Russia | Astrakhan City

After our visit to Khosheut Khurul we return down back south and then take the cutoff to Astrakhan City, twenty-eight miles to the east. Eventually we cross a low rise and there spread out before us is the city of Astrakhan. I must admit it was an impressive sight—beyond the broad Volga River on a low hill stood a cluster of huge gleaming white churches surmounted by soaring onion-shaped domes of bright green and gold. As we came closer the white walls of the Kremlin, or fortress, in the heart the city hove into view. We cross the Volga River bridge and turn south on the road along the river. Someone in Elista had told me to stay at the Azimut Hotel in Astrakhan and had given me directions. Albert and Tsagaan, both of whom had gone to college in Astrakhan and were quite familiar with the city, had never heard of it. We finally located the hotel right on the embankment along the Volga. Albert did know about this place from his college days but back then it was called the Lotus Hotel. It has been recently remodeled and is now part of the Azimut hotel chain, which has hotels throughout Russia. It is billed as an upscale businessman’s hotel, but I soon discover that the rooms are tiny, no bigger than one of the closets in my Ulaan Baatar hovel, and resemble what could be a Smithsonian Institution exhibit entitled “Typical American Hotel Room, Circa 1950.” They could have filmed the shower scene of “Psycho” in the bathroom. But in a concession to the 21st century there is high-speed wireless internet.

I meet with Albert and Tsagaan for a farewell cup of coffee in the hotel coffee shop—the “Coffee Americano” was so-so—and then they depart. They want to get back to Lagan before dark. I must stay I could not hoped for better hosts on the Lagan-to-Astrakhan portion of my trip.

Rather than start my explorations of the city this evening I content myself with strolling around the embankment of the Volga River. The well-maintained embankment, complete with comfortable benches, flower gardens, and fountains, is crowded with promenaders. There are several river-side restaurant with outdoor patios and I have dinner in one of them.

Promenade along the Volga River

Boat Landing along the Volga River Embankment

Restaurant Boats moored along the Volga River Embankment

Outdoor Restaurant beside the Embankment

I wait until the next morning to begin my explorations of the city. Astrakhan, located near the mouth of the Volga, Europe’s largest river by length, volume of water, and area of watershed and the main artery leading into the very heart of Russia, is a city seeped in history. Indeed, the immense Pontic-Caspian Steppe to the north of present day Astrakhan is one of cradles of Mankind. It was inhabited by the almost mythical Indo-Aryans more than 4,000 years ago. Then came of roll-call of tribal people from the Classical Era—Cimmerians, Scythians, and Sarmatians, followed by the Goths (who bequeathed their name on Execrable Music and even worse Fashions), Bugars, Huns (as in “Attila”) and Avars. Then came the Golden Horde of Batu, grandson of Chingis Khan, and the Nogai, Tatars, and hordes of other tribal peoples.

To the south of Pontic-Caspian Steppe, the lower Volga, straddled by the Lowland Caspian Desert, and Volga Delta were inhabited by nomadic Turkic tribes as far back as at least the 5th century A. D. From the 6th to 11th the area was home to the Turkic Khazars, notable for adopting Judaism as their state religion. Their capital was near the current city of Astrakhan. In the 11th, 12th , and early 13th centuries Kipchaks and Cumans nomadized in the area. In the middle of the 13th century on the Golden Horde seized control of the region. By this time there was a city known as Xacitarxan about seven miles upstream from the current city. In 1395 Tamurlane stormed through and burned the city of Xacitarxan to the ground. With the collapse of the Golden Horde in the mid-1400s the Astrakhan Khanate, founded by Qasim I, was established on the lower Volga and what is now the Republic of Kalmykia to the west, with the rebuilt city of Xacitarxan as its capital. The main components of the khanate were Tatar and Nogai tribesmen. In 1556 Ivan the Terrible of Russia conquered the lower Volga valley and established a fortress, or kremlin, at the current site of Astrakhan city. Ottoman armies invaded the lower Volga in the 1560s and in 1569 invested the city of Astrakhan. They were soon forced to retreat, and in 1670 the Ottoman Sultan acknowledged Russian control of the lower Volga River. From then on the Volga, the longest river in Europe, became an entirely Russian river.

