The Dry Creek

The fourth post! 

These days I have taken some photos. Here you can see one of them. 

This photo was taken on March 7 nearby Kyren. Kyren is the administrative center of our district, there are about 5000 people, two GAS stations, 99 streets, 2-3 Buddhist temples, one river, and three springs. Kyren was founded at the beginning of the 19 century.  There are three schools and my school is the biggest one.

In the photo you can see a mountain which we call  "Hereney tepkher hada" (Flat mountain of Kyren). It is also the sacred mountain) I know that it looks like a volcano but it isn't.  It seems to me that in #Tunka all mountains are sacred! This mountain is a part of the range Hamar Daban(Walnut mountains). This range is not higher than 2000 meters, this mountains are in a zone of the forest. They stretch parallel to the Eastern Sayan, from Mongolia to #Baikal.

People named this range like the Hamar Daban because there are a lot of pine nuts and people collect them.

Unfortunately, my granny doesn't know any stories about this mountain. 

The landscapes are amazing! I think that you have to see it in your own eyes because a camera can't show the beauty of nature fully! 

On the highest part of the mountain, you can see some snow because here it is still cold. When in Kyren it rains in the mountains it snowfalls! 

I've never been to these mountains, unfortunately, but I've been to the Eastern Sayan!

On the left-hand side, you see the gates of the Buddhist temple. In Buryatia, there are a lot of temples, not only Buddhists, Christian too. I know a rector of this temple, he is quite wise and smart person! But I think that all clergymen are smart and wise. I don't know when this temple was founded. 

Also in the photo, you can see many little pines. Why are they so little? Maybe people are growing them? 

You know that the USSR was an agricultural country. So, soviet people were raising a virgin soil and cutting down the forests to increase the sown area. But now the Soviet Union doesn't exist and people don't sow a grain anymore and the forest returns its land. And I think it is better for our ecology. 

So, that's the end of this post. I will write more about the Buddhism, Kyren, and other places.

The third post! #TheDryCreek; 

As I said before, today I will tell you about the horse.

In the photo you can see a horse, just a horse for you but for our family, this horse is really valuable. By the way, my father is breeding horses. 

I know that in English you usually don't use "he' or "she" when you talk about animals but I use it) His name is Oslyk (Burro). My father doesn't remember his age but he is about 20 years old, that's a really big age for horses. He is an old horse which is just living. When he was younger he was hard-working. He was climbing mountains, plowing land, and doing other kinds of jobs. But now he is retired) He is just eating and walking. I think that he is the oldest horse in #HoytoGol. And I set up a photo of him as a tribute.

By the way, horses are one of the most necessary things in our life! Buryat people can't live without horses especially in small villages. Villagers use them like a multitool. A horse can plow a land, carry everything and often participate in hunting. I think that the life in a village seems impossible without horses.

Of course, you know the Mongolian Empire. (we are descendants of Mongolian people) So, a Mongolian army couldn't exist without horses. They were riding and eating horses. When the soldiers were in a desert they were drinking a horse's blood and eating a horse's meat. But nowadays people rarely eat horses, usually eat a beef.

But for example, I really dislike the horse meat. I don't eat that. Maybe it's because I was born in a year of the horse according to the eastern calendar)

So, historically horses are an important part of our life. 

Maybe you have noticed something strange in the name of our horse. Why did we name him "Burro"? Ok, he is lower than other horses because of that we named him "Oslyk". And he is grey.

Maybe you have noticed a wall of wood nearby a fence. We call it like a polennitsa(a woodpile). Everybody who has a stove at home has a woodpile because not everyone has a central heating system. In a village people don't have the central heating system. So, people have to prepare the firewoods every year. As you know my family was preparing it too. 

In our district people usually use a larch and a pine-like the firewoods. But the lurch we also use in a house building because this wood is very durable. Do you know that Venice was built from the Siberian larch? That's a fact.

So, I think that I gave you a lot of information from this photo.

The second post! #TheDryCreek; #HoytoGol; #Buryatia; #Northernvalley

Look at these photos!

