Touristic Tuva. Tour base "Sai-Khonash"

Anai-Khaak and Evgeniy Saryglar organized a tourist business together. Two years ago, a yurt-camp "Sai-Khonash" appeared in Barun-Khemchik district, which, in the words of the couple, is quite popular among people enthusiastic about Tuvan culture.

"Our base is located in a picturesque corner of Tuva, in Bayan-Kol of Barun-Khemchik district, - says Anai-Khaak Saryglar. - Officially the yurt camp opened in 2010. In the Year of Tourism, our base won a grant of the Chairman of the Government of five hundred thousand rubles; we expanded the tour-base with the money, because the demand for our services increased greatly, and the base consisted of only two yurts.

Today we have six yurts furnished in traditional style, and we can admit 16 tourists. Today, many representatives of tourist bases are striving to present yurts that look like hotel rooms, but we, on the contrary, want to show a real home of a Tuvan herder to the tourists. Our guests are mainly tourists from abroad, students and research workers, who are interested in the life of nomads, in Tuvan culture and the unique nature of the republic. And we show the amazing world of traditional existence of Tuvan arats - nomads to the tourists.

Coming to our base, people can take part in the daily life of herders, to see how they really live, they can see various real domestic animals, including yaks. And at the same time the tourists stay in conditions that are comfortable for them. We do not serve only traditional dishes to the tourists, we make sure that there is variety, after all, there are vegetarians among the guests. And not everybody can eat our national food every day. There is also a Russian bath on the territory of the base."
Learning about Tuvan culture

"My husband holds workshops for the tourists in throat-singing and playing Tuvan folk instruments. Evgeniy is an artist of the Tuvan national orchestra, and his lessons are very popular. Those people try to come here, who are seriously interested in Tuvan culture, music and history. For that reason, all the activities on our base have an educational character.

The camp "Sai-Khonash" is located in a very beautiful area, it is surrounded by mountains, and there are many sheep herding camps close by. All the people from those camps are our relatives. Our nephews help us with our work, they teach horse-riding to the tourists, and go along with the guides on walking and horseback tours. There are no random strangers on the base, and we feel good about the safety of our visitors. We have tourist trails to various places in the taiga, and to neighboring herding camps. We show waterfalls and mountain rivers to the people. All the tours are associated with visits to the sights, such like Bizhiktig-Khaya or Genghis-Khan's statue. In general, anything that could be interesting to the guests is included in the program. The tourists are especially interested in various events. So we worked out folk-tours, which are associated with the Ustuu-Khuree festival and with the folk holiday Naadym. As a rule, tourists come to Kyzyl for a few days, then we take them to the Ustuu-Khuree festival. This year we included a visit to the ethno-cultural complex "Aldyn-Bulak" into the tour program. The tourists will also see the international festival "Dembildei", which will take place in our capital.
We organize lengthy horseback tours, which can take five days. People come to our tour-base, and are given horse-riding lessons for two days. Then we take 3-4 guides along, and travel in the mountains, in uninhabited areas in untouched nature. After coming back, the visitors relax, those who want to take throat-singing lessons, or other excursions to herding camps. We have a very full program, everything is scheduled from day to day.
"Sai-Khonash" is open only in the summertime. We have an age limit, we cannot take tourists younger than 18 years of age. In the future, we would like to organize a good kitchen for a more comfortable stay, where it would be possible to cook on new equipment, and, of course, we need to bring in water-supply."