Jump to content

Tofalar

From Wikipedia, the free encyclopedia

This is an old revision of this page, as edited by DragonBot (talk | contribs) at 13:03, 21 June 2009 (robot Adding: ug:ﺗﻮﻓﺎ ﻣﯩﻠﻠﯩﺘﻰ). The present address (URL) is a permanent link to this revision, which may differ significantly from the current revision.

Tofalars (Тофалары, тофа (tofa) in Russian; formerly known as карагасы, or karagas) are a Turkic people in the Irkutsk Oblast in Russia. Their origins, language, and culture are close to those of the eastern Tuvans-Todzhins. Before the October Revolution, the Tofalars used to be engaged in nomadic reindeer breeding in taiga and hunting. The Tofalars were resettled by the Soviet government by 1932. Young Tofalars learned Russian at new Soviet-built schools, while cultural traditions such as hunting and shamanism were discouraged or prohibited. According to the 2002 census, there were 837 Tofalars in Russia (2,828 in 1926, 476 in 1959, 570 in 1970, 576 in 1979 and 722 in 1989).