[ VO ] The republic of Tyva is situated in Eastern Siberia. It is Asia’s geographic centre.
This is a land of unusual landscapes and ancient traditions.
[ Natalia Kirova ] Tyva is a country of mountains. They cover eighty percent of its territory.
[ VO ] The people who lived here long ago were nomads.
They came up with an alternative form of music called throat singing, which imitates the sounds of nature.
[ Aldar Tamdyn ] The most common style is called Khoomei.
[ VO ] Scientists say, Tyvans are among Siberia’s most ancient peoples.
Their ancestors are believed to have settled here thirty thousand years ago.
MEETING WITH NATURE TUVA: THE SOUNDS OF NATURE
[ VO ] Sean Quirk, a US citizen, drives an old Soviet car.
He nicknamed it “the Russian tank” for its reliability both on and off-road.
Sean originally came to Tyva eight years ago to study the local phenomenon of throat singing.
He ended up staying in Kyzyl.
[ Sean Quirk ] It turns out that I really like it here. And I learnt the language real quick.
[ Sean Quirk, Musician of National Tyvan Orchestra ] And … next thing I know I’m married, and I’ve got three children.
I fell in love with my wife at the end of my trip right here. And that just sort of started the whole domino effect.
[ VO ] Sean is very attached to his car, and he uses it constantly.
He got used to long drives as he was a postman in his previous life in the United States.
[ Sean Quirk ] Are you happy to see me?
[ VO ] The years since Sean Quirk came to Tuva have been eventful: he got married and fathered three children.
He was also awarded the title of Tyva’s People’s Artist and started building a house for himself and family.
[ VO ] Tyva’s capital Kyzyl is situated in the very heart of Asia. Elizabeth Gordon often visits its main square.
Three years ago, she came here from Australia to collect material for a thesis on women’s throat singing in Tyva.
[ Elizabeth Gordon, student ] We’re standing here in square Arat in the centre of Kyzyl,
one of my favourite places to come and meet with friends go to see theatre productions
and concerts at the main theatre here,
come here every day to walk around the prayer wheel as it’s the Buddhist tradition.
It’s such a beautiful place here.
[ VO ] Kyzyl’s population is 100.000.
The city’s constantly growing, and the new houses are being built for the newcomers and newlyweds. 00:03:05.008 00:03:08:338 [ VO ] Elizabeth has found a new home and new life here.
She’s been living in this house of the Tyvan family for several years.
[ Elizabeth Gordon ] Hello, Anita! [ Anita ] Hello!
[ Elizabeth Gordon ] How are you? [ Anita ] I’m OK.
[ VO ] Elizabeth shares the same room with her Tyvan sister Anita who is 13 years old.
They behave like the real sisters having the real arguments sometimes.
[ Elizabeth Gordon ] Wash the dishes
[ Anita ] No, today … you wash, I washed yesterday.
[ Elizabeth Gordon ] Yeah, but I was washing them today. [ Anita ] When …
[ Elizabeth Gordon ] Good morning … [ Anita ] No, this morning I washed
[ Elizabeth Gordon ] I don’t think so. Well, then if I have to wash the dishes then you wash the floor
[ Anita’s mother ] Girls, come here to have some tea!
[ VO ] Every evening the family gets together over a cup of tea.
For Elizabeth who before only drank coffee it became a new favourite tradition.
[ Elizabeth Gordon ] This is my juvenile family, who I live with in Tyva: my mama, Hima,
my papa, Orlan, Tyvan papa, my little brother, Amir and my thirteen-year-old sister, Anita.
I also have the similar family in Australia: mother, father, of course, older sister and my brother is the same age as Amir.
[ VO ] Tonight’s tea party is all about Elizabeth’s expedition.
The next morning, she will set out on a trip where she hopes to take in the picturesque scenery of Tuva’s west 00:04:38.798 00:04:42:298 and meet musicians who share her interest in throat singing.
The family gives her some advice.
[ VO ] Kyzyl is a young city no more than 100 years old, but there are ancient burial sites dotted all around it.
Here the people are able to draw on some unknown force.
The locals believe this energy comes from the fact that two rivers meet.
The Maly Yenisei and the Bolshoi Yenisei come together to form the Great Yenisei, one of Siberia’s biggest waterways.
Tyvans have many legends about it.
[ Kaadyr-ool Bicheldey ] The mistress of the river is a beautiful young lady who rides a white horse made of water.
We want to make a sculpture in her image, so that we can honour our great provider – the Yenisei.
[ VO ] Kaadyr-ool Bicheldei is a head of Tyvan institute of Humanitarian research.
Today he’s walking towards an image of Tuvan hunters in search of prey captured by an ancient artist thousands of years ago.
Scientists have found such stone petroglyphs all across Tyva, especially around its capital Kyzyl.
[ Kaadyr-ool Bicheldey ] This is Kyzyl’s oldest historical landmark. It is seven or eight thousand years old.
The important thing about it is the picture of hunters featuring deer and goats.
There are more than four hundred such stones in Kyzyl alone.