Astrakhan quickly became a major Russian entrepôt for trade, linking the interior of Russian with other lands bordering the Caspian Sea, including what is now Iran and the countries of the Caucasus. In the early eighteenth century the city served as a staging ground for Russia’s advance into Central Asia, including what are now the countries of Kazakhstan, Turkmenistan, and Uzbekistan. The city took on a multinational flavor, its streets teeming with Russians, Tartars, Turks, Chechens, Azerbaijanis, Caucasian mountain men, Armenians, Iranians, Kazakhs, Uzbeks, and even a sizable contingent of Indians from the Subcontinent, to say nothing of the Kalmyks who from the 1630s on had nomadized on the steppes to the east and west.

My first destination is the Kremlin, on a low hill a couple of blocks behind my hotel. The streets leading to Kremlin are quiet, tree-lined, and flanked by two story nineteenth-century buildings.

Nineteenth Century buildings in the downtown area

Construction of the the Kremlin walls began about 1580, after the armies of Ivan the Terrible had conquered the city. There are two churches inside the Kremlin, but the rest of the interior is now essentially a city park, a peaceful oasis in the middle of the city. Surprisingly, there is no admission fee. In China it would cost ten bucks to access a place like this.

Approaching the Kremlin

Ascension Cathedral in the Kremlin, built c. 1700

Ascension Cathedral

Ascension Cathedral

Trinity Cathedral (1697–1699)

Kremlin Wall and Tower

Gorgeous Irises in bloom in the Kremlin

After a leisurely stroll around the interior of the Kremlin and the offering of orisons (I like to cover all the bases) in the Ascension Cathedral, redolent of frankincense and hung with splendid icons, I head across the city square, still bedecked with wreathes from the recent May 9 Celebration of Soviet victory against the Germans in 1945, to Volodarsky Street. This street, I had read, was once the center of Astrakhan’s sizable Indian Community.

The shopping arcades [of the Indians] were on the territory of Beliy town.The Russian goverment encouraged in every possible way the arrival of Asian merchants in Russia, creating favourable conditions for them. So, they had the right to be sued according to laws of their country, they had freedom of conscience and freedom of religious rites. The Indians settled in Astrakhan substantially. They paid the smallest rent—12 rubbles a year from each store, they were released from any other duties and obligations. They brought goods from Persia, Bukhara, India. It was silk, cotton fabric, furs, copper, leathers, carpets, wool, gems, fruits, wines, frankincense, gold and silver. The Indians traded not only in Astrakhan but also in other cities of Russia. From Moscow, Yaroslavl, Kazan they brought goods to the East. Solidarity, resourcefulness and commercial streak of Indian people contributed much to their success in trade. They owned more than a half of stores in Astrakhan . . .

Volodarsky Street

Volodarsky Street now is a pedestrians-only shopping venue. The Indians are long gone and no visible sign of their shopping arcades remain, much to my disappointment. I was hoping to find some Indian carpet stores. I did pop into a book store. In the Esoteric Section they had Russian editions of Madame Blavatsky’s The Secret Doctrine and a several other Blavatsky Works. I looked to see of this was the Russian edition translated from the English by Helena Roerich, wife of Nicholas Roerich. If it was, the publishers made no note of it. There were also Russian language editions of Helena Roerich’s Leaves of Morya’s Garden and Nicholas Roerich’s Shambhala. I already have all of these titles in English language editions but in order to fill in the lamentable lacunae in the Russian Language collection of My Scriptorium I went ahead and bought the Russian language editions.

From the western end of Volodarsky Street I continued north along the Volga River Embankment, passing numerous well-restored old buildings. I even found a tea shop telling Puerh Tea.

