Here is an aerial view of Tashytp, taken from a nearby hill. The town is about twice as wide as the picture shows. Around 6000 people live there and it is the district centre.
The town would be a city by Saskatchewan standards. But there are very few cars, and only a few of the roads are paved. There is a noticeable lack of commercialism unlike Novosibirsk. The shops are very plain buildings with a sign simply telling you that it is a shop. This new electronics shop that is opening in March is the beginning of commercialism in Tashtyp. The chain- Eldorado is where we bought our TV and DVD player in Novosibirsk.
This is the Унибермаг Univermag (short for Universal Magazine; magazine is Russian for shop). It is a small department store with many smaller shops inside. Overall Tashtyp has a decent supply of goods but prices are higher than in the city and there are still many things here that you can not buy.
A very lovely Khakass couple that I met in Tashtyp.
As I said, there is very little commercialism in this town. This is one of the few adds, on the shop building. It is an add for Beeline, one of the major mobile phone companies. We see their adds EVERYWHERE in the city.
The village is 100% devoid of commercialism. The only employment in the villages is school, health station and the house of culture. Most people live subsistence lives. Some manage to sell their cows for meat or sell milk.
The collective farm system completely broke down after 1991. Some of them were privatised. But today many fields lie unused as people simply do not have the machinery to farm them.
The one place for attractions in a village is the house of culture- a community hall if you like.
The house where we are staying is done up nicely inside. It may as well be somewhere in Germany. Our German friends have many Khakass friends in villages around the place, like the one you have just seen.
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