“Tuzhi”: where art returns to its roots
In the valley of the Khilok River, in a place where until 2021 there was only an endless steppe, a unique world has emerged — the Tuzhi Land Art Park. This is not just an open-air museum, but a living dedication to Dasha Namdakov's native land.
Dashi Namdakov returned to his native village of Ukurik, where he grew up in a large family of the ancient family of Darkhan blacksmiths, where his images were formed among the endless steppe and ancient legends. He returned to pay tribute to his roots, to revive life and create a space where art merges with nature.
Here, the vast expanses and high sky set no limits to creativity. Large-scale art objects grow out of the ground, like a continuation of the landscape itself, created from natural materials by the hands of a large team of relatives, childhood friends, and local residents. Each sculpture is a dialogue with the traditions of the ancestors, “translated” into the language of modern art.
Tuzhi has become a platform for the creative search of contemporary authors. The annual Tuzhi Art Festival, co-founded by the Moscow Museum of Modern Art, transforms the park into a living canvas, constantly being updated like nature itself.
This is a place where you want to return — to the origins, to the silence of the steppe, to the art that breathes with the earth.
The Tuzhi Art Festival is conceived as an annual summer event of federal significance, defining the Tuzhi Land Art Park as a new point on the cultural map of the country and a place of international tourist attraction.
On July 26, 2025, an unusual event combining ecology, art and traditions took place in the Tuzhi Land Art Park in Transbaikalia. Instead of the annual Tuzhi Art art festival, which was canceled due to fires that attacked Transbaikalia in the spring and early summer, the organizers held a Circle of Life campaign to plant 108 trees in the shape of a circle with a diameter of 70 meters.