There is a unique historical and cultural region inhabited by a small indigenous Turkic people, the Tofs or Tofalars, the famous and mysterious Tofalaria. You can only get to Tofalaria by helicopter and contact the region only by radio.
The living area of the Tof reindeer herders in the Uda, Biryusa, Gutara, Kan and Ii basins is 21.4 thousand square km. According to the 2010 census, 762 indigenous Tofalars live there, all of them speak Russian. Tofalars spend most of their time in the taiga; they are distinguished by their unusual historical hunting abilities. Some families spend most of their time on reindeer pastures.
History of Tofalaria
The first mention of the Dubo or Tuwo tribe can be seen in the ancient chronicle text of the powerful Wei Chinese dynasty, as a people living east of. For many centuries the tribe was listed as yasakniks of different empires. In the 17th century, the region bordering Chinese territory with the arrival of settlers from Russia became part of the Moscow unified state. In the 18th century, neighboring Tuva became part of the Qing Empire, and the land of the Tofs remained in Russia.
The administrative division was created by the Udinsky zemlytsa, which included 5 uluses. For the Tofs, a fixed amount of yasak was established depending on the number of local hunters and the weather, mainly valuable furs and various meats. It is very difficult to find out the number of Tofalars living in the territory, even according to the first statistical data from 1851. Every year the Tofalars gathered for December public meetings of the Sulgan, elders were elected and pressing issues were resolved.
With the development of the Russians, the Tofs were transferred to a settled life and settled with Russian settlers in three villages formed for this purpose: Upper Gutara, the “wide valley” of Alygdzher and Nerkha. Over time, the villages of Pokrovsk and Nizhnyaya Gutara, the Neroy weather station and the sparsely populated area of Yaga appeared.
The amazing feature of the Tofs, despite their small numbers, preserving their nationality has been repeatedly noted by demographers for centuries. Since the 17th century, when the first yasak books appeared, the number of tofs living in their native territory has changed little and amounted to up to 500 people. In the data of various archives there is no information about any sea or mass death among the Tofs.
From 1939 to 1950, the administrative division of the USSR included the Tofalar national district in the Irkutsk region. But later it was disbanded, and the historical and cultural, very original and isolated region was included in the territory of different regions. Since 1965, the region has been located in the Nizhneudinsky administrative district.
Tofalaria language
The Tof language is part of the Eastern Turkic languages, namely their Sayan group; according to the 2002 census, it is spoken by 114 original inhabitants. In the Soviet years, a letter was developed for the Tofs and an alphabet was published. The study of this language by linguists took place intensively in the 19th century, only after two centuries of contacts between settlers from Russia and the indigenous population.
At that time, the nomadic majority of the Tofs, especially men, did not know the Russian language, but having economic relations with the Buryats, they knew the Buryat language. In the 1930s, when the Tofalars settled down, living with settlers from Russia, the Tofalar children went to Russian-language schools and learned Russian. Education in schools was in Russian, and the assimilation of the Tofs into the Russian settler environment began.
Scientists linguists clearly understood that with the small number of Tofs, their language could be completely lost or remain unstudied. Since 1990, the study of the Tof language began in schools in the region. At the same time, the revival of national rituals and centuries-old Tof traditions began. However, scientists classify the Tofalar language as an endangered language. Since ancient times, the Tofs believed in the spirits of nature; traditionally, shamanism and totheism developed here. Today, many Tofs have converted to the Orthodox faith and are baptized, but deep down in their souls they do not abandon shamanism.
Nature of the region
Tofalaria is a very remote and difficult terrain. Up to 90% of its lands are represented by midlands covered with taiga. The remaining territories are covered with vast mountain tundras, unsuitable for human life with mountain canyons, narrow gorges and chars.
The climate of Tofalaria is sharply continental; snow here lasts up to 180 days. From May to August, with unexpected incursions of large masses of cold northern air, night temperatures can drop to +5°C. Winter temperatures in January can drop to -50°C. Summer is very cool +15°C, but with a few hot days up to +38°C. The precipitation here in the mountains is up to 400 mm per year.
