The story
Dungur International Shamanism Festival in Kyzyl
High in a sacred valley near Kyzyl, at a site called Suglug-Dash, Tyva hosts Dungur, an international festival dedicated to Tuvan shamanism, one of the oldest living spiritual practices in southern Siberia. Over two days each July, visitors can meet practicing shamans, watch healing and purification rituals, and take in traditional Tuvan crafts, food, and daily life, alongside lectures on indigenous belief systems.
Tuvan shamanism survived decades of Soviet-era suppression in ways that few outsiders fully appreciate, persisting in remote valleys and family lineages even when official policy treated it as backward superstition to be stamped out.