Facts: the number in Russian Federation - 3 608

Main region - the Republic of Buryatia

Native language - buryat, russian, soyot

The ethnonym soyot goes back to one of the generic names - soyan (soyet, soyong).

The name of the mountain range – Sayans (Sayan land in Russian documents of the 17th and 18th centuries), the place where people who belonged to the genus (or genera) of Sayans lived, also goes back to him. Soyots previously occupied quite large territories in the mountains and in the Tunka Valley.

Okinsky district, in Buryatia in which the majority of Soyots live borders on the Todzhinsky district of the Republic of Tuva, where the Tuvan-Todzhin people live, and with the Khubsugul Aimag of Mongolia, in the north of which the Tsaatan people, related to them, live. All three ethnic communities – Soyots of Buryatia, Todzhins of Tuva and Tsaatans of Mongolia are close to each other in language (all three languages belong to the Uighur subgroup of Turkic languages), type of economy (hunters and taiga reindeer herders who bred yaks, Hainaks and deer)), lifestyle.