The vegetation of the region consists of taiga massifs, there are deciduous forests and cedar trees. The taiga has long fed the Tofalars; there are excellent conditions for hunting and taiga fishing. There are many fur-bearing animals in the taiga: ermine and squirrel, sable and weasel. There are enough nuts in pine trees; this is an excellent food for birds, squirrels and sables. Medicinal and rare herbs grow here in abundance.
Minerals
Nature has generously endowed the subsoil of Tofalaria with a variety of natural resources, including many rare metals. Reserves of lead, polymetallic, uranium ores, gold and tantalum have been explored here.
Transport and communications
There are practically no conventional roads in the region, so communication with the regional center and large villages is carried out by means of small aircraft of the Nizhneudinsk air squad. The fleet of MI-8 helicopters and AN-2 aircraft requires serious modernization and replenishment with new aircraft. The need for air transportation of passengers exists every day, but transportation takes place weekly due to lack of sufficient funds.
Economic structure
Due to their traditional activities, centuries-old reindeer breeding and hunting, the Tophs have long lived in migrations for most of the year. Until the 1920s, roaming the taiga, they were well adapted to the harsh and inconvenient life in nature. The Tofs created a unique national culture, very close to nature.
The Tofs hunted beaver and fox, sable and deer, otter and elk, squirrel and roe deer. They successfully combined fur farming with reindeer breeding. Tofalar in the taiga is an excellent tracker, able to read well the very complex book of the taiga and passes on his skills to his children.
Soviet times significantly changed the original economic characteristics and way of life of the Tofs. They left their nomads, settled down, and participated in all government projects. Later they became members of collective farms and moved away from individual reindeer herding farms. The Tofs mastered gardening, raising livestock, and collecting firewood and hay.
With increasing literacy, the Tofs easily mastered working with boat engines, cars and tractors, sawmills, brick firing, plastering, laying stoves and whitewashing houses. They were involved in logging, gold mining and carpentry. At the same time, the Tofs retained individual labor in fishing, taiga fishing, collecting nuts, medicinal herbs, berries and mushrooms, and breeding deer.
The propaganda of atheism began to divert the Tofs from shamanism and totheism, and traditional plague dwellings, food and clothing became history. Tofs began to build log huts, wear ready-made clothes and cook from new products purchased in stores. They got married and buried the dead according to the rites of Christianity.
Now among the Tofalars there is a gradual revival of interest in their roots and the national culture of one of the oldest Sayan ethnic groups. Everywhere in large villages, ethnic centers and folklore groups are being created, and national games are held in the summer.
The traditional dwelling of the Tofalar tent had a conical shape, its basis was a frame made of strong poles. In winter it is covered with the skins of deer, elk and wapiti, and in summer with bark. The plague was traditionally divided into two halves, male and female. In summer, there can be up to ten chums in a reindeer herding camp.
Men's traditional clothing of the Tofs were goat skin trousers and wide-brimmed jackets with a belt, buttoned to the right. Outerwear is usually worn directly on the naked body. With the arrival of Russian settlers, tofs switched to their Siberian clothing; traditions were preserved only in details, in special decoration, fastener and national belt.
Women's Tof clothing also consists of leather pants and a short leather tunic with a belt. Tofa women love jewelry, earrings made of precious alloys, tin bracelets, and wide rings. In the harsh winter, the Tofs wore warm reindeer fur coats, usually with the fur inside, and hats with earflaps.
The basis of the Tof diet has always been meat, mostly venison and traditional rye bread; they are baked in the ashes of fires and on hot stones. Plants and their roots were used as flavorings; nuts, wild garlic, berries, onions, and fragrant herbs are used in tofu cooking. Tobacco smoking is typical for both men and women.
The people have a large reserve of oral literature and folklore, many sayings, ancient traditions and legends, wise proverbs and edifying tales. Libraries and village clubs, hospitals and schools have been built in the villages of the region; national holidays, sports games and folklore festivals are held here. There are plans to create an ethnopark in Tofalaria to welcome tourists and travelers.
Tofalaria on the map of Russia.
The airport in the regional center of Nizhneudinsk is today the only one between Krasnoyarsk and Irkutsk. Serves local air transportation - for the needs of geologists, forest protection, reindeer herders, tourists and, of course, residents of Tofalaria.
