From Kyzyl, Tuva Republic

Chris and I left Tomsk a few days ago and took an overnight train to Krasnoyarsk, meeting along the way Loren and Aleksei, two great guys who were also meeting for the first time. Aleksei seemed sullen and tough but as soon as the train started moving, opened right up, pulled out the beer, and the night went on with laughs, Russian-English dictionary, what seemed like an extended game of pictionary (as usual) and good will. Loren is a student of transportation engineering and Aleksei an engineer of what we understood to be tv satellites (after a first mix up with the dictionary where I thought he worked on sputnik).

In Krasnoyarsk, and after an unusual amount of confusion, we were able to get our two tickets to Abakan, off the Trans-Siberia line, south toward Mongolia. We spent the day in Kras..., bought a cell phone (unbeliveable but true - it seems much easier to communicate this way than always looking for pay phones, most of which function differently), had lunch and met with an agency for some info.

Overnight train from Krasnoyarsk to Abakan, we met Galina, a missionary in Russian jails, Viktor, an older man who works in typography or typesetting (something like that I think), and Zhenia, Viktor's coworker and colleague. Galina talked to us about the 700,00 men in Russian jails and a letter writing campaign they have to prisoners. If any of you are interested in writing to someone, the addresses will be below. There are two addresses, pick either and send a letter in Russian preferably although Galina assures us pictures and drawings are good too.

Zhenia spoke the best English and was so interested in us and generally curious. We talked about life in Canada, life in Russia, wages, work, travelling, conservation areas, marriage. When we arrived in Abakan at 6am the next morning, all three of our new friends walked us to the bus station and Zhenia ordered our bus tickets for us and made sure we knew exactly where to be for the bus. We hugged and shook hands and smiled and thanked each other and I think all of us felt blessed for the encounter.

So yesterday was the 8 and a half hour bus trip from Abakan to Kyzyl. Lots of gorgeous mountains, grazing animals, piles of stones that look like they could be from Northern Canada but here mark places of great power for shamans. We got into town and didn't know which way to go. I asked a young man we'd met on the bus to point us in the direction of our hotel and while I expected a finger point and some turn here or there, he hailed a microbus and escorted us all the way to our hotel. "I take you to your hotel and then I go home," he said. So we were able to check into our hotel, had our first real meal in 24 hours, and headed out for a quick walk in town. We came across four young guys playing basketball and joined them to play some 3-on-3 until it was too dark to see.

Today we had a 2 hour tour with a local Tuvan woman and English teacher at the school. She brought us to the monument to the Centre of Asia (apparently the autonomous Republic of Tuva is in the centre of the Asian continent), to a Buddhist temple where there was a lecture ongoing about a lama who had recently been to Nepal, a museum of Tuvan history, and finally to a shaman clinic where she had to leave and we were left in a room with six shamans and together we tried to communicate. They see many people in the clinic, sometimes performing rituals in the clinic, in the yard, or elsewhere. Most seemed to have family members, grandparents, who were also shamans and that it was in the line in their family. Shamanism began for them with a grave illness, afterward they were able to communicate with the spirits of water, mountains, trees, stars, ancestors. (This is all a bit of a compilation of what we understood across an enormous language gulf!) What we did see, though, and feel, was an atmosphere of genuine comfort and acceptance. One shaman man was making a drum stick, covering the end with reindeer hide and sewing it together. They each had their own desks but without computers, phones, paper, pens. Instead, there were shamanic ropes, rocks, pieces of leather, headdresses, cloaks. The clinic has been there since 1993 and many of them have been shamans for even longer. They come from different parts of the Tuva Republic and each has their own strength.

A walk through the local market, a bite to eat, and now here. Tomorrow back to Abakan and then on to Irkutsk, Lake Baikal, and Ulan-Ude.

I wish I could attach photos. We've taken many and it's been absolutely fascinating being here. This few day detour to Tuva has been astounding.

I wish too that I could describe this in more vivid detail, better describe the people we've met and the overwhelming generosity we've experienced. Really something else.

OK, more later, I hope. Much love to everyone!

Miia