Nicely restored old building

Eventually I came to a canal running east from the main channel of the Volga River. I must now admit that the reason I gave earlier for this trip to Russia—the Money Owned to Me by the Kalmyks in Kalmykia, was just a pretext. The real reason for coming to Russia and finally to Astrakhan was to visit the street on which Dambijantsan lived during his exile in Astrakhan in 1917 and early 1918. The street is just on the other side of this canal.

Russia | Kalmykia | Lagan | Khosheut Khurul

The next morning I returned to the Lagan Khurul with Ngawang Thakhey and performed my mornings orisons while he filled the offering bowls with water. Later we returned to the guesthouse and he cooked me up a excellent omelet. This along with the tupa from the night before convinces me that if he had not become a monk he would have had a successful career as a chef.

Ngawang Thakhey filling offering bowls in the temple

We sit and drink milk tea until Albert and Tsagaan arrive at 9:00 sharp. We have to leave immediately, says Albert, since we must catch a ferry across the Volga River to Khosheut Khurul and if we miss the crossing at noon there will not be another one until three in the afternoon. From Lagan we drive north through patchy steppe and sand dunes. The Caspian Sea is a few miles off to your right, but maddeningly it keeps out of sight. In this low, level country you cannot see it unless you come right up on the shore. The Caspian Sea is, of course, the largest land-locked body of water on Earth in terms of area. It could be considered the world’s largest lake in area, although not in volume of water, a distinction held by Lake Baikal in Siberia by virtue of its enormous depth. Or, since much of it is saline, it could be considered the world’s largest inland sea, with no outlet to any ocean. The Caspian, like the Black Sea and the Aral Sea, is a remnant of vast Paratethys Sea. Bordered by the countries of Russia, Azerbaijan, Iran, and Kazakhstan the sea is of increasing importance a gate-way to the oil-rich Caspian Basin and Central Asia to the east.


As we drive, the conversation turns to Mongolia, which Albert hopes one day to visit. He asks me if it is true, as he has heard, that Chingis Khan’s bodyguards were Kalmyks. Technically, there were no Kalmyks at that time; the people who later moved west and became known as Kalmyks were then called Oirats. In any case, I do not know if they were any Oirats in Chingis’s bodyguard. Albert adds that the current mayor of Moscow, a pretty rough city, has only one bodyguard, but he is a Kalmyk and so one is enough. “My husband likes to believe that all Kalmyk men are real tough guys who make good bodyguards,” Tsagaan confides to me in English.

Soon we start crossing small channels of water which Albert says are part of the Volga River. We have entered the vast 120 mile-wide delta of the Volga cut by thousands of capillaries of the river. Dozens of white swans paddle in the channels and overhead wheel huge flocks of ducks and geese. The banks of the channels are lined with high grass, brush and trees, but the slightly higher ground in between the channels is still surprisingly arid steppe and desert.

Then we reach the town of Olya, located on one of the main channels of the Volga, big enough to accommodate big sea-going freighters. The bank is lined with huge freight cranes. Albert says most of the ships which dock here come from Iran. There is also a passenger ferry from here to Iran. Following the west bank of this large channel north we then pass through the town of Ikryanoye, which as the name implies, is famous as a possessing center for ikra—caviar. This of course is the famous black caviar from the Caspian sturgeon. The Caspian Surgeon Population has been hammered by over-fishing and pollution, but Albert says it is still possible to buy caviar here. I eat only red caviar, so I did not bother checking on the price.

From Ikryanoye the road veers away from the river and back into the desert steppe. At one point we pass the turnoff to Astrakhan, twenty-eight miles to the east, but we keep going straight. Our destination is the ferry crossing about thirty-five miles north of Astrakhan. We are running a bit late and Albert is soon careening along at ninety miles an hour. We arrive at the cross at 11:55, with five minute to spare. About a dozen cars are lined up ready to board. We are the last in line.