Pre-flight inspection of the Mi-8 helicopter.
Loading in Nizhneudinsk. In the old days, An-2 flew to the villages of Tofalaria twice a day. Today - only a helicopter. Once a week.
The villages of Tofalaria are supplied with everything they need by air. Therefore, helicopters transport not only people, but also food.
Young residents of Tofalar villages are returning home from the regional center. At the Nizhneudinsk school they took state exams.
The Uda River (another name for Chuna) flows through the territory of the Irkutsk region and Krasnoyarsk Territory. Flows from a mountain lake in Eastern Sayan.
The river flows in the Sayan taiga. In some areas it has steep banks.
The length of Uda is about 1200 kilometers. Merging with the Biryusa River, it flows into the Angara.
Many areas of the taiga with mountain ranges in these places are virtually impassable.
Mount Pionerskaya in the area of the village of Alygdzher. According to an old tradition, every year local conscripts climb to the top where they plant a flag.
Until 1948, industrial gold mining was carried out in Tofalaria. After its termination, the region turned into an absolutely subsidized budget region.
Aligdzher village. Administrative center of the Tofalar municipality. Located on the right bank of the Uda, 93 kilometers southwest of Nizhneudinsk.
Alygdzher translated from the Tofalar language means “wind”. It blows quite strongly here. And it penetrates everywhere unhindered - to the envy of people. Alygdzher is cut off from the “mainland” by impassable mountains. The only way to get to Aligdzher is by helicopter. The winter option is along the frozen river bed, but this is a rather long (tens of hours) and unsafe journey.
The population of the village of Alygdzher is just over 500 people. About half of them are tofs (a variant of the name that they themselves don’t really like - tofalars). Tofs are a small indigenous nationality of Eastern Siberia.
The building of the “international” (in addition to the Tofs, Russians live in the village) Aligdzher airport.
View from the dispatcher window.
Tofalaria is located in the Eastern Sayan mountain system in southern Siberia.
The maximum height of the Eastern Sayan is about 3.5 kilometers. But most of it is rocks several hundred meters deep.
A tributary of the Uda is the Nerja River.
The village of Nerja. The population is slightly over 200 people. Tofalar villages were formed in the 20s of the last century, when the Soviet government decided that nomadic reindeer herders should become settled residents.
Nerja Airport.
People have been calling to protect nature here since time immemorial. In winter, there are practically no men left in the villages of Tofalaria - everyone goes into the taiga to hunt (however, some women also hunt). Today this is practically the only source of income for local residents. In Tofalaria there is a lot of sable, ermine, squirrel, and weasel.
In July 2017, residents of Tofalaria suffered a “transport shock”: the administration of the Nizhneudinsk district canceled all benefits for air travel between Nizhneudinsk and the settlements of Tofalaria.
Previously, a helicopter ticket to Nizhneudinsk for residents of Tofalaria cost 750 rubles, and beneficiaries flew for free. Now a new fixed price has been established: to the villages of Alygdzher and Verkhnyaya Gutara - 1,500 rubles, to the village of Nerkha - 1,300 rubles. At the same time, a ticket price of 7,000 rubles is considered economically justified. The difference is compensated by the local budget.
About 90% of the territory of Tofalaria consists of mid-mountain taiga landscapes.
The vegetation is typical taiga, dominated by mountain deciduous and cedar plantations.
The Bell Tower tract.
A tract is an unofficial name for any geographical object that people have “agreed” on. In this case, the rock was named for its distant resemblance to a man-made structure, a bell tower.
In the area of Nizhneudinsk caves. Two caves in the Bogatyr rock on the Uda River are recognized as natural monuments of local importance. The length of the caves in limestone is several hundred meters.
Gutara River.
The village of Verkhnyaya Gutara. Population: about 400 people. The village was created in the 1920s. A little later, the collective farm “Kyzyl-Tofa” (“Red Tofalaria”) was organized here, and a fur farm for breeding foxes was set up. The farm soon went bankrupt. The collective farm was disbanded in 1967 and included in the Tofalar collective farm.
Bridge over Gutara.
In Upper Gutara (as in other Tofalar villages) there is no telephone connection, only a walkie-talkie. Electricity is generated using diesel generators.
