In Kyzyl, the capital of the Republic of Tyva, two rivers Biy-Khem and Ka-Khem merge. Or, Big Yenisei and Small. Together they give rise to the Yenisei River itself. It carries its waters from the borders of Mongolia to the Arctic Ocean for more than four thousand kilometers. The Yenisei is also called the middle river or the ridge of Russia. The first of the Russian people came to the Yenisei detachments of Cossacks. Very soon they swam to the mouth and found out that the river flows into the icy ocean. Much more mysterious were the lands upstream of the Yenisei River. Adventurers came here first. They were diggers of ancient burial mounds, treasure hunters. The nature of Tuva is unique. There is no other such region in Russia. In a small area, many natural landscapes are replaced here. Now we are in the mountain tundra, a little lower - the taiga. And having descended from the Tannu-Ola ridge to the Ubsunur basin, we find ourselves in a real desert. It is the northernmost sandy desert on the planet. The Great Steppe adjoins the deserts. Homeland of nomads. The history of the steppe peoples has been little studied, and yet they settled from here both to the north and far to the west. There is, perhaps, not a single people in Europe in which the blood of the steppe nomads would not flow.