Ferry across one channel of the Volga

The Volga, the largest river in Europe in terms length, discharge and watershed, drops only 738 feet in its entire 2,294 mile-length, but the current is surprising strong here in its lower stretch. The channel here is about a half mile wide, but its take a half hour for the tugboat to pull the ferry to the opposite landing stage slightly upstream on the other bank.

Ferry Barge and Tugboat

Approaching the landing place on east side of ferry crossing

We disembark and drive through a thick woods before emerging out onto open pasture lands. Off to the right can be seen another channel of the Volga. It turns out that Khosheut Khural is on an island, a detail that Albert had not bothered to point out before. There is a maze of roads leading in all directions and now Tsagaan could not remember which one leads to the temple. Finally she calls her contact who was to meet us there and this woman sends a car to lead us to the temple. Following this vehicle we finally pull up in the little village of Tyumenevka (also known by its Russian name of Rechnoye). In the middle of the village stands Khosheut Khurul.

The Main Temple of Khosheut Khurul

We are greeted by a small welcoming committee: a tiny Russian woman who lives next door to the temple and serves as its unofficial, unpaid caretaker, two Kalmyk men in their sixties who are eager to show the temple to a traveler, and a young Russian woman who runs a small grocery shop next to the temple who is simply curious to see what is going on. The little Russian woman recounts quickly the history of the temple. It was built by the Kalmyk Prince Tumen to celebrate the Russian defeat of Napoleon. He had raised his own regiment of Kalmyks and accompanied the Russian troops who chased the French back to Paris. The temple was started in 1816 and finished in the 1820s. Prince Tumen’s seal, in the form of a bow and arrow, was stamped on many of the bricks used in the construction and can still be seen today.

The seal of the Kalymk Prince Tumen in the bricks of the temple

Another view of the Prince Tumen’s stamp

The original complex was much bigger, consisting of three temples connected by elaborate colonnades. The buildings quit functioning as Buddhist temples in the 1930s during the crackdown on religion. The main temple was turned into a meeting hall for communist youth groups and the other two temples were used as granaries. In the 1960s the two side temples and the colonnades were torn down, leaving only the main temple. Recently a small Buddhist altar has been installed in the main temple, restoring its original function, but the floor and walls are still in disrepair. There have been various attempts to do a complete restoration but so far they have come to naught. According to the caretaker, the Federal government in Moscow, recognizing the temple as a historical and architectural monument, allocated 19,000,000 rubles ($590,000) to its restoration, but the money somehow disappeared after reaching Astrakhan Province officials, who are reportedly not keen on restoring a Buddhist temple in what is now a mostly Orthodox Christian area.

New altar in the otherwise unrestored interior of the temple

Altar in the temple

Our group in the temple: Albert at left, Tsagaan third from right, and Russian caretaker lady in middle.

Another view of Khosheut Khurul

While the others chat away inside the temple I go outside to take photos. As I am examined the temple from a distant I have a sudden recollection of having read about this temple before. I may not have mentioned it earlier, but it was Professor Bicheev, during our Discussion About Dambijantsan, who first brought up the subject of Khosheut Khurul. I mentioned that I was thinking about going to Astrakhan after Elista, and he said, “In that case, you must visit the Khosheut Khurul. It is on the steppe about sixty kilometers north of Astrakhan.” He had said nothing about the ferry crossing and had not mentioned that the temple was on an island. Then today, during our drive here, Tsagaan had mentioned that the temple had been built by a Kalmyk noblemen by the name of Prince Tumen. A temple built on an island in the lower Volga by a Kalmyk prince now rang a bell in my mind.

This is almost certainly the temple Madame Blavatsky (1831–1891), proto-hippy, founder of the Theosophical Society, and Fairy God Mother of the New Age movement visited when she was a little girl.

