FIRST NIGHT IN TUVA

Saturday, June 30, 2007
I’m living in a yurt! Okay, so it’s not a real Siberian yak herder’s yurt. That one’s up the road. Mine is in a tourist encampment of yurts assembled on a bend in the rock-strewn Bii-khem River, a tributary of the mighty Yenesee rushing northward to the Arctic Circle. We're only a few miles outside of Kyzyl, capital city of the Republic of Tuva and at least a 30-point Scrabble word if you hit it right.

The arduous all-day drive from Abakan took us through endless landscapes of stunning Siberian beauty. But it was hot, we were beat and the Huun Huur Tu group eager to get home. The Mutt & Jeff film crew, however, insisted on stopping every few miles to set up their tripods and arty angles to shoot this forest and that mountain and various rivers until we were pleading with them to get back in the car. I'm afraid I got very cranky with the lads but it's Siberia and I can say what I want, dammit.

At long last, descending from the high ridges and pine taiga of Khakasija we halted at a checkpoint for a document inspection before crossing into Tuva. We traversed the rolling green expanse of the Valley of the Kings, where Scythian royalty still lie undisturbed in countless burial mounds and arrived in Kyzyl at dusk, pulling over by a Buddhist shrine on the city outskirts. Summoned by cell phones, which actually function in this farthest of far-off places in the geographical center of Central Asia, HHT’s homeboys showed up and spirited them away for a little homecoming celebration.

The homeboys returned with Kaigal-ool and Sayan to the yurt camp. They assembled in my yurt as the sun was going down, all of sitting in a circle. I brought out a pint of Cazadores Tequila and dedicated it to my new friends. Passing it around, each of the Tuvans first dipped a finger in the liquor and solemnly flicked a few drops in the air before taking a swig. They seemed to like the stuff, which most had heard of but never before tried. One of the homeboys later said, "I always wanted to taste the juice of the cactus before I died."

My first night in the yurt, I slept like a stone, only to be roused by a huge crash. I stumbled outside to see a thunderstorm hovering over the peaks of the Sayan range, pulsing with intermittent lightning. The sky to the south was clear, illuminated by the fullest roundest moon. While standing there in the warm embrace of a humid breeze whispering off the river it was possible to hear the wild notes of those same songs that Kaigal-ool was throat-singing in the car on the way to this incredible place.