Touristic Images of Tuva
DOI:
https://doi.org/10.25178/nit.2026.2.1Keywords:
Tuva, touristic image, tourist branding, travel guide, tourism, history of TuvaAbstract
The article analyzes the evolution of the touristic image of Tuva in the 20th–21st centuries based on three groups of travel guides: Soviet editions of the 1960s–1980s, a foreign guidebook from the Le Petit Futé series published in the early 2000s, and contemporary Tuvan and Russian projects primarily oriented toward domestic tourism and regional branding. The theoretical framework of the study is grounded in the understanding of the touristic image as a complex of emotional and rational perceptions of a territory shaped by information, personal experience, and persistent discursive forms of description, including metaphorical and evaluative practices. Travel guides are examined not only as tools for promoting routes and facilitating communication between the tourism industry and consumers, but also as specific historical sources that record shifts in actors, value orientations, and linguistic strategies of regional representation.
The study shows that Soviet travel guides, created by local ethnographers and historians, construct Tuva as a “land of wild exotica” and as a repository of natural and cultural “treasures”, yet embedded in the ideological narrative of territorial development and the construction of a “new, Soviet Tuva”. Sacred dimensions of the landscape and local religious practices are often marginalized or presented merely as elements of folkloric background. In contrast, the Le Petit Futé guide forms an image of Tuva as a little-known yet extremely attractive destination for foreign travelers, emphasizing its unspoiled nature, archaeological heritage, ethnocultural diversity, Buddhist and shamanic traditions, and the need for respectful engagement with local norms. The involvement of the Tuvan intelligentsia plays a significant role here, helping to avoid common negative stereotypes and to partially redefine external perceptions of the region.
Contemporary Tuvan and Russian publications consolidate the image of Tuva as a land of unique natural and cultural “treasures” and as a “Tuva Incognita”, while simultaneously highlighting its geographic and symbolic centrality (the metaphor of the “Heart of Asia”) alongside its limited infrastructural accessibility. Competitions devoted to identifying the “jewels” of the republic enhance the agency of local communities in shaping the region’s touristic brand, turning them into co-authors of the list of culturally significant objects.
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For citation:
Lamazhaa Ch. K. and Burkitbayeva Sh. D. Touristic Images of Tuva. New Research of Tuva, 2026, no. 2, pp. 5-25. (In Russ.). DOI: https://doi.org/10.25178/nit.2026.2.1
Author Biographies
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Chimiza K. Lamazhaa Al-Farabi Kazakh National University
Doctor of Philosophy, Chief Researcher, Scientific Research Institute of Turkology and Altaic Studies, Farabi University.
Postal address: 71/27 Al-Farabi Ave., Almaty, 050000, Kazakhstan.
E-mail: lamazhaa@tuva.asia
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Shynaray D. Burkitbayeva Al-Farabi Kazakh National University
PhD, Acting Associate Professor, Department of Turkology and Language Theory, Farabi University.
Postal address: 71/27 Al-Farabi Ave., Almaty, 050000, Kazakhstan.
E-mail: burkitbaeva.1975@mail.ru
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