Alash just wrapped up a tour of the United States that took them through Texas, the Midwest, and the Northeast. Their concerts were attended by a combination of amazed new fans and enthusiastic returning fans, some of whom traveled great distances and braved snow storms for the opportunity to hear Alash. Concert-goers were totally absorbed in the music commenting, “I could listen all night,” and “I felt myself traveling back to the times of the ancestors.” The musicians have such a good rapport with their audience that the crowd at Barbes in Brooklyn burst into a chorus of “Happy Birthday” when Sean Quirk mentioned that it was Ayan-ool Sam’s birthday.

The only nephew of the British Queen, the founder of the business brand Linley, viscount David Linley, visited on November 2, 2008, the official opening of the exhibition “Treasures of the Valley of Kings. The King’s Kurgan Arzhaan-2”, in the National Museum of Tuva. The exhibition, located in two halls of the new museum building, consisted of the unique finds from the Scythian kurgans of Pii-Khem district of Tuva – the results of archeologic excavations of years 1971-1974 and 2001-2002.

In Moscow, they said good-bye to the legendary scientist Sevyan Vainshtein. The heart of the inquisitive ethnographer, remarkable researcher and expert on Tuva, stopped in the morning of October 16.

“Just be patient for a month and a half, and we will know the exact date of building of the Por-Bazhyn fortress by dendrochronology ( archeologic dating method by analysis of tree growth rings) – Tuvan scientist, Vladimir Petrukhin, a scientific worker from Institute of Slavic Studies, answered, when asked which was older, Kara-Bulgusun or Por-Bazhyn.

The official site of the Tuva Republic informs us about the intention of the Prime Minister of Tuva, Sholban Kara-ool, to present his own security guard to the new museum. The question of the exhibition of the “Arzhaan-2” collection needs a fast solution. During the discussions about the repatriation of the treasure to its native country, believing in guarantees of support on the federal level, the Republic took upon itself the responsibility for appropriate security measures to protect these unique treasures.

The story of the filming of Dersu Uzala was told to RIA Novosti by the cameraman of the movie, Fedor Dobronravov, who has been living in New York for the past 20 tears.

“Kurosawa had long been thinking about making a film from Vladimir Arseniev’s novel ‘Dersu Uzala”. It turned out that this was one of his favorite works. Kurosawa had no hesitation about selecting Yuri Solomin for the role of Arseniev. After “Adjutant of His Excellence”, it was difficult to find a more suitable “aristocrat-intellectual” on the Russian screen. But where Dersu was concerned...

The collection of unique archeological finds, discovered in the summer of 2001 by a joint Russian-German expedition, headed by Konstantin Chugunov in the Valley of Tzars (Pii-Khem district, Tuva), after 5 years in the laboratories of the Ermitage, and after almost a year of being exhibited with great success in the museums of Germany, as part of the exhibition “Tombs of Scythian Kings’, finally returned to Tuva.

A unique collection of Buddhist sutras - prayers and religious statements of sages – has been found in one of the caves of the Tere-Khol Region of Tuva. It appears that in the years of persecution of religious figures some of them decided to hide the sutras further away from bellicose atheists.

After several smaller appearances here, Huun Huur Tu have finally been invited to perform their art and let the spirits of Tuva stream through the audiences in two prestigious German concerts:

On July 16 they played in the St. Mary’s Church in Bad Segeberg within the world famous Schleswig-Holstein Music Festival in a completely sold out concert before an enthusiastically applauding audience, and on July 31 they performed in the Verdo Concert Hall in Hitzacker at the banks of the river Elbe within the Musical Summer Days before a deeply touched and enthralled crowd of 750 older and younger people. The north German radio station NDR and several newspapers reported accordingly.

25-year-old throat-singer Bady-Dorzhu, Alash ensemble musician, has been recognised the best khoomey-singer in the khoomey contest which took place in Tuva within the framework of the 5th International Khoomey Symposium. Over 100 singers and ensembles took place in it. Bady Dorzhu was presented with a car. Chirgilchin group was defined the best in ensemble contest. $1000 prize-money went to the group.