Siberian Tofalariya
life in isolated villages
Russia, Siberia, Tofalariya – July 2016
The vast expanse of Siberia harbors many smaller, quite isolated areas. One of them is Tofalariya, located in the Nizhneudinsky District, in a part of the Sayan Mountains approximately 600 kilometers west of the city of Irkutsk and close to the border with Mongolia.
Tofalariya stretches over some 27,000 square kilometers. According to the census of 2010, there are only about 1,500 inhabitants, half of which belong to the Tofalar ethnic minority, while the other half are Russians. Until the start of the 20th century, Tofalariya was solely populated by the nomadic Tofalars. Nearly all aspects of their life involved reindeer, making the reindeer the main symbol of Tofalariya.
In the 1930s, the Soviet Union formed three villages in the thick taigas of Tofalariya: Alygdzher (meaning “wind” in the Tofalar language), Verkhnyaya (Upper) Gutara, and Nerkha. Each of these villages has an urban infrastructure: streets with wooden sidewalks, a power plant, street lighting, post office, shops, school, hospital, satellite communications (formerly, radio communication), airport for helicopters and small aircraft, etc.
Tofalariya is covered by a thick, impenetrable forest, the famous taiga, intersected by numerous mountain rivers. There are no roads or railway tracks. The transport of heavy cargo with provisions for the three inhabited villages is only possible during winter, at very low temperatures, when trucks can cross the frozen surface of the rivers.
Passenger transport relies on a scheduled helicopter service. Four to five times a month, a 20-seat MI-8 helicopter takes off from the airport in Nizhneudinsk and flies 200 kilometers in one hour to the biggest Tofalar village, Alygdzher. The locals fly at a discounted price.
