The strongest earthquake in ever history of Tuva has damaged dozens of buildings in Kyzyl, but no injuries or deaths have been reported.

The epicenter of the 9.0 magnitude quake was about 100 kilometres (60 miles) east of Kyzyl, capital of the Russian republic of Tuva, which borders Mongolia, in the place Bai-Sut of the Kaa-Khem district.

A 9.0-magnitude earthquake that hit the southern Siberian republic of Tuva on Tuesday caused no damage or casualties, a spokesman for the regional Emergencies Ministry said.

“Everything is all right. Our dispatchers work round the clock and they did not receive any calls on any destruction,” the spokesman said.

Tuvan hunters have destroyed a record number of wolves this year; the number of predators shot consisted of 669 individuals, which is one and half times more than in 2010, as reported by government of the republic.

Experts from WWF, after the discovery of total numbers of red Book snow leopards who live  on the territory of pastures of south-west Tuva, are turning to members of Russian business community  with a plea to "adopt" the irbis.

Voluntary contributions by the "adoptive parents" will help to compensate herders for losses of livestock to attacks of the predator, to discourage the herders from killing the animals, as RIA Novosti was told by the press-secretary of Altai-Sayan project of WWF in Russia, Tatiana Ivanitskaya.

Russia’s ruling United Russia party managed to cling on to its majority in the lower house in Sunday’s parliamentary elections, despite failing to get a majority of votes in an election that was marred by accusations of vote rigging and intimidation by opposition parties.

With 96 per cent of ballots counted on Monday, United Russia, the party of prime minister Vladimir Putin, had 49.54 per cent of the vote, down from 64.3 per cent in 2007, which would give the party 238 seats in the 450-seat parliament, down from 315.

Moscow publishing house "MOBY Publishing" released a book by Doctor of Historical Sciences, Professor of TuvGU, Nikolai Abayev 'Influence of Tengrianism on ecologic culture and ethnogenesis of Turko-Mongol people of Altai-Baikal region".

One of the first depictions of this imperial animals on Tuvan territory was found by archeologists in the district of Upper Yenisei. An ancient artist engraved the drawing of a camel already in the first century before our era.

The camel - "teve" - is mentioned many times in Tuvan folk epics, where the animal is compared to the hero-warrior, whose nostrils spout smoke, and whose step shakes and crumbles mountains. There have always been camels in Tuva. Nevertheless, they remain, and probably will remain exotic even for Tuvan residents for many years to come.

A presentation of photo-album "Black and White Tuva. Unfinished history…", which was published on the initiative of Sergei Shoigu with the support of Russian Geographic Society, took place at the National Museum of Tuva. The event had additional ceremonial aura because of the presence of artists from the National theatre of Music and Drama in historical costumes; Kaigal-ool Khovalyg, National khoomeiji, played the igil. Huge numbers of photographs from personal archives of travelers and residents of Tuva were collected in the album, but the majority belongs to the first director of Tuvan State Museum Vladimir Yermolayev.