Save Altai

Altai is a Garden of Eden. Pristine nature, sacred water springs, white capped mountain tops, wild flowers in every shape and colour imaginable.

Local people worship nature and pay respect to the master spirits of the mountains, rivers and springs. Unfortunately real estate developers from Russia worship another god. Their holy cow is money, and the Altai is the perfect place for investors to make a big - and quick - buck. You buy land, build tourist resorts and hotels, and then sell it for double the price or more to tourist companies.

Recently laws have been changed so that land with access to rivers can be sold, something that was not possible before. Earth, water and sky in the Altai belonged to everybody and nobody. Herders don’t understand the concept of owning land. But they've learned pretty fast now that old forests are disappearing so rapidly and newly build fences block migration routes of their cattle. Slowly but surely locals are organizing themselves - on the village level and on a national level.