Madame Blavatsky in her mature years

Andrei Fadeyev, father of Helena Andreyevna von Hahn, the mother of Helena Blavatsky, I recalled, was the vice-governor of the province of Astrakhan as well as a member of governing board for the Kalmyk people. In the Spring of 1836 he appeared in St. Petersburg on business and when he departed for Astrakhan in June he took his daughter and five-year old granddaughter with him, effectively ending the unhappy marriage of Helena Andreyevna and army officer Peter Alexeyeivich von Hahn. Thus little Helena von Hahn, the future Madame Blavatsky, found herself living with her grandfather in Astrakhan. According to her biographer Marion Meade, in her enormously entertaining Madame Blavatsky: The Woman Behind the Myth:

Life in the Fadeyev household was lively and bustling, largely owing to the nature of Andrey’s position. As second in command of the province and curator-general of the Kalmucks [sic], he was able to reside in an aura of privilege and aristocratic sumptuousness. Aside from balls, soirées and dinners for foreign visitors, diplomatic relations had to be maintained with the Kalmuck chieftains. The wealthiest and most influential of these was a Prince Tumene, who owned an island a short distance up the Volga. The prince, during the Napoleonic war of 1815, had raised a regiment at his own expense and led it to Paris, for which the Czar had rewarded him with numerous decorations. Now he lived in a white palace that was half-Chinese, half “Arabian Nights” in décor, but passed much of his day praying in a Buddhist temple he had erected nearby. There was nothing about Tumene's little enclave that was either Russian or Kalmuck; rather it suggested the court of a rich Asiatic nabob. An imaginative child like H.P.B. could easily be transported into a land of fairies an mysterious legends. Lost in a perfect playland, Helena observed with wonder the water-encircled palace—its exterior fretted with balconies and fantastic ornaments, its interior filled with tapestries and crystals-giving the appearance that a touch of a wand had produced this preposterous mirage from the bosom of the Volga. To complete the mystical illusion, the author of these marvels was supposedly a half-savage tribesman, a worshiper of Buddha, an a believer in reincarnation. It is doubtful that anyone took the trouble to explain Buddhism to Helena, but it is certain that the shaven-headed lamas and the painted effigies of Buddha stirred her a great deal more than the rituals and icons of the Russian Orthodox Church.

Her stay in Astrakhan province undoubtedly made a big impression on the budding little magus. "I was myself brought up with the Buddhist Kalmucks," she would later brag in a letter. "I was living in the steppes of Astrachan [Astrakhan] till the age of ten.” As her biographer points out, “This statement is an example of the surprisingly uneven nature of H.P.B.'s memory, as well as of her habit of rearranging her past to suit present convenience.” Actually she only lived in Astrakhan province for ten months starting when she was five years old. In any case, even this short stay in Astrakhan had lasting results.

First, Helena was introduced to Buddhist here, and perhaps here the needle of her personal inner compass first veered to the East, where much of her destiny would be played out. Secondly, the precocious little girl learned to ride a horse at this time, perhaps from the Kalmyks she met, who themselves were legendarily accomplished horsemen. “Ten years later, when conventional young ladies were sedately riding sidesaddle,” her biographer notes, “she would still be straddling a horse like a tribesman, having near-fatal accidents, and causing her worried family to gnash their teeth. They could not deny, however, that she was a superb horsewoman.” Indeed, according to one version of her life (there were many) she later performed as an equestrian in a circus. This of course was when she was still a svelte young woman and had not yet reached the elephantine proportions she was to achieve in later life.

Another view of Khosheut Khurul

Another view of Khosheut Khurul

Iron fixtures on the temple dating back to the 1820s

Rejoining the group, I learn from the Russian caretaker that Prince Tumen’s residence was indeed nearby but that today not a trace of it remains. She adds that the Kalmyk cavalrymen brought back as war booty numerous French women. The descendants of the resultant couplings still live on the island. Prince Tumen himself brought back a French boy whom he later adopted, although it is not clear if his interest in the lad was entirely paternal. She also mentioned the numerous famous people who visited the temple over the years, including Alexander Dumas, Czar Alexander II, and Lenin, who before the Revolution once came here with his wife on a vacation (Lenin himself had a Kalmyk grandmother). Dumas, she says, wrote that the Prince, although by that time aging, had a gorgeous eighteen year old Kalmyk wife with teeth as white as pearls. He himself was hacked off because he got nowhere with the local Kalmyk women. “As a Frenchman he thought the Kalmyks girls would be attracted to him, but they were not,” claims my informant. She has never heard of Madame Blavatsky, however, or the Theosophical Society.

