Tuvan cuisine

Tuvan cuisine - the culinary traditions of the Tuvinians are associated with cattle breeding and a nomadic way of life. As a result, Tuvan cuisine is rich in meat dishes and sour-milk products. Many dishes are similar to dishes of Central Asian and Mongolian cuisines.

Boava and boorzak - pieces of dough fried in deep fat from animal fat. At present, fat is often replaced with vegetable oil. Boova has larger dimensions, a cut center and an inverted shape, and the boarzak differs in smaller sizes and rounded forms, and also has a sweetish flavor due to the addition of sugar.

Photo http://drujhnaia.blogspot.ru  "boorzak"

Sogazha - is prepared very quickly and right after slaughtering and cutting of mutton carcass. Each piece of liver is wrapped in internal fat, salt, stringed on a skewer and fried on burning coals. Sogazha is eaten hot and fast.

Tuvans call bloody sausage Isih-han in the translation of 'hot blood', everyone likes it.  In the carefully washed leg of abomasum (stomach), poured salty, chopped onions with raw blood. The abomasum can not be filled to the brim, it can burst during cooking. The edges of the rennet are collected by the "frill" and pierced with a pointed stick in several places. On top of the sticks put a piece of a thin omentum and part of the small intestine wrapped in a "figure-eight". Rennet sausage because of its softness and juiciness is called chymchak khan 'soft sausage'.

Blood sausage in the duodenum

The lamb is poured into a thoroughly washed duodenum. The edges are tied with a strong thread. Sausages are boiled in salted water. Readiness is also determined by puncturing.

Kara Byday 'black soup is very much appreciated by the Tuvinians. After cutting lamb carcass soup is cooked, which is added meat with bones, lungs, liver, heart, pieces of peritoneum and intestines. The broth turns out to be very rich and dark, hence its name. Ribs are boiled in pairs, without breaking them. If you do not comply with this rule, then according to the people's note, this leads to a quarrel. Then season with homemade noodles. Salt to taste.

Curd from yogurt "aargy." Skin is collected every day in a wooden bowl, after which it is boiled for a long time, then cooled. Express the serum in a special bag hung on two colas. Serum flows out, and in the bag remains cottage cheese. A bag of cottage cheese is left for a day under the board with a load. Finished aarges are crushed and dried.

Dry cottage cheese "kurut".Cottage cheese cut into squares, circles or stripes, dried like mushrooms on a thread, hanging to the skeleton of a yurt. Curd quickly hardens like a tree.

Tyva dalgan - Tuvan flour

Huuzhur - a small cheburek, abundantly stuffed with finely chopped meat, fried in mutton fat or vegetable oil. In modern Tuvan cuisine, the concepts of "hoojour" and "cheburek" differ little, and the former word in ordinary usage supersedes the first. Also in modern Tuvan cuisine, it is allowed to use minced meat, not finely chopped meat.

Buzza is a steamed mantel. From Manti differs form of molding - do with open top, it is similar to the Mongolian Mong. Buz, but differ in smaller sizes.

Manche - pelmeni, made from finely chopped meat. In modern Tuvan cuisine, there is no difference between pelmeni and mancha due to the widespread use of minced meat.

Dalgan (or "tyva dalgan") - a meal of coarse grilled barley grains.

Haargan dalgan is a fresh cake. Prepared first on the heated surface (in modern use, a burzhuyka), and then brought to readiness on over an open fire.

Beezhyrgan dalgan - fried cake.

Shagaa - Tuva New Year

Shagaa is a new year according to the lunar calendar, one of the biggest holidays in the Tuvin calendar. The New Year celebration falls on the beginning of the white moon according to the lunar calendar.Tuvans celebrate the new year, observing the 12-year cycle, where each year corresponds to a certain kind of animal: the year of the mouse (piece), cow (yenek), tiger (pair), rabbit (toolai), dragon (ulu), snake (chylan), Horses (sheep), sheep (hoi), monkeys (swords), chicken (dagaa), dogs (ym), pigs (havan). The date of the holiday is determined by lamas or astrologers. New Year comes not at midnight, but with the sunrise on the first New Year's Day. The ancient Tuvans determined the exact time on their own hand: it was believed that the change of night and day occurs at a time when it becomes possible to see the lines on the open palm. The new year is celebrated in Tuva in spring, because only after the lambing of livestock, which occurred in the early spring, could the annual cycle be considered complete.

A few days before the onset of the step, the territory of the village or aal is carefully cleaned. The dwellings inside and outside are cleaned of snow, dirt and dust. Felt carpets, leather packs, bed, clothes, shoes are taken out and cleaned in the snow, all old ones are thrown away or burned. This is a rite of exorcism and evil from the house.On Shagaa everyone should show hospitality, on a holiday in each yurt they get specially stored food. On the eve of Shagaa, a large number of meals are prepared for everyone who comes on a holiday on a visit.On the night before Shagaa it is advisable not to sleep. People who fell asleep that night are considered dead and will not be leading them in the new year.

