Shaman burial

In the Gorno-Altaisk museum there were many amazing exhibits, but this seems to me the most photogenic. It is a reconstruction of a burial chamber in which a senior member of a tribe was interred with three horses, clothes, food and many other items thought to be useful in the afterlife.

Shamanism is making a comeback in places like the Altai as the disease of socialist materialism is progressively being sloughed off. Interestingly, the museum had many instruments which were clearly borans in another form. These were used, and are again being used, in shamanistic rituals, which could I suppose be thought of as spirtual ceilidhs.

Socialism distorted most things in life, including the history profession. The popular saying among Russians in Soviet times was that "the future is certain; only the past is open to doubt." The result was that historians who wanted to stay alive, in Stalin times, or, after Stalin, to keep their central flat with parquet flooring and their comfortable dacha steered clear of recent history. Consequently, Soviet history was progressively more interesting the further back in time you went. Archaeology was conducted to the highest international standards. So this sort of exhibit can be considered to have been authoritatively researched.