One of the key events in Kalmyk national history was the nation's deportation, en masse, during World War II. Like a number of other groups in the Russian south, including the Chechens, the Kalmyks were accused of collaboration with the Nazis, and harshly punished. On December 28, 1943, the Kalmyks were herded into cattle cars and began the journey to Siberia and central Asia for "resettlement". There were no exception made; pregnant women, the elderly, and infants were all forced into the cars. Roughly half of those deported died en route.
Valeriy's grandmother was one of those deported, and his mother was born in Siberia, in Krasnoyarsk krai. When she was alive, his grandmother told him stories about the conditions in the cattle cars. Like those sent to concentration camps by the Nazis, next to nothing was provided for those who were deported. When people died, their bodies were simply dumped on the side of the train tracks. There was no partition for those who needed to use the bathroom; according to Valeriy, his grandmother told him a story of a woman who died because she couldn't bring herself to go in front of the other passengers.
The deportation has been commemorated with a sculpture and memorial. The sculpture is by Ernst Neizvestniy (whose name translates from Russian as 'unknown'), who has also done large-scale sculptures for the Aswan Dam in Egypt and in remembrance of those individuals who perished in the Gulag (specifically the Mask of Sorrow in Magadan). The memorial includes a cattle car, typical of the ones that transported the Kalmyks across the steppe, and a series of 14 stones marking each of the years that the Kalmyks were exiled. After Stalin's death in 1953, Khrushchev initiated his thaw, to rehabilitate those who had suffered under Stalinism. In 1956, the Kalmyks were finally allowed to return to Kalmykia.
One of the main goals of this trip in terms of research is to conduct focus groups in each of the three regions. The focus group is somewhat of a novel concept for Russian academics, and for Russian society more generally. In soliciting participants, I’ve tried to frame it as a sort of round-table discussion, where I’m asking the participants to serve as experts on Kalmyk national identity and Buddhism. Finding ways to relay to people why I’m interested in their opinions can be tricky. Remember, this is place where for 70 years the government controlled media outlets, shaped public opinion, and punished, or at its lowest point executed, those who dissented.
On Wednesday, we held a discussion among fifth-year students at Kalmyk State University (KGU). They ranged in age from twenty-two to forty-two. Some of the students are in training to become monks at the local temple (khurul); through an agreement between KGU and the khurul, they are receiving a “secular” undergraduate degree while at the same time taking classes at both places (such as Tibetan language at the temple). They were the most active in discussing the project’s main research themes: characterizing the changes that have take place in the religious sphere since 1991 and looking at the role of Buddhism in the formation of Kalmyk national self-consciousness. There were also some thoughtful answers, though, from some of the other participants about the personal nature of Buddhism as an identity. The broad consensus here was that Buddhism is not something that can be imposed on the individual from above, either in a theological or political sense.
I had originally planned to do two focus groups per region, one with students at the local universities and one among ‘believers’, a somewhat vague category that draws from people who are active at the Buddhist temples in each of the three republics (these categories are necessarily vague given potential inter-regional differences; it’s hard to know what I’m going to find in terms of Buddhist practices in Tuva and Buryatia). The second focus group, which was held on Thursday, instead was composed primarily of local academics who could be considered experts on Buddhism in Kalmykia. This was something that Valeriy suggested, and the group was very helpful for me in terms of developing the necessary background knowledge on Buddhism in the region, not to mention the value of having this information recorded digitally. That said, it still doesn’t get at the main concern of the project, which is the form of Buddhism’s revival in an everyday sense. While some other these academics were Buddhists, other took a more rationalistic approach to religious identity, arguing that it depends on context. Fortunately, I still have a week and a half to get a last focus group done that includes, as originally planned, active practitioners of Buddhism.
I've been waiting for the weather to get better to do a walking tour of downtown Elista. After a couple of days of rain, and strong winds yesterday (the Russian media reported the problems that this caused in Georgia, though I didn't see anything about similar problems just north of the Caucasus chain) I ventured out this afternoon. There have been a couple of requests for more pictures, so I've created a Google Map that traces my route, and have marked the pictures I took along the way. It's available here. I suggest turning on the satellite imagery at the top of the map for a little better idea of the urban geography.
