The picture of the month November was introduced in the Freestyle category and is called „The power of resilience“. It´s author Mgr. Jan Horák, MA, says: „Although this picture was taken in July 2017 in Todzha district of the Tuva republic, it was then lost for 5 years. It only resurfaced last July, when I was preparing a presentation for the National Museum’s talk about reindeer people. The picture depicts a 9-year-old boy, who shows unparalleled cultural resilience among the Tozhu people, the last reindeer hunters and small-scale breeders of the Eastern Sayan mountains. Whilst most of his peers will go on with their lives, move out from taiga and mountains, and start living as ‘westerners’, he wishes to stay in the landscape of his ancestors with his family’s reindeer. The picture seems even more important now in the current geopolitical climate, since this might have been the last time we had an opportunity to see these people following their traditional lifeways.“