Photo http://www.tuvaonline.ru

Photo http://tuvasemya.ru

At dawn, people burn sang, "treat" the fire with food and express their wishes in the coming year. The hostess welcomes the first ray of the sun with freshly brewed tea, spraying it in accordance with the established tradition in the direction of the parts of the world. Having greeted the sun, the land and the Great Motherland - Tuva, be sure to treat this tea with children and all who are in the yurt. Three steps from the entrance to the yurt there is a "san" - a censer, which is ignited by coal from the house.
One of the most important, spectacular components of the holiday in the old days were competitions of "eaters" with a very significant prize fund. The strength and agility of this man was confirmed not only in the games, but also his heroic appetite. The rich Tuvinians exhibited their horse and cut the fattest, hollowed sheep-itt. In the huge Chinese cauldron (used only at funerals and weddings) with the name "tos tanma", which determined its capacity (nine abysses), the whole carcass could fit. Overpowered food - took away the horse. Now compete in eating dumplings, boas and meat soup.

Gold of the Scythians in Tuva

Scythian mounds in the territory of Tuva are a whole century older than the same burial mounds in the Northern Black Sea region.Digging the royal burial mound Arzhan-2, archaeologists have extracted gold ornaments in weight of 26 kg - today they make a unique collection of Scythian gold of the Tuva National Museum.These are unique products of masters who lived in the 7th centuries BC.

Schemes of the barrow "Arzhaan 2"

Reconstruction of Scythian clothes

 Gold beads for making fabric of royal pants consist of strings of gold foil with diameters of 1 mm strung on the finest fibers.

 Grivna of the King

 Fragment from the king's grivna

Ornaments of the headdress of the king

Dagger

Pectoral of the Queen

 Hairpin

Belt buckle

 Earrings of the queen

Hairpins for the Queen

Ladle

A cup that is suspended to the waist

The bronze panther

Plaques in the form of a panther

Yurt is a traditional home of nomadic peoples.

The yurt was orientated by the western Tuvinians in ancient Turkic manner -  the entrance to the east.Western Tuvans, in addition to yurts, lived in a plague that was covered with felt. Chumov was much smaller than the yurt, they were characteristic only of the poor.
The figure of the artist Sh. Kuular shows the wooden part of the frame, which consists of the following four parts:

1. Ögnüŋ hanazı - the collapsible base of the yurt, which consists of separate sections of lattices connected to each other, forming a circular wall of the yurt. The sections of the grids are the bars fixed on the diagonal axes, which allows them to stretch or pull them together. The size of the yurt is determined by the number of sections of the lattices connected in the "Ögnüŋ hanazı".
2. Ynaalar - long wooden poles, in their many form the roof of a yurt. The size and quantity depends on the size of the yurt, the more sections of the lattices, the longer and more massive the canal.
3. Haraacha - the uppermost part of the yurt, which serves to pass the smoke from the hearth, to fix the upper ends of the yanaalar in it. The size of the haraach depends on the size of the yurta, if there are many sections in the "khanaz", then its diameter is larger and more massive. The symbol of haraach is a cross in a circle, a sign of eternal movement in the nature of the sun, a symbol of evolution, the development of life.
4. Hedgehog - the door. Consists of a doorframe and a wooden leaf.

The felt part of the yurt consists of the following parts:

Devevir - the main felt cover of the yurt (the rear part is bigger than the front one);
Adakki - felt covering around the yurt;
Hayaachcha - felt covering around the lower part of the yurt;
Ɵrege is a felt by which the upper part (haraacha) of a yurt is covered in winter or on cold nights;
Kur - felted belts made of yak wool or horse 's manes to strengthen the yurt inside and out;
Bazyryk - a hair cord for fastening the upper and lower parts of the yurt;
Shirtek-shirtek, woven from white wool of sheep, felt for flooring in a yurt.
On average, there are three shirtek in the yurt - for the owner of the yurt (dir shirtae), for the mistress of the yurt (dyazh baryny shirte), for the guests (ch'ak baryny shirtae). The skin of a cow was usually stitched at the door.

The Tuva yurt is divided into certain parts. The right side (to the right of the entrance) is considered female, on it there is an economic utensil. The left side is male. On this side, felt rolls, packs of bags, clothes, horse harnesses, riding and pack saddles and hunting implements were built. The wall opposite the entrance and the adjoining part are called dѳr, here they receive guests of honor. There are wooden cupboards of aptar with colorful ornament. Along the right partition there is a wooden bed. In the center of the yurt there is a hearth - a symbol of the habitable house, the habitat of the owner of the fire.

The walls of the yurt are used for hanging things, mainly felt and cloth bags with salt, tea and dishes, dried stomachs and bowels filled with oil.