>>...Tuvan regular army units

Nerd here (mentioning this as at one point in my life I felt compelled to read everything by and about Richard Feinman). He and Ralph Leighton decided to go to Tuva (one attraction was that the capital's name had no vowels). Leighton turned the adventure in a book. Worth a read. Excerpt here. More about the difficulties to travel to Mongolia than for a sense of the people there. For that, I highly recommend Farley Mowat's "The Siberians".

This plus a friend having traveled to Siberia to do atmospheric particulate research left me with the desire to someday visit (not in midwinter!) I guess I might have to wait for the dissolution of the RF, and the resultant unpleasantness to subside.