Tannu Tuva

Mother Russia acquired another child. In the Soviet Union's ample and complex federal bosom,* the newcomer is known as the Tuvinian Autonomous Region. Hitherto it has been called Tannu Tuva, nominally an independent people's republic tucked between Outer Mongolia and Siberia.

Asia's Heart. The 90,000 round-faced, slant-eyed Tuvinians live in the geographical heart of Asia. They are mostly of Turkic and Mongol stock. With their 1,200,000 cattle, horses, sheep, goats, yaks and reindeer, they occupy an area about as large as Missouri. Moscow regards their evolution from nomadic tribalism to Soviet comradeship as a model of its kind.

What Western romanticists called an "unspoiled refuge from civilization," inhabited by indolent drinkers of reindeer's milk, was swiftly taken in hand by the first Bolshevik missionaries in 1921. The Tuvinians had no written language. The Bolsheviks gave them one based on the Russian alphabet, then introduced a proper selection of newspapers, magazines and books. The Tuvinians had lived mostly in bark tepees and felt yurts (tents); they followed their herds from pasture to pasture. The Bolsheviks collectivized the pastures, transformed the nomads into livestock farmers, built motor roads, distributed sewing machines, phonographs and radios, promoted cities like the Tuvinian capital, Kizilkhoto (I.e.,"Redtown,v pop. 10,000). The Bolsheviks put even Buddhist monks to work. They also introduced drugstores.

*By latest count, the U.S.S.R. includes 16 constituent republics, which subdivides into 17 autonomous republics, eleven autonomous regions, ten national districts.

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