Aviation reached Verkhnyaya Gutara only in 1953; before that, all supplies were carried out along the winter road, and in the summer nothing was brought at all, the population was starving. However, the construction of the airfield had not only positive consequences: the largest mowing meadow was turned into an airfield, and local cattle breeding suffered due to a reduction in the food supply.
Another airport. "Upper Gutara".
The arrival of a helicopter in the village is a real holiday!
There are about 800 representatives of the indigenous Siberian Tof people left on earth. They were once nomads, but now most Tofs live compactly in three villages in the Nizhneudinsky district of the Irkutsk region. This very beautiful and isolated mountain region is called Tofalaria. You can actually get to it only by air.
Tofalaria on the map of Russia:
The airport in the regional center of Nizhneudinsk is today the only one between Krasnoyarsk and Irkutsk. Serves local air transportation - for the needs of geologists, forest protection, reindeer herders, tourists and, of course, residents of Tofalaria. 
Pre-flight inspection of the Mi-8 helicopter: 
Loading in Nizhneudinsk. In the old days, An-2 flew to the villages of Tofalaria twice a day. Today - only a helicopter. Once a week. 
The villages of Tofalaria are supplied with everything they need by air. Therefore, helicopters transport not only people, but also food. 
Young residents of Tofalar villages are returning home from the regional center. At the Nizhneudinsk school they took state exams. 
The Uda River (another name for Chuna) flows through the territory of the Irkutsk region and Krasnoyarsk Territory. Flows from a mountain lake in Eastern Sayan. 
The river flows in the Sayan taiga. In some areas it has steep banks. 
The length of Uda is about 1200 km. Merging with the Biryusa River, it flows into the Angara. 
Many areas of the taiga with mountain ranges in these places are virtually impassable. 
Mount Pionerskaya in the area of the village of Alygdzher. According to an old tradition, every year local conscripts climb to the top where they plant a flag. 
Until 1948, industrial gold mining was carried out in Tofalaria. After its termination, the region turned into an absolutely subsidized budget region. 
Aligdzher village
Administrative center of the Tofalar municipality. Located on the right bank of the Uda, 93 km southwest of Nizhneudinsk. 
Alygdzher translated from the Tofalar language means “wind”. It blows quite strongly here. And it penetrates everywhere unhindered - to the envy of people. Alygdzher is cut off from the “mainland” by impassable mountains. The only way to get to Aligdzher is by helicopter. The winter option is along the frozen river bed, but this is a rather long (tens of hours) and unsafe journey. 
The population of the village of Alygdzher is just over 500 people. About half of them are tofs (a variant of the name that they themselves don’t really like is tofalars). Tofs are an indigenous small nationality of Eastern Siberia. 
The building of the “international” (in addition to the Tofs, Russians live in the village) Aligdzher airport: 
View from the dispatcher window: 
Tofalaria is located in the Eastern Sayan mountain system in southern Siberia. 
The maximum height of the Eastern Sayan is about 3.5 km. But most of it is rocks several hundred meters high. 
A tributary of the Uda is the Nerja River. 
The village of Nerja.
The population is slightly over 200 people. Tofalar villages were formed in the 20s of the last century, when the Soviet government decided that nomadic reindeer herders should become settled residents. 
Nerja Airport: 
People have been calling to protect nature here since time immemorial. In winter, there are practically no men left in the villages of Tofalaria - everyone goes into the taiga to hunt (however, some women also hunt). Today this is practically the only source of income for local residents. In Tofalaria there is a lot of sable, ermine, squirrel, and weasel. 
In July 2017, residents of Tofalaria suffered a “transport shock”: the administration of the Nizhneudinsk district canceled all benefits for air travel between Nizhneudinsk and the settlements of Tofalaria. 
Previously, a helicopter ticket to Nizhneudinsk for residents of Tofalaria cost 750 rubles, and beneficiaries flew for free. Now a new fixed price has been established: to the villages of Alygdzher and Verkhnyaya Gutara - 1,500 rubles, to the village of Nerkha - 1,300 rubles. At the same time, a ticket price of 7,000 rubles is considered economically justified. The difference is compensated by the local budget. 