Today, February 23, is a country-wide holiday , the Day of the Defenders of the Homeland. That, at least, has been its name since 1991; it was formerly the holiday in honor of the Soviet army. The Russians do love their holidays, however, so after 1991 they just made a little revision to the name, and voila, a four-day weekend. At least this year, since it falls on a Tuesday.
If nationalism has replaced religion as the common bond between members of multi-ethnic states, then Russia, like the United States, has entered a post-secular age (at least with respect to holidays). Here in Elista, there were no parades, and the town was empty when I took a late-afternoon walk. The only examples of celebrating were on television, where this morning there was a somewhat hokey variety show in honor of the military. One tradition that has held on is the laying of a wreath at the Tomb of the Unknown Soldier; that is something that is usually done at Arlington National Cemetery on Memorial Day.
For those of you wondering what it is I'm actually doing here in Mother Russia, here's a brief synopsis. My project, which has been funded by a National Science Foundation Doctoral Dissertation Research Improvement Grant (commonly, DDRI) and a couple of internal grants from CU, is about Buddhism in Russia. Buddhism is one of the four "traditional" religions of the Russian Federation (Russian Orthodoxy, Islam, and Judaism are the others), as defined by Russia's 1997 Law on Freedom of Conscience and Religious Associations. This Law in itself is fascinating, and its name utterly misleading. It was actually designed to target members of 'non-traditional faiths', notably Jehovah's Witnesses and Mormons, who flocked to Russia (with its ~150 millionatheists) after the fall of Communism. Basically, the law made it difficult, if not impossible, for these groups to establish their own religious institutions (read: churches) without jumping through a number of bureaucratic hoops.
I suppose this still doesn't answer the question, why Buddhism? There are a couple of reasons, beyond a general fascination with Russia as a political and cultural space. First, this project is building off of my Master's Thesis, which, in part, dealt with the revival of Islam in Dagestan, which is a multi-ethnic republic just to the south of Kalmykia that has been affected by the two wars in Chechnya. I don't necessarily envision comparing Dagestan and, say, Buryatia, but the infrastructure in terms of resources, colleagues, regional knowledge, and (partial) comprehension of the Russian language is already in place. Second, not many people have studied the three regions where I'm working (though Buryatia is something of an exception to that), and I know of no comparative study that has collected survey data from these 'Buddhist' regions. This might mean a couple of things: 1) they're not worth studying because there isn't anything interesting happening there; 2) these regions are hard to get to, scholars can only stay in Russia for three months at a time, and most of those who visit prefer to party in Moscow and Petersburg (ok, that last point was somewhat of a cheap shot...); or 3) academics aren't all that interested in a minority religious population when there are much more interesting things (conflict, migration, AIDS, drug trafficking) happening in Russia and the former Soviet Union. I'm pretty sure 3 is off-base; academics love the obscure. And I've seen firsthand that there actually are some pretty interesting things happening here with respect to Buddhism; I talked to a couple of lamas at the khurul last week who characterized Kalmykia's religious revival as broad but not deep. The republic was basically moving forward from nothing, from 70 years of state-enforced atheism, so what's been achieved so far is commendable. It's superficial, however, with its emphasis on the construction of stupas and khuruls, but not sufficient in terms of widespread practice, knowledge of Buddhist customs and scholarship, and an un-self-centered approach to religion. So I'm going with 2, at least until I get back my first peer-reviews.
Having been in Kalmykia 12 days, the next two weeks will be spent conducting two focus groups here, one among students at KGU, and one among active practitioners of and believers in Buddhism. The first one will be Wednesday, and the next will be sometime during the first week of March. This is designed to serve as a test-site for questions to be included in a survey, the main component of the project, which will be carried out this summer and fall. I'll be sure to give a report on how they go.
Here's the video from the Tulpan performance that I had tried to post earlier. I have internet at my apartment now, so I don't feel bad about the ridiculously long upload time.
On Wednesday I was invited to KGU (Kalmyk State, as the local university is called) to speak to an English-language class and play a game called Mafia Wars. After making small-talk about the United States, Buddhism in Kalmykia, and Avatar (there’s no 3-D version here in Kalmykia; yeah, capitalism!), we got down to the order of the day. Mafia Wars is supposedly all the rage in Russia right now.
