Our introduction to the contemporary art of Gorno-Altaysk begins with the monumental mural "Eternity" (Vechnost). Located on the facade of an apartment building on Lenkin Street, this work has become one of the city’s landmarks, bridging the traditional Altay worldview with the language of modern street art.

Arzhan Yuteyev is a young but already acclaimed artist from the Republic of Altay who uses monumental painting to speak about culture, memory, and the core values of his people. His murals are not merely urban decorations; they serve as anchors for cultural meaning.

The mural "Eternity" is dedicated to fundamental human values that the artist considers unchanging through time: love, loyalty, family bonds, and the continuity of generations.
In the center of the composition are a warrior and his beloved, depicted in an embrace. This gesture is filled with both warmth and inner tension: it conveys love as well as the anticipation of challenges ahead. The male figure gazes forward into the future, while the female figure symbolizes support, faithfulness, and the preservation of inner balance.

The work is striking in its scale and technical complexity. The artist himself noted that this was his most labor-intensive project, both in terms of volume and the vast array of color shades used. Light and shadow merge subtly in the composition: the bright aura surrounding the figures symbolizes purity and hope, while dark accents add drama and inner strength to the images. This allows the mural to blend seamlessly into the urban landscape while still commanding attention.

"Eternity" is not just an image; it is a quiet conversation with the viewer about roots, the connection between generations, and what remains important regardless of time or circumstance. This mural has become a symbol of loyalty, love, and cultural memory for the city, and it rightfully opens our cultural walk through Gorno-Altaysk.

Our next point on the map is another monumental work by Arzhan Yuteyev, dedicated to a person without whom the history of Altay art is unimaginable — Grigory Ivanovich Choros-Gurkin (1870−1937). This mural is a conversation across time between the first professional artist of Altay and the modern city.

Choros-Gurkin was the first professional Altay artist, a landscape painter, ethnographer, educator, and thinker. He was born here in Ulala — as Gorno-Altaysk was formerly known — and achieved what few can: he depicted his homeland in a way that all of Russia saw and recognized it. He studied under the great Ivan Shishkin, absorbing the traditions of the Russian realistic school while remaining absolutely original.

The mural is located at 14 Kommunistichesky Avenue. Created in 2020, it was Arzhan Yuteyev’s first major monumental project, launching a whole series of murals dedicated to Altay culture and its heroes.
In the center of the composition is the figure of Choros-Gurkin in traditional national clothing. His gaze is calm and focused, as if he is simply observing the city. Behind the master’s back are motifs from his magnum opus, the painting "Khan-Altay," a subject the artist returned to throughout his life. The mountain here symbolizes spirit, memory, and the motherland. The mural is titled "The Master’s Return," and the name feels especially precise.

Yuteyev’s work is a tribute of respect. This mural in Gorno-Altaysk serves as a vital reminder of cultural heritage, emphasizing that the roots of modern Altay art reach deep into history.

The next point on our route is dedicated to a man whose name is directly linked to the living memory of the Altay people — Nikolay Ulagashevich Ulagashev. He was a Kaichy — a traditional storyteller, folk singer, and guardian of the heroic epic of Alta’y.

The mural is located at 42 G.I. Choros-Gurkin Street, on the building of the Gorno-Altaysk Pedagogical College. It was created in 2021 to commemorate the 160th anniversary of the storyteller’s birth. The creation of the mural took eight days and became a significant cultural event for the city.

Nikolay Ulagashev was born in the mountainous region of Sary-Koksha in 1861. At the age of sixteen, he went blind, and it was after this that his life’s path was finally determined. He began wandering across Altay, performing ancient heroic legends — just as Kaichy had done for centuries: entirely from memory.

A Kaichy is not merely a narrator. He is a vessel through which tradition speaks. The epics performed by Ulagashev were created over many centuries and passed down only orally. His repertoire included more than thirty heroic legends, as well as songs, myths, and fairy tales. Many of these were recorded only in the late 1930s, thanks to the work of the Altay writer Pavel Kuchiyak and folklorist A.L. Garf. From that moment on, Ulagashev’s name became known to a wide circle of researchers and readers.

The folklore recorded from him formed the basis of the published epic heritage of the Alta’y people. His legends were included in the multi-volume edition "Altay Baatyrlar" ("Altai Heroes"), and some plots have been staged at the Altay National Drama Theater.

In this mural, the artist Yuteyev conveys not only a physical likeness but also the master’s inner state. The image of Ulagashev is concentrated and calm, as if he is listening. This is not the moment of performance, but the moment of silence between words, when the legend is just being born.