About 90% of the territory of Tofalaria consists of mid-mountain taiga landscapes. 
The vegetation is typical taiga, dominated by mountain deciduous and cedar plantations. 
Kolokolnya tract: 
A tract is an unofficial name for any geographical object that people have “agreed” on. In this case, the rock was named for its distant resemblance to a man-made structure, a bell tower. 
In the area of Nizhneudinsk caves. Two caves in the Bogatyr rock on the Uda River are recognized as natural monuments of local importance. The length of the caves in limestone is several hundred meters. 
Gutara River: 
The village of Verkhnyaya Gutara.
Population: about 400 people. The village was created in the 1920s. A little later, the collective farm “Kyzyl-Tofa” (“Red Tofalaria”) was organized here, and a fur farm for breeding foxes was set up. The farm soon went bankrupt. The collective farm was disbanded in 1967 and included in the Tofalar collective farm. 
Bridge over Gutara: 
In Upper Gutara (as in other Tofalar villages) there is no telephone connection, only a walkie-talkie. Electricity is generated using diesel generators. 
Aviation reached Verkhnyaya Gutara only in 1953; before that, all supplies were carried out along the winter road, and in the summer nothing was brought at all, the population was starving. However, the construction of the airfield had not only positive consequences: the largest mowing meadow was turned into an airfield, and local cattle breeding suffered due to a reduction in the food supply. 
Another airport - Verkhnyaya Gutara: 
The arrival of a helicopter in the village is a real holiday! 
Cool mountain Gutara: 
Infrastructure: 
The beauty of Tofalaria literally begs to be included in tourist brochures. But the level of development of organized tourism in these places fluctuates around zero. 
Tofalaria is extremely rich in minerals. In its depths, reserves of gold, lead, uranium, and polymetals have been explored. But development has not been carried out since the middle of the last century. Probably fortunately. Inaccessibility, it turns out, has its advantages. 
The territory of Tofalaria is comparable to the area of countries such as Israel, El Salvador or Slovenia. 
The rivers of Tofalaria are suitable for extreme rafting. 
Writer Valentin Rasputin once called Tofalaria “The land near the sky itself.” 
Nizhneudinsk is the administrative center of the district, formed in 1924. Today about 64 thousand people live here. 
Heritage of the USSR: House of Culture. 
The P-255 “Siberia” highway (aka M-53 until 2018) passes through Nizhneudinsk - the federal road Novosibirsk - Kemerovo - Krasnoyarsk - Irkutsk. 
Nizhneudinsk is a railway station on the Trans-Siberian Railway. The station serves one and a half dozen long-distance passenger train routes all year round. 
Thanks to the crew for the flight! 
Alygdzher, Nerkha and Verkhnyaya Gutara remain almost without men in winter - everyone goes hunting
Tofalaria is like a country within a country, a region within a region. Its borders are not marked in any way on official maps. Tofalaria is, perhaps, the only municipal formation of the Irkutsk region that has its own historical name after the name of the nationality living in this territory, one of the smallest on the map of Russia. There is almost no external national color left, herds of deer and national clothes are a thing of the past, and children learning the Tofalar language treat it as a game. However, in the depths of this distant subsidized region has remained the land of hunters, on which endless square kilometers of hunting grounds stretch around three small villages distant from each other.
The Tofalars were called Karagas
Today, in three villages of Tofalaria - in the main village of Alygdzher, Nerhe and Upper Gutara - there live a little more than a thousand residents, of which 50 to 70 percent are Tofalars. The rest are mostly Russian, although there are also representatives of other peoples of the former USSR, as well as other countries - in Nerja, for example, two brothers live - Altai Germans Peter and Alexander Faber.
Previously, Tofalaria was the region of hunting camps, along which the tofs (by the way, it is more correct to say “tofa”, with an emphasis on the last vowel) moved in clans with herds of deer. Administratively, Tofalaria took shape with the establishment of Soviet power. Since December 1917, the Provincial Union began to purchase furs from the Tofs. But by 1921, he considered that these trading operations were too unprofitable due to the remoteness of Tofalaria from the main trade routes (that is, from the railway and the Moscow highway, to the side of which, through several mountain ranges, Tofalaria is located). And he refused to provide loans for future hunting.
