Where do you start the course design for a minority language? One starting point is identifying and surveying a community of possible learners. This paper explores the needs of learners of Tuvan, a language spoken primarily in the Republic of Tuva, Southern Siberia, Russia. The study was conducted in two steps: an online questionnaire (March 2019) and semi-structured interviews (April 2019). The results showed a limited interest in Tuvan as a foreign language (13 responses) on the one hand, but a long-standing one on the other, more than two decades in some cases. The identified learner needs fell into three broad categories: needs related to "throat" (overtone) singing; needs related to travelling to Tuva and surviving in a new environment; and needs unique to each participant (e.g., academic research). The study contributes to the underresearched issue of indigenous languages as objects of foreign language study.