The Russian edition of the book of the legendary researcher of the republic, Sevyan Vainshtein (1926-2008), “Mysterious Tuva”, was distributed to the libraries of Tuva.
The German version of the book “Mysterious Tuva – Expeditions into the Heart of Asia” was first published in 2002 by the German publisher “Alouette Verlag” (Hamburg, Germany). For a whole month, Juergen Boden, the head of the publishing house, lived in the Moscow apartment of Sevyan Vainshtein while they both worked on the book, deciphering the field notes of the researcher, taken in the 50-60’s of the last century.
In 2006, the book was re-formed, and was introduced at the Frankfurt Book Fair in the new version.
In 2006, the scholar started work on the Russian edition. But the book saw the light of the world only in 2009, thanks to the support of the Gosduma delegate Larisa Shoigu, with the help of the Cultural Foundation “Por-Bazhyn”.
The Russian language edition of “Mysterious Tuva” consists of 2000 specimens.
The book is directed to a wide circle of readers, and allows them, as Sergei Shoigu expressed it, “to feel like a participant of many years of expeditions for study of the unique culture of Tuva, and to develop a deeper appreciation of Tuva’s rich historical heritage.”
This is the last book in the series of historic-ethnographic works about Tuva and Tuvans, written and prepared by Vainshtein personally – the author missed the publication by four months. For this series of works, the author was honored with the N.N. Miklukho-Maklay prize, awarded for a major contribution to the study of problems of anthropology and ethnology. This is the first edition of the book in Russia, in Russian language.
The presentation of the book took place on June 24 in the National Museum of Tuva; Sevyan Vainshtein, as a recent graduate of MGU, was a director of the museum when he was starting his research of the ethnogenesis of Tuvans.
“The publishing of this book is only a small part of returning the debt we owe to the great scholar”, considers Larisa Shoigu. The delegate brought one half of the entire edition as a present to the republic – for the collections of the museums, libraries and schools.
In September 2009, the widow of the scholar, Alla Vainshtein will attend the celebrations of the 80th Anniversary of the National Museum.
[ Translator’s note: Incidentally, Sevyan Vainshtein’s “Nomads of South Siberia”, Cambridge University Press 1980, English language version, which was unavailable for decades, was re-issued earlier this year (2009), and is now available again.]