The premise is this. You get together a group of ten people or so, and pass out cards. Someone serves as a moderator of sorts. On the cards is an identity. There are four identity categories: mafia, sheriff, doctor, and citizen. The mafia, there are usually three or so, have the right to ‘kill’ someone at night. Night is followed by day, during which those who are still alive vote on who they think is part of the mafia. This is done by discussing anything that they might think is of relevance: movement during the night, nervous glance, fidgeting hands. The mafia has a vote, too, so you have to be observant in noticing who votes for and against whom during this part of the game. The sheriff, meanwhile, is able to ask the moderator who they think is part of the mafia, while the doctor is able to save someone who has been killed during the night. Usually, it makes the most sense to save yourself if you’re the doctor, since you don’t know who has been targeted by the mafia. The game goes on until either all the mafia has been killed or all the citizens (who don’t have a special role) have been.
We played three rounds, and then Valeriy, his friend the bureaucrat Mergen, and Andrey, who is a graduate student in linguistics (and speak impeccable English) at KGU came over to my apartment (in Russian, kvartira) for a get-together. This is another Russian tradition, referred to as going v gosti. Mergen has shot a hare and made a stew, which was actually pretty delicious, and since it wasn’t lamb, I was game. Not sure if the pun is intended or not here, I haven’t decided. Anyways, we toasted to friendship, a productive month of work, to me getting a real job at an actual, accredited university at some point, and, rather touchingly, to my family. Valeriy is, thankfully, a bit of a teetotaler, since, like everyone else who has a car here, he serves a shuttle service for family and friends. This is was a chance to loosen his belt and enjoy some Dagestani cognac. I meant to take a couple of pictures during the gathering, but forget. Instead you get a lovely view of room one (the kitchen) of my Elista apartment, above. You have to keep watching the blog for a shot of the living/bedroom. Don’t worry, the sultan’s harem this is not.
One Russian (although I’m sure there are a number of others who would claim it as their own) tradition that I’ve been privileged to take part in is the sauna. The saunas (we’ve done this twice) are pretty much like any sauna we have in the US, with the exception of a dunking pool of cold, slightly murky water next to the steam room for those who enjoy a quick shift from steaming hot to icy cold.
Something novel in second sauna we went to (both of them have been attached to factories and are primarily designed to serve the workers there) was karaoke. Now, for those of you who think karaoke makes everything better, I won’t disappoint; it did make the sauna a bit more diverting. One of the other sauna-goers, a Greek-Russian named Pasha, put on his best impression of Okhudzhava, who sounds kind of like the Russian Bob Dylan, or even better, a male Patty or Selma from The Simpsons, when he sang.
Another interesting point is that the Russians have special sauna hats. They’re cone-shaped, with a dangly bit on top. I haven’t really figured out what they’re for; perhaps to keep the brain from sweating, or to remain fashionable despite sitting in the buff trying to exfoliate through scratching. I did ask. Valeriy said something along the lines of ‘to keep the sweat out of your eyes’. If that is the case, it didn’t really work. Here's a picture of a sauna hat: http://mha-net.org/graphics/wild07/DSC_4125.JPG (that's not me in the photo)
On Sunday, the Kalmyks celebrated their New Year. Tsagan Sar (I’ve provided the Cyrillic in the title of this post), or White Month, marks the beginning of spring after a long, cold winter. Like other cultures, the Kalmyks have integrated some of the traditions from when they were nomads roaming the great Eurasian steppe into their contemporary, sedentary, national identity. And besides, who doesn’t like having a reason to party…
I was invited to Valeriy’s apartment for a traditional Kalmyk meal. Lunch is the meal-of-the-day, as we used to call it in the Holland household, and this was no exception. I’ve included a photo as visual evidence. The key ingredient in Kalmyk cuisine is meat. This is usually mutton, though other forms are fine substitutes. For dinner, we had meatballs with gravy over mashed potatoes, lamb shank, bullion (the real thing, no cubes here), and cole slaw. This was supplemented by vodka (Russki Standart, very premium, and also a stand-in for kumis, or fermented mares’ milk, which is drunk in the summer), dzamba, or Kalmyk butter tea, and bortsigi, which is the Kalmyk take on the doughnut. I rather enjoy dunking them in the butter tea.
