The capital of the Altay Republic is a pleasant place just across the border from the Altai Territory, 467km from Novosibirsk.

Local Studies Museum has a reconstructed Pazyryk burial and material on Palaeolithic sites, petroglyphs, fauna and the history of the Chuisky Tract road to the Mongolian border. One of the first heads and organizers of the Museum in the 20-s was A.V.Anokhin (1869-1931) - a famous researcher of culture of the Turkic peoples of South Siberia. Over 20 years of his life were devoted to the study of Gorny Altai, he gathered a great amount of material on ethnography, folklore, musical and singing art of the Altaian tribes. The Museum's archeological collection characterizes the main stages of ancient history of Gorny Altai. Today about 40 thousand exhibits are stored in the Museum's funds.