Tucked away in a remote corner of Siberia, Tuva, in spite of its size, was one of those nations that tended to escape notice. Indeed, it wasn't until 1913, when an intrepid English traveler marched in to declare this remote wilderness to be the very center of the Asian continent, that Tuva, larger than England and Wales, first caught the world's notice.
Similarly, Tuva's ongoing struggle for independence has, until recently, found little notice from the rest of the world. For 300 years its people had been ruled by Mongolians, Chinese or both. But today, Tuva, a country of nomadic livestock herders in the steppes north of Mongolia, is attempting to recover from 47 years of Soviet occupation. Despite the Kremlin's advice to give up the romantic dream of freedom, Tuva, an autonomous republic within the Russian Federation, has already taken its first steps toward psychological and political healing.
Tuva is fast becoming a Mecca for the independent traveler seeking to blaze new trails. For many Tuvans, tourism has proven a welcome, though unexpected, source of optimism.
"It's curious. We didn't expect that anyone would be interested in our culture," said Khovalig Maadir Bartishtaanov, director of the Republic of Tuva's Tourism Department. "Tourism used to belong to the state. Tourists came from Krasnoyarsk or other nearby regions. Only Russians, no foreigners." For these tourists, activities typically centered around the capital city of Kyzyl. Named Belotsarsk by Russians who settled at the junction of the two main Yenisei tributaries - Kaa-Khem and Bii-Khem, in 1914, Kyzyl's main draws were its famous smoked fish and sanatoriums.
Since perestroika, however, when Tuva could open its borders to foreigners, travelers have been seeking the beauty outside Kyzyl. "The nature of tourism in Tuva is changing," says Bartishtaanov. He lists the top three interests of international tourists as Tuva's unique music called khoomei, or throat-singing, its shaman religion and cultural rites and finally, Tuva's incredibly diverse natural landscape. He was unaware that there are thousands of armchair enthusiasts abroad who diligently study these aspects of Tuva as a hobby.

THE BIRTH OF TANNU-TOUVA
The interest of these foreign "experts" can be traced back to the brief time when Tuva existed as an independent state. Amid the chaos after the Bolshevik Revolution, not long after Tsar Nicholas II peacefully liberated Tuva (known by its Mongol name of Uriankhai) from Mongolian rule in 1914 by proclaiming Tuva a protectorate of Russia, the "People's Republic of Tannu-Touva" declared itself an independent socialist republic in 1921 (the "Tannu," meaning "taiga surrounded by high mountain," was dropped in 1926, and the "o" in "Touva," disappeared later). During the 1920s and 1930s, in a display of exuberant national pride, Tuva did something that caught the attention of the world for the first time: They issued an unprecedented number of postage stamps - more than the United States and Britain combined. Their unusual diamond and triangular shapes and their exotic themes such as men astride camels racing a train, captured the interest of the philatelic world and left a positive impression on young collectors.
However, like many fledgling states trying to survive in the shadow of the increasingly powerful Soviet Union, the independent Tuva never had a chance. Before long the country seemed to disappear from the earth.
It was not until a dinner party in 1977 that Richard Feynman, the legendary Nobel prize-winning physicist, made history by asking: "Whatever happened to Tannu-Touva?"
The scientist's innocent question marked the starting point of an adventure in search of the lost nation. Along with his friend and traveling companion, Ralph Leighton, Feynman tried to cross the Tuvan border. His attempts were persistently thwarted by Soviet authorities until his death in 1988, but "Tuva or Bust," written later by Leighton, along with the Friends of Tuva association Leighton founded in honor of his late friend, continues to revive international interest in the Tuvan landscape and culture.
Inside Tuva, however, the value of its own indigenous culture was long suppressed. Although Tuva was not annexed by the Soviets until 1944, its Moscow-educated authorities fell increasingly under the influence of their Communist brothers in the Kremlin. In 1929, Tuva's "most tragic year," shamans and Buddhist monks who didn't flee to the mountains were either killed, imprisoned, exiled, or deprived of property.

LOST HERITAGE
Even after becoming an independent republic within the Soviet Union in 1962, the intellectual tyranny of Soviet collectivism forced Tuvans to deny their independent identity. Forced to farm collectively, Tuvan nomads abandoned their circular, felt-covered yurts on the open steppe and moved to villages, where they lived under asbestos roofs and learned to eat vegetables. Forced to work in industry, they abandoned their herds of yaks, cattle and reindeer, accepted their boxy apartments in concrete high-rises and traded ration coupons. Their native language, dress and religion banned, their independent identity nearly succumbed to extinction.
Finally in 1991, after the collapse of the Soviet Union, Tuva declared itself an independent republic and, according to its Constitution adopted in 1993, "a sovereign democratic state within the Russian Federation." Now its newly revived independent spirit is assertively nurturing a grassroots movement to teach its own Tuvan language in schools, encourage a revival of its shamanic and lamaist religions and restore its nature-revering traditions.
In particular, khoomei dubbed by some Western musicians as overtone singing, harmonic singing or harmonic chant, has proved to be a wildfire phenomenon. Its earthy and enchanting effect is produced by a single singer simultaneously emitting a low sustained drone like a bagpipe's and a series of high-pitched flutelike harmonics. Musical ethnographers study khoomei as an artifact of the human voice, others call this nature.