Two key aspects are essential for understanding the Empate project: its location in one of Russia’s most beautiful regions, and its typology. An eco-settlement is not just a cottage community with a unified design code – it represents a particular lifestyle and a way of managing daily life, which we will explain in more detail later. First, however, let’s start with the beauty.

The Edge of the World

The eco-settlement is planned near Zamulta, one of the so-called “Old Believer” villages located along the Katun River near the Russia-Kazakhstan border. Getting to this place is no easy task: from Gorno-Altaysk, it’s another 400 kilometers to drive, part of which is on unpaved roads. Still, tourists do make their way here – to raft toward the Multinsky Lakes, visit the house where Nicholas Roerich stayed during his Central Asian Expedition, and observe the Old Believer way of life. Interestingly, that way of life hasn’t changed much since the days when the first settlers arrived here in the 19th century, fleeing clashes with the czarist authorities. People who live here still raise livestock, plant vegetables, keep bees, trade in deer antlers, and often resort to herbal medicine – in other words, they remain self-sufficient and largely independent of the outside world, big and chaotic.

The site for the eco-settlement is located in a bend of the Katun. It is gently sloping, resembling a large meadow with panoramic views of the surroundings: mountains, fields, blooming meadows, birch groves, and larch woods.

An Altai Utopia

The typology chosen by the client feels both organically suited to the place and somewhat exotic. It is based on the concept of the eco-settlement – a “self-governed rural community whose members provide for their own needs and place great importance on caring for the environment”. Similar settlements already exist, in fact, in this part of Altai and have for several years.

The land will be divided into lots. Buyers are expected to be approved by the community based on recommendations, interviews, and even shared life values and goals – apparently, there is already a core group of initiators who will gradually expand. The residents will manage the settlement themselves and negotiate what financial contributions they are willing to make to support and develop it.

However, unlike a true subsistence eco-settlement, this place does not require heavy physical labor just to stay warm and fed – this remote “garden” city is equipped with infrastructure that effectively turns it into a fully-fledged retreat. Staying here, people focus primarily on self-discovery, spiritual practices, and restoring balance.

Marina Egorova, Empate Architectural Bureau

The pattern inscribed within the rectangle is shaped by the spirit of the place: the master plan’s design refers to traditional Altaic zoomorphic motifs. Some elements resemble the spiral-shaped horns of the mountain ram. This animal is one of the key symbols in the mythology of the indigenous peoples of the Altai Mountains – various Turkic sub-ethnic groups – and embodies vital energy, strength, wealth, and abundance. The identity of a place can be expressed not only through the architecture of facades or the buildings’ plastique, but also through the very urban structure itself.