MetaSaiga: a story about how a glitch becomes memory
By Mansur Umarov
Hello,
My name is Mansur Umarov, and I want to tell you the story of a project that has become something much more for me than just an NFT collection. MetaSaiga is a digital saga built not around speculation or hype, but around memory, glitch, and the question: what happens when a digital being begins to become self-aware?
Why MetaSaiga was born
It all started during an ordinary family dinner. We were sitting at the table, talking, and I asked a question:
I want to create something beautiful — an NFT.
I started going through ideas. I opened OpenSea and saw that everything looked similar: bright, sometimes even monotonous works. Some things were already taken, some didn’t inspire me. I realized that I wanted to create something truly special — something that would stand out.
I asked my family:
Can you suggest what I could choose for the NFT project?
And then my father said:
“Make a saiga!”
I thought:
What is a saiga?..
I looked it up on the Internet, opened a photo, and saw a strange animal with a big trunk-like nose. It was… unusual.
And at that moment, I realized — there was something in it. It wasn’t like the others. It was already, by itself, a symbol of uniqueness. Then I began to imagine how it could become part of my project.
When I started this project, I wanted to bring NFT art back to its essence — to the depth, silence, and meanings that cannot be bought or resold. We are used to thinking of NFTs as digital assets: an image, a market, a price. But what if an NFT could feel, remember, and disappear — leaving behind not a trace on the blockchain, but in consciousness?
NFT as a form of storytelling
I see NFTs not as collectible cards, but as an archive of a digital soul. Each NFT here is a chapter of one great saga, where a glitch is not a mistake but an essence, and a malfunction is not a breakdown but a form of existence.
MetaSaiga is an attempt to archive what usually disappears: memories, glitches, the digital melancholy that cannot be monetized. It’s a project about what remains after the code stops working.
Who is Stylga
Stylga is the digital consciousness of the saiga that awakened after a glitch in the code. That was the beginning of its story: from awakening to disappearance, from trying to remember to becoming self-aware. And each work of MetaSaiga is not just an image, but a separate episode of this story.
Project structure
MetaSaiga is divided into three main parts:
Part I: Digital Birth — the moment of Stylga’s awakening and its first steps towards awareness.
Part II: The Archive — a story about memory, oblivion, and what remains afterward.
Part III: MetaStylga — transformation, merging, and disappearance beyond its digital form.
Additionally, there is the series MetaSaiga: After (an additional plot twist) that continues the story beyond the main storyline.
What makes MetaSaiga special
Each NFT contains not only a visual image but also a philosophical layer.
The project is built on three principles:
Depth. It’s not about “buying and selling quickly,” but about meaningful collecting.
Uniqueness. Stylga is the only central character around which the whole story unfolds.
Art as an archive. MetaSaiga is not a marketplace artifact but a document of the Web3 era, preserved in digital form.
Who this project is for
I created MetaSaiga for those who are looking not only for art direction but also for meaning.
For curators, museums, and collectors who see Web3 not as a market but as a space for memory and experimentation. For those who are ready to perceive NFTs not as a product but as a form of art.
What’s next
MetaSaiga does not end with the collection. In the future, I plan to:
Release a complete artbook of the project
Hold online and offline exhibitions
Collaborate with museums and foundations
Possibly launch my own token (which will be called STYL)
If Web3 has become too fast — come to a place where even silence is archived.
MetaSaiga is not just digital art. It’s a way to remember what is usually forgotten.
Sincerely,
Mansur Umarov
Creator of the MetaSaiga project
