Киин Саха сирин алааһыгар сайылык
An interactive museum: a first-person walk through a Sakha summer homestead in Central Yakutia.
Play locally · Contributing · Credits
Алаас is an interactive museum, a first-person walk through a traditional Sakha summer homestead (сайылык) in an alaas, the round meadow-and-lake hollow in the taiga where Sakha families have kept horses and cattle for centuries. It is told from the Sakha point of view: the birch-bark urasa, the balagan with its hearth, the serge hitching posts, the kymys and the fire's spirit are shown as a living culture, in its own words — Sakha first, then English and Russian, picked from your browser's language. You walk, look and learn.
 Down at the lake, the path climbs to the сайылык |
 Serge hitching posts before the urasa |
 The balagan, lit by its оһох hearth |
 Inside the urasa: the fire, the benches, the bark cover |
 Carved чороон cups for kymys |
 Explainer cards: Sakha first, then English, Russian |
- 51 explainer cards in Sakha, English and Russian, with sources and 72 reference images. Look at a thing, press E for a short note, E again for the full read; the journal collects what you have found and hints at where the rest are.
- Hands-on acts done with respect: feed the fire, tie a ribbon on the serge, carry water, lay firewood, sit on the орон, pick дьэдьэн. Sacred rites are only explained: the museum never has you perform them.
- A living alaas: procedural larch, birch and pine taiga, wind in the grass, birds, insects, a lake with reflections, a physical sky with drifting cloud shadows, and real field recordings.
- Runs in the browser: three.js WebGPURenderer with TSL shaders, steady 60 fps, no backend, no account. Progress stays in your browser.
| Chrome, Edge (desktop) | WebGPU |
| Safari (macOS, iOS) | WebGPU |
| Phones | touch controls, a lighter mobile tier, 30 fps battery saver |
| Anything without WebGPU | WebGL2 fallback (force it with ?webgl) |
The quality tier is picked from the device (Settings → Quality changes it).
npm install
npm run dev # http://127.0.0.1:5190
npm run build # static site in dist/Node 20.19+ or 22.12+. The textures, audio and images are in the repository; no download step is needed.
| Key | Action |
|---|---|
| W A S D · mouse | walk · look |
| Shift · Space · C | run · jump / vault · crouch |
| E | look closer / do |
| 1 2 3 | choose |
| J · L · H | journal · language · controls |
| P · F3 | pause and settings (keeps the mouse) · frame-rate meter |
| Esc | pause (releases the mouse) |
Phones: left thumb walks (push to the rim to run), right thumb looks, a tap is E.
| Path | What |
|---|---|
src/main.js |
boot, loading, the frame loop and the E flow |
src/engine/ |
renderer, sky, sun, post-processing, device tiers, draw-call merging |
src/world/ |
terrain, ground and layout.js, where everything stands |
src/models/ |
one module per building or yard piece |
src/nature/ |
forest, grass, lake and wildlife |
src/interact/ · src/ui/ · src/audio/ |
hands-on acts · cards, journal, touch · soundscape |
src/data/ |
explainer entries and reference images |
tools/ |
asset fetchers, texture bakers and headless checks |
docs/ |
how it all works (AGENTS.md has the map) |
Contributions are welcome, from code to Sakha-language corrections. If you know Sakha life and
something is wrong or missing, open an issue or write
to hello@springfolk.co; corrections are credited. For pull requests, read CONTRIBUTING.md
first: it lists the checks to run and the content rules.
- AI-assisted: the code, models, shaders, texts and research were made with the help of Claude Opus 5.5 (Anthropic), directed and reviewed by Georgii Antipin (Springfolk), who also checked every Sakha text.
- Code: MIT, © Springfolk (
LICENSE). - Original content (explainer and interface texts, the project's own baked textures): CC BY-SA 4.0.
- Third-party assets keep their own licences: CC0 textures from Poly Haven and ambientCG, CC0 and
CC BY-SA field recordings, reference images from Wikimedia Commons (public domain, CC0, CC BY and
CC BY-SA), Open Sans and Noto Serif (SIL OFL 1.1). Each is listed with its author in
docs/credits.md. - Springfolk name and logo (
public/assets/ui/springfolk-logo.svg): all rights reserved, not covered by the licences above. - Built with three.js and Vite.