From the temple we drive to the nearby village of Ushakova, where a noon repast has been laid on for us, oddly enough on a table in the main reading room of the small public library. Apparently the women present had brought the prepared dishes from their own kitchens: three different kinds of fish from the Volga—tasty but incredible bony—and the ever-welcome buuz, plus various salads, freshly baked bread, and milk tea. The latter we slurp down quickly as we have to meet the ferry at three o’clock. After taking several wrong turns we finally reach the ferry dock with three minutes to spare.

Russia | Kalmykia | Elista | Lagan

I no sooner expressed a desire to go to Astrakhan, the ancient city near the mouth of the Volga River, than Telo Tulku Rinpoche says, “You should go to our temple in Lagan, near the shores of the Caspian Sea, stay a day or two there, and then go Astrakhan. On the way you can stop at the famous Khosheut Khurul; it is in ruins now but you might find it interesting.” Great, I said, how do I get to Lagan. “I’ll try to find you a ride,” he said. A half hour later he called back. “I have found a man who is going to Lagan tomorrow. You can stay at our temple tomorrow night, or longer if you wish, and then when you want to go to Astrakhan this same man has agreed to take you. One the way you can stop at the Khosheut Khurul. How does that sound?” It sounded great.

The next morning at 10:00 am the driver pounded on a my door. He is in his forties and does not speak a word of English. He has the un-Kalmykian name of Albert, and I soon discover that his wife is a school teacher in Lagan and that he has four children. His wife, is adds, is quite interested in history and is preparing some material for me about Khosheut Khurul. She wants to go with us to the temple and then on to Astrakhan. Albert has a new Honda and I as a soon discover a lead foot. As we barrel out of town I asked if we can stop for a few minutes at Geden Sheddup Choikorling (A Holy Abode for Theory and Practise of the School of Gelugpa), located about four miles outside of Elista.

Geden Shaddup Choikorling

Officially opened on Oct 5, 1996, it was the first Buddhist temple to be built in Kalmykia since the 1920s. The site for the temple had reportedly been chosen by the Dalai Lama during one of his trips to Kalmykia back in the early 1990s. The temple is locked and there doesn’t seem to be anyone around. This temple has clearly been eclipsed by the huge Golden Temple in downtown Elista.

Geden Shaddup Choikorling

We have to drive past Elista to get on the road to Lagan and one the way points out a complex of new looking buildings off to the left. It’s the famous Chess City built by Kirsan Ilyumzhinov, Kalmykia’s chess-crazed president. Among his other distinctions and eccentricities, Ilyumzhinov may be the only sitting head of state who openly admits to having been Kidnapped by Aliens. Albert is a bit surprised to discover that I had not visited the Chess City. It is the first place most tourists head for. I tell him that despite living in equally chess-crazed Mongolia I myself have absolutely no interest in the game. In fact, I have a deep aversion to all board games (and cards too).

On the main highway east from Elista we soon pass a huge tractor-trailer rig lying on its side along the side of the road. Apparently it had just wrecked. The cops were arrving just as we passed. I noticed that there was a steady stream of tractor-trailers on this road. Albert said they were coming from Dagestan, which borders Kalmykia to the south, and from Azerbaijan, Georgia and the other countries of the Caucasus. There was also some traffic from Iran, although most freight from Iran comes by boat via the Caspian Sea.

We have been on the main road to Astrakhan, but at one point we turn off to the right on the road to Lagan. After a half hour or so we arrive in the sleepy little town of Komsomolsaya.

