Trip to taiga : the Tsaatan people

The Tsaatan people are ethnically tuvan and have been stuck in Mongolia during the second world war. They are quite few, about 300, still living nomadically in the taiga in winter or on higher places in summer. The summer camp we visited had about 25 families, spread sometime far from each other.


The summer tipi that our host family used is bigger than the winter one but some people still use the winter one in summer. The height of the winter's one is just enough to stand up in the middle.
The oven is always in the center. As the temperature was like winter in Switzerland or Japan, there was always a fire to heat the tipi.

Dried reindeer meat. In opposition to most of the reindeers herders in the world, the Tsaatan rarely eat their reindeers. They will sometime slaughter an old reindeer and dry its meat to keep it as long as possible.

The reindeer milk is very precious to make cheese (which tastes almost like Emmenthal !) or butter. We both liked it very much.

The boy of the host family was specially shy but very friendly with his reindeers.