The Tofalars from Tofalaria are forced to prove in court their right to be called as stated in their documents, so as not to lose their benefits, including early retirement. Due to discrepancies between the official name of the people and the records in birth certificates, the pension fund and the prosecutor's office are looking for a way to help residents of remote villages prepare documents without traveling to the district center. The story shows how a bureaucratic error turns into a serious problem for a small people.

What is this people properly called: Tofas or Tofalars? The Tofas will have to defend the name of their people in court. Employees of the pension fund had to travel to Tofalaria to resolve the issue of paying the benefits due.
The Tofas have existed for several centuries, but they were destroyed. On paper. In 2000, the Russian government issued a unified list of Russia’s indigenous small-numbered peoples. It states that the people living in the territory of the Nizhneudinsky District of the Irkutsk Region are officially called Tofalars, not Tofas, as in their documents.
And now it is not so easy for the Tofas to obtain benefits, the main one being the opportunity to retire 5 years earlier than other Russians. For many Tofalar families, the pension is the main source of income. After all, in birth certificates, the nationality field says "Tofas," while by law the benefits are due to Tofalars. Pension Fund employees decided to come to Tofalaria themselves to explain this to the population. At a meeting of residents of all three villages - Alygdzher, Nerha, Verkhnyaya Gutara, – . Pension Fund specialists explained: to correct this misunderstanding, the Tofas need to go to court. There they must be officially recognized as Tofalars. However, for this, all residents will have to go to Nizhneudinsk and file a lawsuit in person. And to get to the district center, one has to fly by helicopter, the flights of which have been canceled indefinitely because of financial difficulties:
After consulting with the federal leadership, Pension Fund employees decided to meet the small-numbered people halfway.
- We are now working with the prosecutor’s office so that they will defend the interests of the residents, since it is difficult for them to travel to resolve through the court that their nationality is Tofalars. And the prosecutor’s office acts as a public representative, and it will bring their documents into compliance, - says Lyubov Viryasova, head of the Pension Fund branch for the Nizhneudinsky District.
For the prosecutor’s office to be able to represent the residents’ interests in court, they need to issue a power of attorney. But since there is no notary in the villages, the Nizhneudinsk authorities decided to send one to Tofalaria in the near future.
According to specialists, proving that Tofas and Tofalars are equivalent terms will take a lot of time, and the residents have no choice but to wait.