Altai. This significant word was chosen once for the vast mountainous territory in the centre of Asia.

During a thousand years some people, who settled in the Altai Mountains, ceded the territory to others; here the many-tongued speech was heard and the tribes lived, not alike in their racial type. In the cource of centuries the administrative and political borders of medieval states changed repeatedly. Now the Mountainous Altai is shared among Mongolian, Russia, Kazakstan and China.

The geographers distinguish Goby Altai, which is situated in the South-East, and Mongolian Altai, which streches along the central part of the mountainous line and the Mountainous Altai, which lies in a north-westerly direction with the famous top Beluha (4506 m) - the highest top in Altai.

At the beginning of our century the geologists and the geographers subdivide territory on which russian Altai is situated into the Mining and the Mountainous Altai.

The Mining Altai is a relative small region, which in the south-ost is by the Irtish bordered, and in the north-ost - by the ridges of the Mountainous Altai: Listvjaga, Holzun, Koksuji, some lower Tigiretsk and Kolivan, which bit by bit is lost in the steppe planes. The borders of the Mining Altai are determined by geologists after the ancient fractures and special features of minig rocks, first of all their age. The name is connected with the plenty of polymetal ores (copper, zinc, lead) and ores of precious metals. But it should be noticed that such deposits are known in the neighbouring territories.