The article examines the contemporary Buddhist pilgrimage in Tuva as a social practice and movement. For its sources, it relies on semi-formal interviews, recorded in February and March 2020 in Kyzyl, with 11 Tuvans who accompanied religious pilgrims, or themselves participated in foreign pilgrimage tours. The first pilgrimage Tuvans undertook in post-Soviet period occurred in 1995, and its destination was India, which is now the center of Tibetan Buddhism and the country of residence of its leader. The first students of Buddhism went there in 1997. Pilgrimage tours were subsequently organized in the early 2000s by Tuvan lamas and first pilgrims who had returned from India earlier. This social movement was developing spontaneously, with pilgrims going abroad separately or in groups, as a centralized structure did not exist at the time. There are three types of destinations popular among pilgrims: foreign locations (residence of His Holiness the Dalai Lama XIV in Dharamsala, India, holy places associated with the life of Shakyamuni Buddha; Nepal, Tibet, Mongolia; Western countries where the Dalai Lama lectures on his teachings), Russian locations (Buryatia, Kalmykia and Saint Petersburg, where Buddhist temples and centers are located), and locations in Tuva proper. The experience of lay pilgrimage in the form of religious tourism allows them to develop an interest in Buddhism to a degree which helps start the internal transition from a “traditional Buddhist” to a “devout Buddhist”.