Scientist and Driver Turn Shamans in Tumen, Conduct Rituals for Income

In the past, Gulnara Azzaubaeva worked at a university — she is a Doctor of Sciences and a hematologist. Eight years ago, the Tumen resident decided it was time to change her life. Gulnara went to Altai to see shamans. There she underwent training, initiation, and sewed herself a ritual costume from eight kilometers of thread. Thus, the scientist became a shaman.

Now Gulnara lives in the Bogandinsky settlement near Tumen. Together with her husband — a former driver — they conduct shamanic practices and earn money from it. We visited the couple and are telling their story to you.

«The spirits told us about you»

Gulnara and Alexey greet us at the entrance. Both are in bright clothes and smiling. “Welcome!” — the hosts say with expression. It seems like a theatrical tour is about to begin. They escort us into the chum; inside, some popular song is playing from a speaker, and it is turned off.

— “Gulechka, can I open the space first?” — says Alexey.

— “Yes, of course. We are already working.”

Alexey sticks a knife into a wooden board, puts butter into the fire, and we begin the conversation.

— “The spirits told us about you. They would not have let you in if you had any burden on your soul. It is not so easy to get here,” — Alexey says seriously and looks into our eyes.

«I am not a well-known scientist in Russia, but a shaman»

Gulnara, calm and smiling, devoted twenty years to science. She worked in the chemistry and expertise department of Kurgan University.

— “I am a Doctor of Sciences, professor, scientific secretary of the dissertation council. A well-known scientist in Russia, a hematologist. At the time of changing my path, I had written eight monographs and more than three hundred scientific papers. Also, I am a master of psychology,” — says Gulnara.

Parallel to her work, Gulnara traveled around Russia by hitchhiking. She has been doing this alone since she was 16. In 2015, she wanted to reach the Ukok Plateau. Among one of the groups guiding people to these places were shamans.

— “I wrote to Tuye and asked to take me along, and then a message came: ‘Come, we are waiting for you,’” — recounts Gulnara.

Then she began to take an interest in shamanism, started training with shamans. But she continued her work at the university. The reason for quitting was an incident that happened in 2017. At that time, the university where Gulnara worked was undergoing accreditation.

— “There was no sleep or rest. Huge piles of paper, curricula. And then, when the university passed accreditation, we were told: ‘Now throw it all in the trash, because no one will study according to this. It was all done so that we could get the license,’” — the shaman recounts.

This period Gulnara calls an “existential crisis.” She went back to Ukok and told a shaman she knew about her work.

— “And then my teacher said: ‘Gulya, think about where your life is going? Into the trash can? Leave this job,’” — recalls Gulnara. — “And when I came home, I went to work. And I said to myself: ‘Azzaubaeva, if you stay here, you will have nothing more in life. And you will die here.’ I stood up, went to my boss, and said I was quitting.”

Gulnara spent five years training with shamans, “left social life.” This means Gulnara no longer had official work.

— “I was on Ukok for four years in a row. I needed to be there for three years to gain power,” — says Gulnara. — “I sewed ritual clothing. I used eight kilometers of thread just for that. I lived with elder teachers for a month and a half and sewed my ton.”

It is believed that spirits reside in the “ton.” It looks like a robe — heavy, dense, with hanging multi-colored ropes. Gulnara forbade photographing the clothing because it is sacred. After this, in 2018, she moved to Tumen.

Gulnara explains that she was “chosen by the spirits, and it is useless to fight it,” so now she is “not a well-known scientist in Russia, but a shaman.” The shaman says that if she had known how her life would change, she would have thought twice — whether it was worth starting this path.

— “There is a transformation of the body and consciousness. Shamanism — this is a way of life. It is not a religion. We live like this. You can throw paper in a trash can in front of people. But when there are no people, you can throw papers on the ground. Even when no one from among people sees us, our spirits and ancestors are watching us. And one must live so as not to feel ashamed.”

«I realized that all these years I was not on my own path»

Alexey speaks openly and emotionally — he says he always loved communicating with people. For 35 years he worked as a driver: on buses, passenger cars, and trucks. During trips, he recalls, he often started conversations with passengers, and they would ask: “Why do you work as a driver?”

Alexey was interested in esotericism: he attended ethno-festivals, traveled to places where Gulnara was with a shamanic group. Gradually he began to understand that he wanted to change his life.

— “You know, when a person burns out. Feels that this is no longer his path. If a person accepts what is happening to him, then comes the realization of why this information was given. Then transformation occurs,” — explains Alexey.

During this period, at the bus station in Zavodoukovsk, Alexey met Gulnara. Before that, he had heard about her from an acquaintance from a festival. He recalls that she was wearing a leather hat, and a wolf was sticking out of her backpack. Gulnara was hitchhiking to Balkhash. That day she was unlucky because no one agreed to give her a ride. And Alexey offered help. Together they drove to Kazansky.

Gulnara returned from her journey, and two weeks later she met Alexey again in Tumen. Another two days passed, and Gulnara herself wrote to the new acquaintance. He was living in a private house in Bogandinsky at the time.

— “And so it was the autumn equinox. And the spirits tell me: ‘You need to conduct [the ritual] exactly at the point of the spring equinox.’ And I say: ‘But I have nowhere to do it.’ And they say: ‘Call Alexey.’ And I write: ‘Alexey, I have just two questions for you. Are you free on Sunday?’ And I write on Saturday evening. And the second: ‘Do you have a ritual hearth?’ And he replies: ‘I am free. There will be.’ And he made a ritual hearth in one evening. Moreover, he did it correctly.”

«We do not live for ourselves»

A year ago, Gulnara and Alexey got married. They say, among other things, the spirits hinted that they needed to be together. The husband became the shaman«s first student. In Bogandinsky, they built a chum, brought a shrine — figures of pagan gods — from Taganay. Alexey and Gulnara conducted their first ritual together.

— “On the night of Veles, I rewrote my roads. I completely abandoned social life. I stepped onto my own path,” — recounts Alexey.

Alexey and Gulnara practice Tuvan shamanism. This is an ancient spiritual practice where the shaman acts as an intermediary between the world of people and the world of spirits. They use a drum, costume, and attributes. For example, mirrors and fangs. To the question: “How do you communicate with the spirits?” Gulnara answers that she hears them.

Guests started coming to the couple from all over Russia. They held their first seminar on the topic “50+ — a new life or a pharmacy” in May. In the training, both share their experience and apply shamanic practices.

— “This seminar was to give people hope. To show that life is beautiful, there is something to do. There are so many roads around — and it does not matter how old you are,” — says Gulnara.

The shamans explain that people who have lost themselves come to them. And the task of Alexey and Gulnara is to help them in their search. Now they continue to conduct seminars, fortune-telling, rituals. For example, a “ritual of cleansing from alcohol spirits” costs 20,000 rubles (about $220 at current rates). Training in fortune-telling on khuvanok (traditional Tuvan shamanic fortune-telling with stones. — Ed.) — 8,000 rubles (about $90 at current rates).

— “We do not live for ourselves. We do not have a helicopter pad. And we do not have a Maybach. So now we are expanding the space. Of course, there are huge plans. We already have plans scheduled for a year,” — says Alexey.

Earlier we wrote that a participant in the TV show “New Battle of Psychics” (16+) on TNT became Tumen tarot reader Valentina Lemyagova. She brilliantly passed the remote selection and came to the site for the trials. One of them was conducted on a frosty day in the suburbs of Moscow: she had to spend 5 hours in the cold without the possibility of going somewhere to warm up.