Then former political prisoner Pavel Machulsky, at his own peril and risk, created his own consumer society, which operated without official approval. There are two versions about the creation of permanent settlements in Tofalaria. One says that they were created by force, driving Tofalars into them to work on collective farms. The official one is that it all started in a regular school. In 1923, a school was built in one of the valleys of Tofalaria, in which fifteen Tofalar children studied already in January of the following year.
The construction of administrative and residential buildings gradually began around the school, and in 1926 the first settlement naturally arose, which was named Aligdzher, which is translated from Tofalar as “wide windy valley.”
By 1930, two-thirds of the Tofalar population had switched to a sedentary lifestyle, collective farms began to be created, and in 1934 the Karagas clan council, which created its bodies of Soviet power on December 22, 1922 at the suglan (annual congress of all tofs), was transformed into the Karagas native council, and a little later - the national council. In 1939, the Tofalarsky district of the Irkutsk region was finally formed.
In 1948, industrial gold mining ceased in Tofalaria, the region, as deeply depressed and unprofitable, was abolished, and its territory became part of the Nizhneudinsky district.
A common opinion that can be heard from any local historian is that the word “tofalar”, or “tofa”, is translated from the language of the indigenous people as “man”. The Tofs themselves perceive this information from the lips of visitors with restrained irritation. “Man” in Tofalar is “kishi,” they say patiently. - And “tofa” doesn’t mean anything. This is simply the self-name of the people.” It is known from history that until 1934 they were known as the Karagas people - this is translated from Tofalar as “black duck”.
Apparently, “Tofalars” is the same Russian word as “Buryats,” as the Russians call all residents of Ust-Orda, regardless of their belonging to one of the four tribes by which they call themselves. It only remains to add that the Russian hunters living on this land call their neighbors in the hunting grounds not “tofa” or “tofalars,” but exclusively “tofalars.”
Alygdzher - Tofalar Venice
The remoteness of Tofalaria from civilization is a landscape concept. It is located very close to Nizhneudinsk, but is cut off from the mainland by impassable mountain ranges. The main mode of transport for locals is a helicopter, which flies two to three times a week. The overwhelming majority of the helicopter's working space is filled with food, leaving room for ten or at most twelve people. The flight takes about an hour, and the helicopter descends into a wide valley through which the wind blows freely - which is how the name Aligdzher is actually translated.
By the way, locals say that the valley was not always so windy - the forest around them was cut down, and now constant sharp winds blow through the village here. For example, in the small taiga Nerja with sixty yards, which is about fifty kilometers away on ice (in summer - by water) Uda, there are no winds at all. But there is knee-deep snow and cows as shaggy as bison roam. And in Aligdzher the wind blows, carries clouds of sand - the village stands on it. Even in winter there is no snow here.
Alygdzher stands as if at the bottom of a saucepan - it is surrounded on all sides by steep rocky mountains, only one of which has its own name - Mount Pionerskaya proudly rises above the village: according to tradition, every year conscripts conquer its peak, where they plant a flag. They say that you can get to Nizhneudinsk by car along the winter road - from eight to ten days of travel. But in the other direction, all you have to do is cross the ridge and you find yourself in Tuva, just a day and a half of riding on horseback.
Unlike ordinary Siberian villages, where the streets lie strictly along the beds of rivers or highways, the courtyards of the village are freely and randomly scattered throughout the valley. Although there is still a logic to their location: they stand on the slightest hills, away from the water. The point is not only that Aligdzher stands on the shore of the capricious, widely overflowing Uda, which does not even have clearly defined shores. The entire regional center is cut through by a channel - a stream coming out of Uda.
They say that the most fun time here is rainy July, when both the Uda and the channel overflow their banks and flood the entire village. Then the water comes to the thresholds of the houses, and at each porch, instead of a car or motorcycle, there is a motor boat. It becomes impossible to travel on foot, and residents with nervous laughter talk about the village: “Our Venice.” And in winter, along the entire center of the village there is a wide swampy strip, cutting it into several parts.
