The Tuvinians are an immensely talented and sensible ethnos. They live in a wonderful region, full of natural resources, completely untouched by destructive world civilization.

The culture of the Tuvinians is rich by its traditional popular celebrations, and none of them is conducted without national wrestling huresh. Musical popular creation is presented by numerous songs, “chastushkas”. The most colorful representation of national musical culture is the guttural singing.

The Tuvinians developed oral poetic creation: heroic eposes, legends, myths, songs, proverbs, sayings.

Religion

When Mongolian tribes come onto the territory of modern Tuva, Buddhism is spread in this area. Ustuu-Huree (the Upper-Chadan monastery) is the largest and the most famous Buddhist monastery of ante-revolution Tuva – has been destroyed in the beginning of thirties, and priests were repressed. Nowadays this monastery is being restored.

Also, the shamanism was named the official state religion in Tuva. Any social issues, even the least important, are solved with assistance of shamans.

Traditions and rites
The Tuvinians have rich traditions – rites, customs, behavior standards, which occupy the main part of the spiritual culture.

Among traditional celebrations there are the most popular Shaga (New Year); a lot of communal celebrations, which are directly related with yearly housekeeping cycle; family and social celebrations – wedding cycle, birth of a child, haircutting; religion (lamaist) celebrations.

A special place in life of the Tuvinians take sport competitions (national wrestling or huresh, horse race, bow shooting, games), without them no important event can be imagined.

Deep-throat singing

This unique type of arts belongs to the Tuvinians, the Altaians and the Mongolians. Guttural singing is a result of specific guttural singing and the musical and poetic thinking of people. The originality of this art is that singer sings two notes simultaneously, making this way peculiar two-voice solo. Tuvinian guttural singing - hoomej - distinctively differs from other similar singings of other peoples by large variety of styles.

Tuva hosts a number of festivals and competitions for guttural singing. The most famous festival of live music is “Ustuu-Huaree”, organized by a group of Tuvinian musicians, journalists and public figures. The main stage of the festival is in village of Chadan. The main purpose of the event is to draw attention of people to the issues of revival of Buddhism and restoration of Upper-Chadan monastery, popularization of consent and mutual understanding in the society.

The most famous band of the art of guttural singing, is the band “Huun Huur Tu”, and additional information can be viewed at the official webpage of the band.