The Tozhu. The Surrounding Society and the Main Economic Activity of the Region of Residence

The Tozhu kozhuun occupies the northeastern part of the Republic of Tyva and borders on the Kyzyl, Piy-Khem and Kaa-Khem kozhuuns, the Republic of Buryatia, the Irkutsk region, and the Krasnoyarsk Territory. 

The regional administrative center (sumon) is Toora-Khem. According to the Office of the Ministry of Justice of the Russian Federation, 19 territorial-neighboring communities of the Tozhu-Tuvans are registered in the Republic of Tyva.

The Association of Communities of Indigenous Tozhu Tuvans “Tos Chadyr” (“The Birch Bark Chum”) is active in the district. The President of the Association is Svetlana Demkina, who is a member of the Public Chamber of the Republic of Tyva, and a member of the Coordinating Council of the Association of Indigenous Peoples of the North, Siberia, and the Far East of the Russian Federation.

With the support of the Government of the Republic of Tyva and the Public Chamber of the Republic of Tyva, an agreement was reached to pay 2400 rubles per reindeer a year. Reindeer herders receive half of this amount from the republican budget, and the other half from the Reindeer Herders Support Fund (funds from industrial companies).

On July 16, 2020, the government signed the law “On Guarantees of the Rights of Indigenous Peoples of the Russian Federation on the Territory of the Republic of Tyva.” As a result, state support includes payments (either in a form of one-time a lump sum or regular payments) and/or in-kind aid (food, clothing, shoes, spa and resort vouchers, and other types of assistance) from the budget of the Republic of Tyva in accordance with the laws of the Republic regarding minorities in order to help them preserve their traditional way of life. 

The traditional economic activities making one available for state support are:

1) livestock breeding, including nomadic livestock breeding (reindeer husbandry, horse, yak, and sheep breeding);

2) processing of livestock products, including the collection, preparation and processing of skins, wool, hair, ossified and unossified antlers, hooves, bones, endocrine glands, meat, and offal;

3) fishing and selling of aquatic biological resources;

4) commercial hunting, processing and sale of meat;

5) procurement and processing of edible forest resources, collection of medicinal plants, as well as collection of non-wood forest resources for one’s own needs;

6) engaging in art crafts and folk crafts (making utensils, equipment, boats, sleds, and other traditional means of transportation, as well as musical instruments, birch bark products, stuffed game animals and birds, souvenirs from the fur of reindeer, game animals, birds and other materials, weaving from plants, net-making, bone and wood carving, sewing national clothes and other types of crafts related to the processing of fur, leather, bone, and other materials);

7) construction of traditional dwellings and other buildings necessary for carrying out traditional types of economic activities.

The Tozhu kozhuun is home to two large industrial operations: Longxing and Golevskaya Mining Company. Longxing (investor Heilongjiang Mining Company, China) holds a license for the right to extract polymetallic ores at the Kyzyl-Tashtyg deposit until 2031. On September 29, 2009, a tripartite cooperation agreement was signed between the government of the Republic of Tyva, Longxing, and the administration of the Tozhu kozhuun, according to which the quota for providing jobs was set at 126, including 77 citizens of China and 49 citizens of Russia (of which 38 were to be local residents). 

Golevskaya Mining Company holds a license to use subsoil at the Ak-Sug porphyry copper deposit and is implementing the project “Exploration and production of copper, molybdenum and associated components”.

In May 2022, a two-lane bridge across the Yenisei River was opened in the Tozhu kozhuun. Now the residents can cross the Yenisei at any time of the year, without being cut off from the mainland in the off-season. The opening of the bridge not only makes the kozhuun more accessible but contributes to the construction of a high-voltage power transmission line for the power supply of the region. The bridge will certainly give a powerful impetus to the socio-economic development of the territory, including the tourism industry.