After industrial gold mining ceased in 1948, Tofalaria became a budget-subsidized region without any signs of “city-forming enterprises.” In Aligdzher itself, a little more than a hundred out of six hundred people work in the public sector - in the school, administration, library, bakery. Several people work in the hospital, and the main doctor is a dentist: there is not enough iodine in the local water, so the locals have big problems with their teeth.
There is a boarding school in Alygger, where, in addition to the locals, children from Nerja study and live. They go home only on vacation. And Alygdzher’s heart is a diesel engine, which rests only from one to five in the afternoon. Then, if the wind subsides, there is such silence over the village that it puts pressure on the ears.
The only trade is hunting. In winter, during the season, the villages of Tofalaria die out. They say even women hunt here. Those who have hunting grounds far enough away still use deer as mounts, on which they ride and transport luggage. They are not brought into the village, they are only told that when the hunters return home, about two hundred riding deer graze on the mountain slopes around Aligdzher.
Avenged his brother bear
In mid-November last year, three Tofalar hunters - Ivan Shibkeev, his son Peter and brother Victor - left Nerja for their lands. It was a bad year, hungry, the animal did not have time to put on fat by winter, the hunters had already met connecting rod bears.
The Shibkeevs first hunted together. On their hunting grounds there were four “huts,” as they called their hunting lodges, and the hunting family moved from one to another during the season - where the hunting would be richer. Ivan himself went after the bear, Peter and Victor hunted the sable or whatever the dog smelled and hunted down. That day, November 21, after spending the night, they left the hut and, wishing each other a successful hunt, went in different directions. We agreed that we would meet here in the evening. However, Victor did not return by the appointed time.
Ivan and his son waited for him the whole day. There was still hope that he did not manage to return before dark and spent the night in one of the neighboring huts. A day later, early in the morning, they went out in search of him to “cut off traces.” This means that they walked along the riverbed, the usual path of a hunter, and looked to see if there was a trace of Victor back - from the mountains, from one of the huts, to the riverbed.
Victor's trail, in fact, told his whole story. His dog picked up the wapiti trail and followed him. At dusk, Victor decided not to catch up with her, but to spend the night in one of the huts that he encountered along the way.
What ruined him was that he was without a dog,” recalled Ivan Shibkeev. - When my son and I approached the hut, our five dogs began barking madly at the door, although there were no traces from the path to the hut. It became clear that an animal was hiding in the house.
They looked out the windows, but there was no bear in the room. The hunters realized that he was guarding them in the vestibule, just outside the front doors. We climbed onto the “tower” (as hunters call the attic) and saw that the dogs had surrounded the hefty connecting rod and were barking at him. Ivan killed him with the first shot to the head.
The footprints near the house clearly explained that a tragedy had happened: the bear was hiding behind the door, waiting and listening for Victor to come close. The hunter did not have time to grab the door handle when the animal jumped out to meet him and immediately crushed him under him - Victor did not even have time to take the gun off his shoulder or grab the knife. In total, the hunters counted three bloody beds - the bear dragged the still living hunter around the yard, lay down and chewed the man again.
Then he tried to drag him into the hut, but the bloody marks on the logs showed that Victor was resisting. For some time the bear and the man lay in front of the entrance to the house, then Victor’s dog returned and scared the beast away - he went into the vestibule of the hut. While the dog was “barking at the bear,” Victor crawled into the bathhouse. Apparently he spent the night there - there was a lot of blood in the bathhouse. Due to his wounds and blood loss, he was unable to start a fire - the hunters found a lot of bloody, broken matches. Most likely, the matches were simply wet with blood.
Only later did it become clear that there was a hunt for the hunter: during the days of that November hunt, the bear himself followed Victor’s footsteps for more than one day, tracking him down, waiting for an opportunity to attack. A week before the incident, Victor was already in this hut, drank tea and went to meet his brother. And Shatun went into the hut after him, ate all the food he could find, then stole a bunch of junk into the vestibule and lay down on it, waiting for the man to return.
He waited for a whole week... Unfortunately for Victor, during this time “big snow” fell, and, approaching the hut, he did not see the tracks of the animal that had already been noticed and covered with snow.