[ VO ] Several kilometers from Kyzyl lies Erbek Valley. The old riverbed of the Yenisei is nearby.
Archaeologists are excavating a burial mound on top of a high hill.
They have found many graves dating back to the Bronze Age. Those graves belonged to the simple people.
[ Nikolay Smirnov ] Excavation work has revealed structures with sophisticated geometry and very interesting burial techniques.
Some of the elements could be described in modern architectural terms – arches, bracing, and masonry.
All of them are of very good quality.
[ VO ] Scientists say the burial ground was unsealed many years ago.
It may have been done to make room for a new site.
[ VO ] Most burials and mounds in Tyva have been pillaged either in ancient times
or by successive generations of impoverished people.
They dug them up to try and get out the valuables.
[ VO ] All the musicians of Tyva hold this workshop in Kyzyl in high regard.
It belongs to Aldar Tamdyn.
He is descended from a renowned family of craftsmen that make folk music instruments, and he sings too.
[ VO ] Today the craftsmen are busy with making an igil.
The igil is one of Tuva’s oldest instruments.
Trees that grow in the republic are used to produce it. They are thought to be filled with the spirit of the land.
[ Aldar Tamdyn ] You have to mark with a pencil to make it right.
[ VO ] Any kind of musical instrument can be made here.
Also, if it doesn’t exist it can be invented right here in this workshop.
All you need is a tree and some creativity.
[ Aldar Tamdyn ] Poplar, larch, birch or pine— it doesn’t matter. Anything will do when you are making an igil.
The secret is that we aren’t bound by any rules — we don’t care about standards.
The instruments are the works of art.
[ VO ] The people of Tuva have a distinct legend for each musical instrument.
This one is called a Chadag-an.
[ Aldar Tamdyn ] A wife of the local respected man made this instrument after he threw her on the street.
She stretched animal guts and tendons over a washtub.
There are instruments for hunters and shepherds, but this one suits home-made music best of all.
[ VO ] A valley forty kilometers east of Kyzyl is popular with local shepherds.
Here they often host musicians trying to recreate a horseback band
of the kind that existed in the Tyvan People’s Republic in the early 20th century.
[ Aldar Tamdyn ] OK, let’s try to approach horses! Let’s do it carefully!
[ VO ] The shepherds have picked horses for the musicians, but the animals still aren’t used to the noise produced by the band.
[ VO ] Even if horses have been trained beforehand, when they spend too many months on a pasture,
they become out of touch with humans.
Once the musicians lasso the horses, the next thing to do is to introduce them to musical sounds, gently at first.
[ Aldar Tamdyn ] Good boy! Well-done! It remembers me!
[ VO ] It takes the horses half an hour to get used to the sound produced by the band.
[ Nais Dulush ] It’s difficult to ride a horse and play a musical instrument at the same time.
And there's a problem also with breathing! And of course, the horse can throw you on the ground.
But today everything actually seems to be ok.
[ Nais Dulush ] Ready? One, two, three, four!
[ VO ] As the musicians ride out of the enclosure the drumbeat echoes throughout the valley.
[ Sean Quirk ] Wow, this is a great view!
[ VO ] For the time being Sean’s family lives in a yurt, a dwelling made of thick felt.
It is the kind used by nomads.
His wife used to live here before meeting her future husband. Svetlana says Sean has changed his family’s eating habits.
American cuisine now holds pride of place in this Tuvan dwelling.
[ Svetlana Quirk ] My husband has introduced traditional American food, notably spicy chili.
[ VO ] Sean Quirk is an amateur builder. He hammers nails and plasters walls.
He’s very excited to move from his small yurt to a bigger building where there’s more space for the kids.
He jokingly calls it “the house that Sean built”.
[ Sean Quirk ] What we have here is … the … work of the colour.
The Russian dream.
We’ve got a nice little log house made of Siberian large wood, which is going to stand for centuries
and doesn’t rod, doesn’t go anywhere. 00:11:51:660 00:11:57.470 So … we’ll be done with this in a little while. It’ll be a nice Russian home to stay in the winter.
And now what we have over here … next door to the Russian dream.
We have the place we call “the Tuvian dream”.
This is a yurt which is very high technology developed over thousands of years by the Tuvians,
another nomadic people for dwelling and this climate.
And this year it’s about 50 years old. It was given to me by my father-in-law.
And now it looks like a pile of wood and a trailer, some boards.
But this is gonna be where we have a Russo-Tuvinsko-American dream.
[ VO ] Sean needs to finish building his house before the onset of winter.
So far he has put up the walls and set the window frames.
[ VO ] Fifty kilometers west of Kyzyl, the Great Yenisei makes its way past mountains.
In the 8th century BC, Uigur troops used to have an observation post high up the cliffs.
Nothing but a pile of flat rocks is left now.
Elizabeth will take pictures during her expedition to send them back to Australia.
[ VO ] From the eastern side you can see things dozens of kilometers away.
It’s easy to spot anything sailing down the Yenisei River.
[ VO ] Australian researcher Elizabeth Gordon and other members of the expedition
have reached a remote shepherd camp in Tuva’s west.
