Let me hear your khoomei ringing out

NESTLED along the northern border of Mongolia, Tuva is easy to miss. There are no direct flights from Moscow; the only ways in are turbo-prop planes from nearby Siberian cities or a long drive through the surrounding mountains. Most of the region’s 308,000 people are native Tuvans, a Turkic people some of whom still practise a traditional nomadic lifestyle. Shamanism and Buddhism remain more widespread than Orthodox Christianity, Russia’s dominant religion. As Oksana Tyulyush, artistic director of the Tuvan National Orchestra, quips, “God is a long way up and Moscow is a long way away.”

Russians typically know little of the region, which lived under Mongol or Chinese rule for most of its history. Between 1921 and 1944 Tuvans enjoyed a brief run of de jure independence as Tannu Tuva, or the Tuvan People’s Republic, which delighted philatelists by issuing a series of oddly shaped stamps. After the end of the second world war, the Soviet Union moved in, making Tuva an official protectorate at the request of local authorities. (When Soviet officials came to distribute passports, they found that everyone in the home village of Sergei Shoigu’s family had the same surname, Kuzhuget. They solved the problem by reversing some inhabitants’ first and last names.)

For most outsiders, Tuva is best known for its music: khoomei, or throat singing, a trance-inducing drone created when one singer hits several notes simultaneously. Khoomei is inspired by nature, as performers seek to channel the waters, winds and beasts of their surroundings. In Tuva harking back to tradition has helped fill the void left after the Soviet collapse. Throat singing has also become a career path in one of Russia’s most depressed regions. The most skilled musicians perform around the world—though some feel the music only works in its native habitat. “To live in an apartment and sing khoomei doesn’t make sense,” says Ms Tyulyush. “You have to live in a yurt and see the stars.”