Quiet Komsomolskaya

Memorial to the Mass Deportation of the Kalmyks to Siberia in 1943. Survivors were allowed to return after 1957

We make a brief stop at the Buddhist Temple and nearby stupa, just recently constructed, and then move on.

Temple in Komsomolskaya

Newly constructed stupa in Komsomolskaya

Beyond Komsomolsaya the country is increasingly arid. The grass, quite lush around Elista, get shorter and and skimpier and soon you can detect the reddish-brown soil beneath the vegetation. Soon patches of sand, like sand traps at a public golf course appear. Camel thorn and wormwood appear amidst the patchy grass. This is the edge of the Caspian Lowland Desert which extends from the edge of the steppe to the Caspian Sea.

Steppe starting to grade into desert

Arriving on the outskirts of Lagan, we turn left off the main road and I soon spot the cupola of the Lagan Temple. We are greeted by a monk I had noticed at the reception for the Drepung Tripa a couple days before. His name is Ngawang Thakhey.

Ngawang Thakhey greets us at the Lagan Khurul

Lagan Khurul

Ngawang Thakhey is a Tibetan, not a Kalmyk. He leads us into the low-slung guesthouse and shows me a small room where I can spend the night. The bookshelves above of the small desk are lined with Tibetan language books printed in India. In the dining we sit down at a long table and two Russian women who have been cooking bring out half a dozen dishes. There’s salted sturgeon from the Caspian Sea (the shore of which is four miles from here), baked sturgeon layered with slices of potatoes, buuz (steamed meat dumplings), a salad of fish with peas, finely diced potatoes in a cream sauce, bread with butter and sour cream, milk tea, and a big place of apples, oranges, and dates. After tucking into this Albert leaves, announcing that he will be back with his wife at five o’clock. The monk suggests I rest in my room until then.

Albert’s wife arrives at 5:00 sharp. She has the real Mongolian name of Tsagaan (White). It turns out she is a teacher of English and German at the local school. Lagan, she tells me, is the second largest city in Kalymkia, with a population of 15,000. She pulls out big sheave of papers written in English by her pupils on various aspects of Kalmykia history.

She has also brought along sampling of books from the school library about the history of the Kalmyks, about Buddhist in Kalmykia, and about Buddhism in general. Flipping through the pile I am surprised to see a book by E. I. Rerikh (Helena Roerich) entitled Osnovy Buddhism (Foundations of Buddhism). Helena Roerich, along with her husband Nicholas and her son George, had spent the winter of 1926–27 in Ulaan Baatar as part of their Three-Year Circumnavigation of Inner Asia. The House Where They Stayed is now being converted into a Museum Dedicated to the Roerichs. This book may be have been written while they were staying in their house in Ulaan Baatar; in any case the book was published while they were in the city.

She also showed me several books about the temple which we will visit tomorrow. She even gives me a Power Point Presentation about the temple which one of her students has prepared. She says she knows the Russian woman who is the unofficial caretaker of the temple ruins and that she has called and notified her that we will be visiting tomorrow. She and Albert will be back at 9:00 tomorrow morning. She is taking a day off work from her school and Albert is also taking a day off work. They really want me to see the temple.

After they leave the monk starts preparing dinner. Apparently the big fish repast earlier was mainly for me and Albert. I noticed he had eaten very little. Now he whips up a big pot of tupa—mutton soup with big thick home-made Tibetan-style noodles. He stands over the stove, throwing the noodles into the pot one-by-one as he makes them. Over bowls of the tupa he tells me that he was born in Kham, in eastern Tibet, in 1966, making him forty-three years old. In 1989 he left Tibet for Drepung Gomang in India, where he took up the study of Buddhist philosophy. He was the youngest of six children and the only one to become a monk. At Drepung Gomang he met Telo Tulku Rinpoche and through his influence ended up here in Kalmykia. Now he is the only monk in residence here at Lasang. He says he has not seen his family in twenty years and leaves unsaid that he will probably never see them again, given the current situation in Tibet. The flat steppe-desert on the shores of the Caspian Sea is a far cry from the mountains of eastern Kham, and I can only wonder if Buddhist philosophy provides consolation for all he left behind and very different world he has ended up in.