This mural is a sign of respect for all keepers of the oral tradition — people thanks to whom culture was preserved not in books, but in living sound. It reminds us that the history of Altay is also a voice passed from person to person.

Our exploration of the cultural meanings of Gorno-Altaysk continues at the mural dedicated to Lazar Kokyshev. This wall painting on the facade of the building at 47 Kommunistichesky Avenue was created by Arzhan Yuteyev — an artist who excels at transforming city walls into spaces of memory and respect for those who shaped the voice of Altay.

Lazar Kokyshev is a classic of Altay literature, a poet, and a playwright. In his texts, Altay resounds as a living motherland: warm, austere, and intimate — a place to which one returns after the longest of journeys. This is why, in the mural’s composition, it is not just the portrait that matters, but also the lines of poetry written in both the Russian and Altay languages. Here, the word becomes part of the image, and the image an extension of the word.

At the center of the work is the writer’s face: calm and observant. Beside it are the lines of poetry that capture Kokyshev’s central theme: returning to one’s native land as a place of strength and inner support. These words sound almost like a greeting and a promise:
"Hello, my dear land… I have returned from far-off roads… I could not help but return!"

The mural appeared in 2022 near the National Museum, and this location feels very fitting. Here, just a few steps from the exhibits housing the republic’s material history, the literary history resounds: memory expressed through poetry. The work seems to bridge generations, reminding us that culture lives not only in objects and dates but also in language, intonation, and lines that stay with people for a long time.
The mural dedicated to Lazar Kokyshev has become a symbol of continuity for the city: a mark of respect for the power of the word and for those who used that word to preserve and pass on the character and inner light of Altay.

After exploring the street murals, our route leads us to a space where contemporary Altay art can be understood more deeply. The gallery of Arzhan Yuteyev is a place for focused observation.

Arzhan Yuteyev is an artist from the Republic of Altay and a member of the Union of Artists of Russia, working in the genre of mystical realism. His painting grows out of the Altay heroic epic, Turkic runic script, ancient burial mounds, stone stelae, and the petroglyphs of the Altai Mountains. These sources are not cited literally; they are sensed as a memory of form, a rhythm, an inner image that the artist translates into the language of color and texture.

Significantly, the gallery is not a static exhibition. A new exhibition opens here every year, so the space is constantly updated: new series appear, accents shift, and even familiar motifs look different. It is like returning to the same mountain trail in different seasons — the path is recognizable, yet the impression is new every time.

The gallery includes a shop with branded goods, merchandise, and reproductions, as well as a café and coffee shop. Events are held here regularly: creative evenings, meetings, and small concerts by national ensembles. On such days, the gallery resounds with particular depth — acting as a cultural platform where art is not just "shown," but lived.

If Yuteyev’s murals are points of meaning on the city map, then the gallery is an opportunity to pause and see the source: the artist and his language, through which modern Altay speaks about itself.

This is one of the oldest national scientific and cultural institutions in the republic. The foundation of the future museum was laid back in 1918, when collections related to the history and nature of the mountain region began to be acquired and preserved. Its official founding date is 1920 — the year it was formally recognized that a museum in Gorny Altay was essential.

The museum is named after Andrey Viktorovich Anokhin — an ethnographer, composer, and educator who was one of the museum’s organizers and its first director. For many years, he collected materials on the ethnography, folklore, and music of the peoples of Southern Siberia and Altay, which became the bedrock of the museum’s holdings.

Today, the museum is housed in a purpose-built facility that underwent major reconstruction and expansion between 2008 and 2012. The exhibitions are vast and varied, ranging from ancient history and archaeology to ethnography, nature, and the modern period. The funds house tens of thousands of unique items.
A central place in the museum is occupied by an exhibition dedicated to a discovery of world significance — the mummified remains of a woman from the Pazyryk culture, found in 1993 on the high-altitude Ukok Plateau. This find is often called the "Princess of Ukok," though it is more accurate to refer to her as a priestess or a noblewoman. Her burial, over two thousand years old, stands as one of Eurasia’s most important archaeological discoveries. Today, in a specially designed sacred space within the museum, you can see authentic artifacts of the Pazyryk culture and feel a direct connection to ancient Altay.

The museum also houses the largest collection of works by Grigory Ivanovich Choros-Gurkin. Here, you can see original paintings by the master whose name has become synonymous with the Altay landscape and artistic memory. Beyond his work, the collection features other artists, as well as graphics, ethnographic materials, documents, and objects that piece together the complete history of the region.
Thus, this museum is the ideal final point of our city route: after the streets and murals, we enter a space where the culture of Altay is gathered under one roof.