Sholban Kara-ool expressed his condolences to relatives and friends of the victims and said that state flags in Tuva would be flown half-mast and entertaining shows on television would be cancelled on March 7.

Five bodies have been recovered from the avalanche site on the Ak-Bashtyg mountain in the Mongun-Taiga district of the Tuva republic where six teenagers went missing, a news report said Wednesday.

The press service for the Tuva administration confirmed the discovery of three bodies at 11:20 a.m. Moscow time, and the other two shortly afterward, Interfax reported.

A search-and-rescue operation to save six teenagers buried under between 4 and 6 meters of snow is under way in the Siberian republic of Tuva.

An avalanche trapped the teenagers on Sunday near the village of Mugur-Aksy in Tuva, approximately 100 kilometers from the Mongolian border, RIA-Novosti reported Monday.

My children: What are they like?

I have three children: son Sayan, and daughters Syrga and Dolzatmaa-Syldys. Now the older children are grown up, they have families and children of their own. Sayan is 30. He graduated from Moscow State Pedagogic University specializing in jurisprudence, and he is working in his field.

Syrga is 28. Since finishing Russian State Social university she has been working at the ministry of education in Tuva. The younger daughter Dolzatmaa-Syldys, the favorite of the whole family, is in fifth grade at the No. 5 gymnasium. She is eleven.