Ngawang Thakhey

After tupa and several bowls of milk tea he goes to close the temple for the evening and invites me to come along. In the temple he methodically empties the water from all the offering bowls. While he’s doing this I cannot help but notice a framed poster of Zanabazar’s famous Green Tara, the original of which is in the Bogd Khaan’s Winter Palace in Ulaan Baatar. The monk has of course heard of current Bogd Gegeen, who lives in India and who has himself Visited Kalmykia, but he was unaware of Zanabazar, the First Bogd Gegeen. I pull out some Mongolian money and show him the Soyombo Symbol invented by Zanabazar, and mention that Zanabazar, like the Zaya Pandita, had invented his own alphabet, the so-called Soyombo Script. He was also, I point out, a world-class artist whose works now figure prominently in museums in Ulaan Baatar, not the least of which is the Zanabazar Fine Arts Museum. Also above the altar in the temple here is a thangka of the 21 Taras, including Green Tara. I mention that Zanabazar also did a set a the Twenty-One Taras. Ngawang Thakhey then turns over the thangka next to the Green Tara. On the back is a hand print in red ink. It is the hand print of the current Dalai Lama, who visited Lagan on one of his trips to Kalmykia. The hand print is long and thin and has an uncanny similarity to the hand print of Zanabazar on a thangka in the Zanabazar Fine Arts Museum in Ulaan Baatar.

Handprint of Zanabazar (1635–1723)

Outside Pegasus is in the sky overhead and the air is redolent with the smell of sage from the steppe and juniper from the bushes that have been planted around the temple. The water offerings from the bowls on altar which Ngawang Thakhey has collected in a bucket he now pours out at the base of a young pine tree next to the temple, ending his day’s activities. He turns in while I stay outside for a bit longer watching the Big Dipper turn on its handle before turning in myself.

Russia | Kalmykia | Elista | Golden Temple | Interior

After Circumambulating the Golden Temple and offering appropriate Prayers to the Seventeen Panditas of Nalanda I proceed inside. Normally there is a steady stream of pilgrims and tourists pouring through the temple: Kalmyks from both Elista and the countryside and Russians running the gamut from teenaged punk rockers, to leather-clad motorcyclists, to aging babushkas, many of them shepherded by local guides who describe in detail the contents of the temple. But at eight o’clock in the morning on this weekday the place is almost deserted, giving me a good chance to take a leisurely look around.

Buddha on the main altar

The walls of the temple has been covered with magnificent murals done by Tibetan artists imported from India. While the temple building was completely back in 2005 the interior artwork was just finished in the last month or so.

Wall the left of the main altar (facing the altar)

Detail of wall to the left of the main altar

Detail of wall to the left of the main altar

Wall to the right of the main altar

Detail of wall to the right of the main altar

Detail of wall to the right of the main altar

The back wall

Detail of the back wall

Detail of the back wall

Green Taras on the back wall

Green Tara on the back wall

Green Taras on the back wall

Green Tara on the back wall

Buddhas on a side wall

Buddhas on a side wall

More paintings on the back wall. That’s the Dalai Lama, top center.

Detail of Dalai Lama

Mandala in the ceiling the main hall of the temple. The top side of this mandala is the center of a Huge Conference Table on the fourth floor of the temple.

Top side of the mandala visible on the ceiling of the main hall of the temple

Third floor balcony overlooking the main hall of the temple. After school and on weekends this area serves as a rumpus room for local teen-agers. If you are a teenager looking to hookup with somebody with whom you can discuss the finer points of the Mind Only School and other such topics this is the place to go.

Third floor balcony overlooking the main hall of the temple

Buddha on the main altar from the third floor balcony