The Azas State Nature Reserve is locat­ed in the north-east of Tuva, in the Todzha Basin, at the source of the largest riv­er in Siberia — the Yeni­sei. It was formed by a Decree of the Coun­cil of Min­is­ters of the RSFSR on Jan­u­ary 11, 1985; its area was then set at 337,300 hectares. The pur­pose of cre­at­ing the reserve is to pre­serve and study in their nat­ur­al state the typ­i­cal and unique eco­log­i­cal sys­tems of the Todzha Basin and the moun­tain uplifts fram­ing it, to pro­tect the gene pool of the flo­ra and fau­na of Tuva and the moun­tains of South­ern Siberia in gen­er­al. The his­to­ry of its orga­ni­za­tion is close­ly con­nect­ed with the dis­cov­ery, study and adop­tion of mea­sures to pro­tect the abo­rig­i­nal beaver pop­u­la­tion. Nature reserve. Square: 3003,9 sq.m.