In Nerja they tell a beautiful legend that Victor, with the last of his strength, wrote on the floor in blood: “Darina, daughter” - he had a three-year-old daughter Darina left in the village. True, Ivan himself does not confirm this. In the morning he decided to go to another hut, which was located five kilometers from this place. But I only had the strength to crawl about one and a half hundred meters. That day there was severe frost, from wounds and blood loss he was completely exhausted and simply froze right on the trail. There his brother and nephew found him following bloody trails. His arm was bitten, his shoulder was eaten away and the back of his head was scalped.
On a canvas stretcher, which they use to protect themselves from the rain while mowing in the summer, Ivan and his son brought Victor’s body to the hut, and then on their two horses, which were grazing nearby in the taiga, they brought him to Nerja. Victor's death caused shock in the village.
Everyone loved Victor in Nerja. He was very kind, never refused to help anyone, and didn’t even swear like other men. His strongest expression was: “Well, you little cat!” - recalled the Shibkeevs’ neighbor Nadezhda Faber.
The women cried, did not know how to tell his daughter about the death of the father. By the way, there is another legend about this in the village. They say that when they finally decided to tell Darinka, she replied: “I know. I dreamed that dad was crying."
The territory of the Verkhnegutara municipal formation includes the lands of the settlement of the village of Verkhnyaya Gutara.
The border runs in a northwestern direction along the administrative border between the Irkutsk region and the Republic of Tyva from the source of the river. Chelo-Mongo along the Ergak Targak Taiga ridge to the point that is a three-land point where the administrative boundaries between the Irkutsk region, the Republic of Tyva and the Krasnoyarsk Territory converge (the top of Mount Knot, mark 2378.0 meters).
In the west, the border goes from the peak of Uzel (mark 2378.0 meters), located at the junction
the Ergak Targak Taiga and Pryamoy ridges, where the administrative borders of the Irkutsk region, the Republic of Tyva and the Krasnoyarsk Territory converge. The border runs along the administrative border between the Irkutsk region and the Krasnoyarsk Territory, first in a northwestern direction along the watershed of the Zveriny Kazyr and Zapevalikha rivers up the river. Vala (a tributary of the Kazyr River), then goes through the top of Mount Medvezhya (mark 2320.1 meters) along the watershed of the Pryamoy Kazyr and Kizir rivers along the Agul Belki ridge, then along the Kanskoe Belogorye ridge it goes to the sources of the Maly Agul River. From here the border goes in a northern direction along the Tukshinskoye Belogorye ridge, then runs in a general eastern direction to the river. Small Agul, from the mouth of its left tributary Bolshaya Negota along the river. Agul to the mouth of its right tributary of the river. Bolshaya Yangoza, then along the watershed of the river. Bolshaya Yangoza on one side and the Temnaya and Erma rivers (right tributaries of the Agul River) on the other side, then the border goes in a north-easterly direction along the watershed of the Tumanshet and Agul rivers to the point, which is a three-land point, where the administrative borders of the Nizhneudinsky and Taishetsky districts of the Irkutsk region converge region and the Krasnoyarsk Territory (mark 1006.4 meters), located in a straight line in the south-west direction from the mouth of the Fedoseevsky stream, the left tributary of the river. Fog.
From here the border runs adjacent to the Taishetsky district in an eastern direction along the previously existing border between the Nizhneudinsky and Taishetsky districts to mark 1088, turns south, along the watershed of the Gutara and Bolshaya Biryusa rivers along marks 1202, 1134, 1140, 1142, 1080 to mark 1091, turns southeast along a conventional straight line, crossing the river. Bolshaya Biryusa, goes to mark 1069, then passes along the watershed of the right tributaries of the river. Bolshaya Biryusa - the rivers Tepsa, Shelma - on one side, and the river. Nersa - on the other hand, further goes to mark 1312, turns south, along the watershed of the Bolshaya Biryusa and Malaya Biryusa rivers, goes along mark 1170, 1709, 1525 to mark 1760, turns west along the watershed of the Gutara and Uda rivers (along the Dzhuglymsky ridge) through the city of Ary-Dag (mark 2731), turns southwest along the watershed of the Uda and Kazyr rivers, passes along marks 2633, 2659, 2481, 2559, through the Triangulator peak (mark 2881) to the starting point - the source of Chelo -Mongo.