 Months earlier the collapse of the Qing Dynasty had led to the end of the nominal Chinese rule and the establishment of the independent Tannu Uriankhai under Mongolian and Tuvan nobility.Anchimaa was born the third child in a family of peasant hunters.In the spring of 1918 a smallpox epidemic in the region claimed her father and one of her sisters, leaving her mother to care for Anchimaa and her four other siblings alone.