GlobalGiving.org: Revive Altai cultural/environmental sustainability

Altai Cultural Center Construction Progress Report

Carol Hiltner — Thu, 22 Dec 2011 05:13:15 GMT

The camp cookfire

Amazing progress was made last summer toward the development of the planned cultural revival center in the village of Tyungur in Altai. Local volunteers installed about 1000 feet of fencing (to keep the cows out and the young children in), dug and constructed an outhouse, and built an outdoor kitchen and sheltered dining area, as well as two traditional summer a’ils for sleeping.

All this was immediately used to host a month-long summer camp for children from nearby villages, teaching them traditional Altai arts and freeing their parents for their critically important herding and subsistence farming activities.

The vision is the construction of an incubation center to foster the revival of traditional “cottage industry,” which was suppressed during Communist times. Only the few elders still have the know-how. The funds to purchase the building materials were donated during the previous winter. Next summer’s construction on the site is dependent on further donations this winter. Please donate generously!

Links:

Altai Mir University website

Tyungur Cultural Center launches kids' camp

Carol Hiltner — Thu, 15 Sep 2011 07:15:15 GMT

Camp counselors gather around the cookfire

The new Altai Cultural Center in Tyungur, Altai Republic, (which this project supports) started the summer off with a huge contribution to the local community -- a pro bono kids' camp for local children.

The month-long camp specialized in teaching the children about Altai throat-singing, as the counselors were all professional musicians-in-training.

In the future, this camp will organize professional cooperatives in other culturally important activities, such as bee-keeping and animal husbandry.

Your contributions support the development of these cooperatives.

Defend UNESCO Heritage Site from gas pipeline

Carol Hiltner — Sun, 15 May 2011 16:23:42 GMT

Prevent the Ukok Plateau gas pipeline

Herodotus called this place "the pastures of heaven." And its all at risk!

The Altai people are working feverishly to protect the ancient and fragile sacred cultural heritage of global importance, including mummies preserved in permafrost, from being laid waste by a gas pipeline that, according to independent assessments, provides no net economic benefit to Russia, but immeasurable loss of human heritage in one of the last truly pristine environments on Earth.

Your donation, large or small, funds the preventive efforts of Altai leaders who are dedicated to protecting the ancient Altai cultural/environmental heritage for future generations.

Siberian winter is a time for preparation

Carol Hiltner — Sat, 26 Feb 2011 04:27:07 GMT

schematic of Tyungur cultural center

With average temperatures of -30C. at this time of year, we can hardly wait for next summer! With donations made during the winter, village volunteers will continue with the construction of the cultural center in Tyungur Village that will not only provide training in sustainable livelihoods to indigenous villagers from all over Altai, but it will also accommodate and inform the large numbers of tourists that trek from Tyungur to sacred Mt. Belukha every summer -- enriching the tourists' experience while incubating village businesses.

We are so grateful for your support with this project, which is well leveraged to enable the Altai people to recover their traditional livelihoods, which were forbidden during the Communist era.

Links:

Learn more on the Altai Mir University web site

Laying winter groundwork for cultural centers

Carol Hiltner — Thu, 09 Dec 2010 22:34:41 GMT

Alana dances. We sponsor her throat-singing.

Thank you for your continuing support of sustainable traditional livelihoods. 100% of donations received are now supporting the construction/establishment of two indigenous cultural centers in the village of Tyungur, the trailhead for pilgrimages to sacred Mt. Belukha. One is a sound-healing center to enable throat-singers to serve the community as well as pilgrims. The other is a more public center where traditional livelihoods such as wool processing and bee-keeping will be taught.

The funds from the recent GlobalGiving matching campaign are being used to procure wood now, so it will be seasoned before construction next summer. Our Altai partner Svetlana Katynova sends you her most heart-felt thanks!

Delays, but also great news!!

Carol Hiltner — Mon, 20 Sep 2010 03:41:43 GMT

Svetlana at the healing center site

Traditional sound healing center progress In May, our project to construct a throat-singing sound healing center in the village of Tyungur in the Altai Republic in southern Siberia won a $2500 RUHeart prize from the Fred Foundation. I visited the site in late June, and attach a photograph. The logs are for construction of the healing center building.

Svetlana Katynova, our local partner had told me that it was in a very quiet place. Quiet indeed! It is several kilometers past the end of the road, and the end of the road is a full day's drive from the nearest city. But it's a beautiful site, located up the bank from the sacred Katun River. When I was there, the river was flooded, but the site was high and dry.

Unfortunately, construction was delayed week by week all summer, because the multiple attempts to get the RUHeart funds to Svetlana's bank were unsuccessful for a different reason each time. Finally, in late August RUHeart wired the funds to me and I sent them on by Western Union. So now Svetlana and her family and a couple of the throat-singers are in Tyungur, and the construction is underway!

During my visit, $200 of your donated funds covered transportation and food costs for the 7 young throat-singers to participate in El Oyin, Altai's biennial regional cultural festival, where the singers performed. THANK YOU for enabling this! Such festivals are crucial incubators for up-coming singers. Not only do they exchange techniques with other singers, but they are also critiqued by elders.

