[3] At 92°E the Western Sayan system is pierced by the Ulug-Khem (Russian: Улуг-Хем) or Upper Yenisei River, and at 106°, at its eastern extremity, it terminates above the depression of the Selenga-Orkhon Valley.

The flora is on the whole poor, although the higher regions carry good forests of larch, pine, juniper, birch, and alder, with rhododendrons and species of Berberis and Ribes.

In the central part, towards the upper reaches of the Kazyr and Kizir rivers, several ridges, such as the Kryzhin Range form a cluster culminating in the 2,982 m (9,783 ft) high Grandiozny Peak, the highest point in Krasnoyarsk Krai.

[citation needed] The ancestors of modern Evenki groups inhabited areas adjacent to the Sayan Mountains, and it is highly likely that they took part in the process of reindeer domestication along with the Samoyedic population.

"[11] The local indigenous groups that have retained their traditional lifestyle nowadays live almost exclusively in the area of the Eastern Sayan mountains.

[12] However, the local reindeer herding communities were greatly affected by russification and sovietization, with many Evenks losing their traditional lifestyle and groups like the Mator and Kamas peoples being assimilated altogether.

[14][failed verification][15] Meanwhile, Turkologist Peter Benjamin Golden locates the Proto-Turkic Urheimat in the southern taiga-steppe zone of the Sayan-Altay region.