, riding on a carousel, spinning around in a safe little circle, thinking about open fields and galloping horses and beautiful strange spectacular things, could have known that someday she would be here! In the Tuvan steppe! On a horse! While the sun sets! Getting ready to eat boiled goat intestines!"

Whew. Like I said, what a trip.