One of the short-comings of our group was a lack of traditional costumes, which, at about $100 per person, are far beyond the financial reach our student singers. Their singing was so inspiring that a local felt-maker offered to donate her labor to make extra-special costumes for our group. So now, we need only need to raise $50 per person or $350 for our group to be exquisitely costumed. A slideshow of El Oyin that shows some of the amazing costumes is linked below.

The great news! Meanwhile (because no grass grows under Svetlana), TWO of her other cultural/environmental projects are receiving partial funding from the Altai Republic government. The Ministry of Tourism provided some funding for the publication and translation of a ground-breaking book on the sacred places in the Ust Koksa district where Tyungur Village is. Svetlana spent five years painstakingly interviewing indigenous Altai elders about their memories of the locations and significance of these places. The book is both an archive and a documentation of living culture.

And finally, a project to upgrade a local family dairy in Tyungur will be funded by the Ministry of Agriculture. This will include development of a regional marketing structure, and will initially employ 11 people. I will keep you posted on the progress!

Links:

Slidshow of the color and pageantry of this ancient culture

Construction Underway

Carol Hiltner — Mon, 14 Jun 2010 16:34:31 GMT

Construction of a traditional healing center in the village of Tyungur is set to begin in late June . Only within the last week has the weather been warm enough for construction. The village administration has provided the land, and the villagers will provide the labor. Traditional Altai structures, called a'ils, have a pentagonal or hexagonal footprint and a steep peaked roof. Because this structure will have to withstand sustained winter temperatures of -30C., it will be built as a double shell, and will have a large brick stove rather than a central firepit. However, the customary dirt floor will remain because it is believed to keep the occupants connected to the Mother Earth. $18,000 is needed for building materials. We have raised about $1,000 from personal donations, plus a $2,500 prize from the Fred Foundation -- enough to start the project! Thank you for your wonderful support thus far!! Donations made on-line on June 16th will be matched at 50% by Global Giving, and also matched at 50% by a donor to Altai Mir University, so please help us out with this project by making a generous donation on June 16th!!

Links:

Project on GlobalGiving

March 16th: Protect indigenous cultures = protect YOURSELF!

Carol Hiltner — Fri, 12 Mar 2010 22:40:49 GMT

Planting seeds for the future

Dear fellow Earth-ship cosmonaut! For the past decade, since I understood the crucial global importance of the glorious Altai Mountains and their beleaguered indigenous stewards, I have devoted all my time and all my resources (my income, my savings, my inheritance) to finding ways that a Westerner could help and not do further damage. Now YOUR continuing help is needed. The Altai people are now finding ways to positively respond, and have asked for YOUR help. Several projects, mentioned below, directly support Altai villages to re-build their sacred culture and thus sustain Mother Earth. The cosmic energy that flows into the Earth in Altai feeds all of us! Some Western scientists recognize this, however the ancient mechanisms must still be actively protected. For various reports/updates, see our newly revamped website: www.AltaiMir.org. Your contribution will be DOUBLED until April 15th. An ADDITIONAL 30% will be added if you can donate ON-LINE on TUESDAY, MARCH 16 (at www.AltaiMir.org) • $10 = transports 1 regional Altai elder to lead a remote village's self-organizing meeting • $32 = enables 1 person to map a sacred site to protect it from being sold/developed • $64 = pays land registration fees for 1 Altai family • $100 = provides start-up supplies for 1 communal village industry in the traditional way • $500 = supports 1 Altai educator to develop culturally appropriate curricula for indigenous children for a month • $1000 = buys 1 portable yurt for use as a village youth meeting place and cultural center PROTECT MOTHER EARTH NOW!! We ALL must lay the groundwork! 100% of what we receive goes directly into projects in Altai (unless specified by donor).

Links:

See our newly revamped website!

PROGRESS BEING MADE!!

Carol Hiltner — Sat, 23 Jan 2010 17:40:28 GMT

our Altai throat-singers

We are now focusing on two related arenas: - preservation of Altai's sacred sites of recognized global importance, and - support for indigenous stewards of those sites.

GREAT NEWS re sacred sites: By some miracle, the January 2010 deadline for Altai people to register their traditional lands has been EXTENDED 10 YEARS! We were able to get only the most pivotal lands protected before the deadline. Now, local activists will have time to register the rest. Your previous contributions shifted the balance. A DONATION NOW will be well leveraged to complete the process.

PROGRESS re cultural reclamation: Sustainable livelihood is the heartbeat of a culture. - This year's focus is on supporting talented young throat-singers to serve Tyungur village as sound healers. They have been given land on which they must now build their healing center/home. They will need $18,000 for materials for a climate-appropriate building, MATCH THEIR LABOR WITH A MATERIAL DONATION!!

- Women in Bo'ochi village are using ancient technologies to make organic woolen clothing/blankets for export. HELP US FIND INTERNATIONAL DISTRIBUTION ROUTES!

For more photos/reports, see http://www.AltaiMir.org. THANK YOU deeply for your support of Altai. It makes a huge difference to the planet.

Carol in a Bo'ochi fleece vest

Links:

more reports and photos

Attachments:

details about throat-singers (PDF)