[SunkenCiv]

1,300-year-old structure could be a fortress, summer palace, monastery, or even an astronomical observatory. Picture: gdehorosho.ru

[Tailback]

The Kildar...

[BobL]

We’ll probably learn more about this site, now that Russia is getting back in business in defending its allies. The days of bombing Serbian kindergartens and civilian bridges, without pushback, are about over for us.

[Army Air Corps]

The earliest known KOA.

[Ouderkirk]

Based on some of the pictures at the link...maybe it wasn’t a fortress, but a prison or exile location.

[Squantos]

Tang ...... did they find any tang ?

[rockinqsranch]

Playing with the numbers we come up with 86-87 acres which makes it a tad larger than Fort Courage.

[TigersEye]

...but some time after the abandonment there was another catastrophic earthquake which led to fires...

I can't think of a reason that earthquakes would lead to fires in an abandoned structure.

[gnarledmaw]

That figure 8 structure repeats in almost every room. Those must be of some significance. I would suspect that investigating what is left in the bottom of the inside of the 8s would give a pretty clear picture of what was going on there.

[Safetgiver]

Prolly a duck blind?

[BigIsleGal]

Weren’t some monks responsible for high mountain rescues with their brandy & trained St.Bernard dogs? Maybe the same type of operations out in the boonies.
Just an uneducated theory.

[colorado tanker]

The lack of an obvious heating system is a real problem and from the photos I don't see any trees on the shore. It is located in Tuva where the average daily high is something like 10 below zero in January. So, whatever it was it must have been seasonal.

At the time the Tuvans were under the control of the Uighur Khanate, but forts were rarely occupied seasonally.

The Tuvans are Buddhist, so it might have been a monastery. Many young men in Buddhist countries live with monks for a time before setting out in secular life. A warm season camp for them?