In these two photos you can see the Tunkinsky goltsy again but the main thing is one of the sacred peaks of our mountains - The Altan Mundarga! That's a buryat name, in English it sounds like The Golden Peak. Unfortunately, I don't know a true story of this name and any folklore stories which are related to the Altan Mundarga. But, be sure, I will ask my relatives and look for more information. #Tunka

You can notice that I have marked the Altan Mundarga in the photo. Some geographic information: The height is 3156 meters. It is the second peak after The Mon Uula(Munku Sardyk). (That's all that I have found on the Internet). 

Of course the amazing beauty of #Nature goes without saying). Now you are looking at photos that were taken in April this year. There are no green colors but in summer it looks much better! I will post some photos of the summer mountains when summer will come. Oh, and I'm sure that you have seen the snowy mountains in summer on the cover of the address. It happens every summer and snowfalls aren't something supernatural at these places. A climate in the mountains is very hard when snowfalls happen people who are in the mountains at this moment are in a zone of risk because the cold winds, snow and a sub-zero temperature can kill people who don't have warm clothes and can't make a fire. 

We believe that the Altan Mundarga is a homeplace of our mountain Gods. We are really venerating them. When people are in the mountains they are not allowed to say something bad about Gods or spirits of these places because God's punishment is coming very soon. So, we never say that we are stronger than the mountains, we never say that it is easy to climb the peaks. And we never conquer the mountains because people are just small creatures which don't have a power. Also we have special rites of worship. There are different ways of worship or paying respect. The first one is "press "F" to pay respect", just kidding). To be serious, we go to people who can do these rites, we call them just "taabay", it means an old man because all of these people are old. So we buy different kinds of food like milk, a vodka, cookies, candies, etc. And we don't use meat because it is a meat of dead creatures. 

The second way - we go to a lama(Buddhist monk) and he does the rite. We also bring different kinds of food. And milk is the most important thing in all our rites. We do nothing without milk.

And some people do this rite by themselves if they can. It is not forbidden, but you should know how to do it because if you make a mistake you will be punished by Gods.

So, now you know a small part of our #Culture!

It seems to me that I have told you everything that I knew! )

The first post! #HoytoGol; #Buriatya; #BuryatRepublic; #Tunka; #Northernvalley

This photo was taken in April this year. In the photo you can see a small river that flows in the Hoyto Gol(Northern valley). I can tell you that water is really fresh and cold(water in rivers in our region is always cold). I remember how my father told me that there were a lot of fish, but now there are no fish, unfortunately. We don't know why fish disappeared but I think that it depends on the ecological situation. In the photo you can also see a big field and a forest on the left-hand side. There are no green leaves because it is still cold. Usually grass starts growing in May. There is a big variety of different flowers and herbages, by the way, in our valley we have a lot of medicinal herbs, it is one of the features of our land. 

On the right-hand side you can see a couple of buildings. They were built in The USSR for people who worked on a farm, but now this farm is, unfortunately, abandoned. I think that it is one of the problems of our country. We have lost our agricultural industry. In times of the Soviet Union there were some of the biggest kolkhozes in our district but when the Perestroyka started all kolkhozes were closed, so, we lost our farms. Now people who live in Hoyto Gol have their own cattle but it is a small part of what we had. But we shouldn't be always sorry about our past, we should remember all mistakes and go ahead. I hope that soon the situation will be changed.

And finally, in the background you see mountains. These are the Eastern Sayan mountains, Tunka's ranges(Tunkinsky goltsy) to be exact. The highest point of these mountains is Munku Sardyk(Mon Uula) - 3491 meters. Munku Sardyk is straight on the border of Russia and Mongolia. For Buryat people this mountain is sacred and people shouldn't climb it but people don't know or don't want to follow these rules. So, tourists defile our sacred mountain when they are climbing. You can think, what's the problem, why people can't go on the mountain. But I can explain it to you. People, while they are climbing, are polluting the environment with their waste products. And I am always against it.

Native people of the Northern valley always esteem and honour this land, these mountains and rivers. 

I think that it is impossible to imagine the beauty of our nature! 

Our nature is, definitely, almost the paradise on earth and people from all over the world are always welcome!

#TheDryCreek; #Nature; #Culture