Michelle Feynman, whose father was Richard Feynman (1918-1988), laureate of Nobel Prize for physics, and one of the participants in the atom bomb project, came to Tuva on June 8.

She is accompanied by Ilona Vinogradova, a BBC correspondent. This visit is expected to result in a radio program about the dream of the scientist – to visit the republic in the center of Asia, which Feynman had been trying to visit for almost 20 years.

Tuvan physicians believe that Fedor Konyukhov’s deterioration of health was caused by tick-bite rickettsiasis. On June 11, because of acute deterioration of his health, the famous traveler was met by a team of Tuvan health workers at the border-crossing point in Khandagaity, and transported to the infectious disease hospital in Kyzyl, where he is now receiving medical help.

Famous traveler Fedor Konyukhov was forced to interrupt his participation in his international project “Along the Great Silk Road”, which started

on May 13 in Ulan-Bator, because of illness.

He felt the first symptoms of illness on June 3. On June 9, after an acute deterioration of his health status he turned for medical help to the hospital in Ulangom, the administrative center of Uvs-Nuur aimak of Mongolia.

However, the system of health care of the aimak turned out not to be prepared to handle the diagnostic procedures. The hospital did not have even the most basic requirements - light and necessary medications.

The popular Tuvan artist Eduard Ondar, who played the title role in the film “The Secret of Genghis Khan”, received the honorable title “Merited Artist of Republic Sakha (Yakutia)”. The state award was presented to him on May 30 on the stage of the Tuvan Theatre of Music and Drama of P.A.Oyunskiy by the director of the theatre, Anatoliy Nikolaev. The all-Russian premiere of the film took place on March12, 2009. The film will be introduced in the international cinematic festival in Montreal.

The unique ethno-rock-festival “Ocean of Compassion” which started in Kalmykia, culminated in a gala concert in the Great Hall of the Moscow International House of Music on June 2. The festival was dedicated to the occasion of the 400th anniversary of voluntary entrance of the Kalmyk nation into the system of Russian state, and to the Year of Youth. The concert was officially opened by the Head of Republic Kalmykia, Kirsan Ilyumzhinov.

The international “Drum of the World” of the Norwegian Saami remained in Kyzyl, the capital of Tuva, for almost two weeks. Today it started out on its trip through the rural districts of Tuva. Western Ulug-Khem and Chaa-Khol districts will be the first to welcome this symbol of the pagans of the world, as told to ITAR-TASS by Kara-ool Dopchun-ool, the head of the shamanic society “Adyg Eeren” (Bear Spirit”), which invited the drum to Tuva.

The entire republic was watching the action “Help Arat!”, which was initiated to help 7-year-old Arat Mongush. It started on April1 of this year from an announcement by Tuvan students on the Internet. Our countrymen notified us, that a little boy from Chadan is in treatment in one of St. Peterburg hospitals. The boy had had expensive surgery, and needed money to pay for his therapy.

His house is the Taiga. He is a holder of sports awards in skiing and parachuting. And he has a pistol of the “Nagan” brand.

He is a veteran of work, holder of a memorial medal “300 years of mining-geological service to Russia”. He is an expert prospector of the depths of the earth, who discovered, in Tuva, the Kara-Beldir golden knot.

He is a geologist. For young people, who are coming back to the profession that was once surrounded by romanticism, the profession which suffered a temporary set-back during the post-perestroika times, he is a living legend.

He is Valeriy Serafimovich Gorshkov, and for those that know him, simply Serafimych.

Tuva became the 248^th place in the world playing the host to the “Drum of the World” (or Drum of Peace). The sacred drum has been traveling through the world with the message to “Stop the War between People and Nature” since 2006. This long trip started in Oslo, in Norway. In Tuva, the ceremony of blessing of the drum was performed by the legendary shamanologist, senior worker of the museum of the republic, the 84-year-old Doctor of Historical Sciences, Mongush Kenin-Lopsan.

At the end of May, a grand ethno-rock-festival “Ocean of Compassion” will take place in the capital of Kalmykia. Famous performers of ethnic music from countries and regions of the spread of Tibetan Buddhism, that is, Kalmykia, Buryatia, Tuva, Mongolia and Tibet will participate. After the end of the festival, the participants will give a charity concert in Moscow. On June 2, in the Moscow International House of Music, Tibetan lamas of the Dzongkar Chode monastery who are the experts in the art of ritual dances; the Tuvan singer Sainkho Namtchylak, who has been called “the magic voice of Tuva”; Tibetan vocalist Loten Namling with his experimental project Tibet-Blues, which he created with a French jazz musician, Buryat singer Badma Khanda, Tuvan khoomeizhi Andrei Mongush, group Namgar, orchestra Yoryal from Kalmykia and other musicians, who have dedicated their lives to preservation of the energy of good-will and compassion, which filled the songs of their ancestors, will perform on the same stage for the first time.

The Supreme Lama of Kalmykia, Telo Tulku Rimpoche, will also participate in this concert.