Chadan

Cave of Wishes
In the morning, Irina sent me and Roma to the Cave of Wishes, which, as I later realized, we never actually reached. We were supposed to keep climbing uphill, but we turned and went diagonally instead. That burrow in the first photo is also some kind of cave, and inside it there were also scraps of paper where people had written their wishes, but it's still not the Cave of Wishes. Even so, I left a scrap of paper with a wish anyway, and it wasn't so much my own wish as a blessing. Before leaving, I placed a couple of candies next to the note and wished the Tuvan people all the best. After that, we returned to the car and continued on our way...

Chadan
By midday we were in Chadan, the birthplace of Sergei Shoigu. To my surprise, Chadan has city status, which you'd never guess from looking at it. Everything there is steeped in wildness, simplicity; they hold their traditions dear — horse racing, wrestling...