Tourist class

By AMANDA RICKER Chronicle Staff Writer

Tourists leave garbage. They don’t respect local religious edifices. They come and go as they please and their numbers are multiplying.

That’s the situation a group of five people from Russia’s Altai Republic say they’re dealing with at home. They’re in southwest Montana and Yellowstone National Park this week with the nonprofit Altai Assistance Project to gather information about how America preserves its land and culture while at the same time harnessing economic gains from its tourist market.

“Everybody can go anywhere and stop wherever he or she likes,” Oleg Boltokov, said of the Altai Republic through an interpreter. “They don’t care if the place has special meaning for local people.”

Boltokov is one of the Altai’s few guides who built and operates small tourist lodges near the popular 14,000-foot Mt. Ak-Tru.

Nestled in the “Golden Mountains of Altai” in southern Siberia, the Altai Republic is roughly the size of Indiana. With its alpine landscapes and scenic rivers, the Altai resembles Montana and has economic similarities in that its people are traditionally livestock herders, said Matt Foley, who runs the New York-based Altai Assistance Project.

More than 800,000 Russian and international tourists visited the Altai in 2007, according to the Republic’s Ministry of Tourism. That’s four times the Altai’s population.

“They’ve been discovered,” Foley said.

Boltokov said tourists started coming to the Altai about six or seven years ago.

Russia is now the fastest growing car market in the world, and millions of people in industrial cities live within a day’s drive of the Altai, Foley said. And, now that the Altai has become a popular destination, wealthy Russians are starting to buy up the land.

Newcomers have died without a guide in the Altai, falling through glaciers and drowning in fast-flowing rivers, Boltokov said. The Altaians aren’t ready for tourists.

The Altai has some local and federally protected lands, but many of the protections are weak, Foley said. Protected areas do not have the funding, staffing or infrastructure to operate effectively.

Natalya Mamyeva is a teacher and school museum manager in the Altai who came on the trip to learn ways to preserve the local culture amid the influx of newcomers.

The ethnic Altai practice shamanism and have spiritual beliefs similar to Native Americans, honoring lake, mountain and other nature-based spirits.

“We saved our local cultures and we saved our local traditions,” Mamyeva said through an interpreter. “We still practice the same traditions and same rituals … People who come to the area should respect the spirits of the area and the spirituality of the people there.”

Taisia Markitonova is a lawyer who came on the trip to learn about legal issues surrounding park creation. Also joining the group are Victoria Tutkusheva and Natalya Yurkova, who are interpreters and project managers for the Altai Assistance Project’s sister organization in the Altai Republic, the Foundation for Sustainable Development of Altai.

“We want to help the local people to earn money from the nature, without damaging it,” Yurkova said. “They can produce amazing things (crafts), but they don’t know how to sell them.”

The Altai Assistance Project found its way to the Gallatin Valley with help from Kent Madin, owner of Boojum Expeditions, an adventure travel company that operates next door to the Altai in northern Mongolia, and Norm and Cathy Weeden, of the Weeden Foundation, which funds Altai conservation projects.

For more information about the Altai Assistance Project, visit www.altaiassistanceproject.org.

Amanda Ricker can be reached at aricker@dailychronicle.com or 582-2628.

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