Among the guests this time are Elizabeth’s friends from a group of singers called “The Daughters of Tuva”.
[ guests ] Hi! [ Vera Bailak ] Hello! Nice to meet you!
[ VO ] Their hostess Vera Bailak is a legend in these parts.
Among other things, she is the last surviving soldier from the Tuvan People’s Army that fought in World War II.
[ VO ] In accordance with local tradition, the inhabitants of a shepherd camp treat visitors to tea and chat with them.
Nomads always treasure contact with visitors, as it is their way hearing the news.
[ woman ] Granny, we’d like to give you a present by singing a traditional Tuvan song for you.
[ VO ] The unique thing about The Daughters of Tyva is
that the young women use the throat signing technique during their performances.
They also play traditional instruments.
[ Vera Bailak, farmer ] I have lived in this valley since I was a child. Performers are very rare visitors here.
I am happy to have you here.
It’s a great present for someone as old as I am. It makes me very happy.
[ VO ] Translated from the Tyvan language, this mountain towering over the shepherd camp is called Mount Heavenly Bear.
Several years ago, the Dalai Lama came here.
He declared that the mountain is a sacred symbol for the entire Buddhist world.
[ VO ] Elizabeth is marvelled by the landscapes she sees here.
[ Elizabeth Gordon, student ] Scenery here is very different to anything I have ever seen before.
And although many people think that it a very bear and a very stuck environment here.
I think the stuckness of it is actually very very beautiful.
[ VO ] The Ustuu-Khure Buddhist temple is the final destination on the tour of Tuva’s west.
For many years the complex of monasteries was regarded as a vivid example of Buddhist construction in the region.
The temple was destroyed in 1937 at the height of a Soviet campaign against religion.
The surviving walls of the temple mean as much to Tyvans as the Wailing Wall means to Jews.
All visitors walk around the temple several times and they offer prayers.
[ VO ] Many people in Tuva are Buddhists, but they worship the ancient practice of shamanism at the same time.
The shamans claim they have inherited their gift from their ancestors.
Just like their fathers and grandfathers, they communicate with the spirits.
[ Kara-Ooldopchun-Ool, shaman ] This place is charged with great energy.
It brings strong protection. And gives good luck.
[ VO ] Larissa Norbu is a famous sculptor in Tuva.
But she believes she is cursed, and need the supreme shaman to help restore her artistic talent.
[ VO ] Let the blue skies, the golden sun, the silver moon and the stars give us eternal protection.
Let your life be as white as milk.
[ VO ] Followers of shamanism say that their ritual is an offering to ancestral spirits.
The spirits are believed to help people at the request of shamans as a token of gratitude for the food offered to the sacrificial bonfire.
The shaman has to remove the curse and make Larisa feel better.
[ Larissa Norbu ] My eyes now see more clearly.
[ Kara-Ooldopchun-Ool ] She’s better now.
[ Kara-Ooldopchun-Ool ] I've removed the curse.
[ VO ] After the shamanic ritual, artist Larissa Norbu returns to the bank of the Yenisei.
Here she hopes to find agalmatolite, a semi-precious stone
that she wants to use to make a figurine of a particular Tyvan hero.
[ Larissa Norbu ] This is it! Now I’m gonna make a dancer out of it.
[ VO ] Larissa Norbu began practicing her handicraft several years ago.
The practice is believed to be an all-male occupation.
But Larisa believes that female craftsmen are better at capturing the facial expressions on the figurines than men are.
[ Larissa Norbu, artist ] I have a sense that I get help from someone. That’s how I feel about it.
From the outset I have no idea how the faces or something will end up as.
But as soon as I am on track, things take care of themselves.
[ VO ] Today is just another busy day for Sean.
He’s been driving home from the rehearsal for the local orchestra.
But still, this day is very special one.
[ VO ] Today Sean has finally received an important paper— his residence permit.
[ family members ] Congratulations! You’ve made it! [ Sean Quirk ] Thank you! I got a residence permit now!
[ VO ] Sean’s friends also came to congratulate their mate.
They have supported him for a long time along with his family.
Now Sean can visit his relatives from the United States without any problems
and soon he will obtain his Russian passport.
[ VO ] Aldar Tandym knows Sean quite well.
They share the same hobby—throat singing.
But at the moment, Aldar is helping Sean build his house.
[ Sean Quirk ] There is still a lot of work to be done— making the roof and floor,
and I also need to take care of all this slag and tar paper.
[ VO ] For Sean’s children this unfinished construction means more fun and more material to play with.
[ VO ] Many sites in Tuva are considered sacred.
One of them is the Aldyn-Bulak Mountains near the Yenisei fifty kilometers from Kyzyl.
They are worshipped by throat singers.
That’s why Sean Quirk, the American who has learned Tuvan songs,
and the members of the world famous ethnic band Chirgilchin including his friend Aldar Tamdyn have come here.
[ VO ] Their music is full of life.
These sounds of nature are spreading across the pristine lands of the Tyva region.
According to the oldest Tyvan tradition, to find an inner harmony, a person needs to build a temple, raise a family and sing a song.