After dinner, we went to Friendship Park, near Elista’s downtown, and watched a rotation of cultural performances that included a dance troupe and singers. A video of the most amusing of the acts is below. At the concert, Valeriy ran into a friend, Gennadiy, who is the head of the local power plant. He was hosting the President of the Russian Martial Arts Federation. See photo below of me schmoozing with local dignitaries. Valeriy is to my right, Gennadiy to my left, and the martial artist two to my left. I’ll leave it to you to make conclusions about how he rose to that position. Nonetheless, we were invited by eat more food. I obliged, of course, as Gennadiy had in his gastronomic arsenal berigi, the Kalmyk take on the dumpling.
The day was capped by another dance performance, this time at the National Theater. This was done by the national dance troupe, which has been highly decorated in competitions in the Russian Federation and has also toured Europe and the United States. They were quite good. I’ve tried to attach a clip, but the internet connection is excruciatingly slow. I'll give it another go later.
As for welcoming spring, there might be something to this whole Tsagan Sar thing. On Monday it was finally above freezing, and today it was around forty…
After a week in Elista, Kalmykia’s capital, I feel relatively secure in offering a few observations about the town.I had read before arriving that it was a “very drab” city.Certain elements are mildly depressing: the roving groups of feral dogs, the dilapidated exteriors of the ubiquitous Soviet-era apartment blocks, and the layer of grime that has built up on the streets and sidewalks in unsuccessful attempts to combat the elements of winter.In some ways, though, these are characteristics of all post-Soviet cities.And Elista does have its attractive elements, including a small and manageable downtown, a number of parks and monuments, and the open steppe just beyond the edge of town (although this can take a little while to get to, thanks to a lack of urban planning).A post-Soviet armpit on the order of Minsk this is not.
Day to day, much of my time has been spent in the khurul, or Buddhist temple.Kalmyks take much pride in the fact that it is the largest Buddhist temple in Europe, and that its 11-m statue of the Buddha is the continents tallest.Despite the temptation, I have not imparted my two cents about the myth of continents, particularly the Urals as the divisor between Europe and Asia.
The khurul is also the social center of Buddhist life here in Kalmykia.Morning prayers start at 8:30am.I have yet to attend, but plan to sometime this week.Twice when I’ve arrived around 10am the services have still been going on; the hall is packed with Kalmyks kneeling on the pads provided.
There are also cultural events at the khurul.This past weekend, I attended a film entitledDiscovering Buddhism that was shown for students from the local university, KalmykState.Richard Gere made his requisite appearance in the film, though it primarily featured teachers lecturing to audience at Buddhist workshops.They also have a library with resources on Buddhism in Kalmykia and Russia more widely, internet, and soft couches.The one drawback of the khurul is the lack of heat.We were having temperatures in the low teens here last week, though now we’re having a bit of a heat wave. It was right around freezing yesterday and today a little above.
I left Moscow on Monday afternoon. The flight to Volgograd was about an hour and half, on DonAvia. This is one of the BabyFlots that have been spun off for regional service from the Soviet monopoly Aeroflot since the end of the Soviet Union. In general, the safety record of Russia’s domestic airlines is pretty poor (and that is understating things…), and it’s especially bad among the BabyFlots. After the most recent crash, outside of the Siberian city of Perm in September 2008, Aeroflot rebranded all of the BabyFlots, changing the names, for example, from Aeroflot-Don to DonAvia. It’s still basically Aeroflot (they codeshare almost all of their flights), but this way Aeroflot doesn’t get the poor press in the West in case something goes wrong.
I arrived in Volgograd at 6:30. To get from the airport to the center there are a couple of options: gypsy cabs (psst…meester, you need taxi, very cheep) or a marshrutka. For those not familiar with the post-Soviet wonder that is the marshrutka, they are basically mini-buses for the masses. They ply set routes, and have cost anywhere from 8-15R, which is a range from a quarter to a half-dollar. That’s in comparison to the $12 bus ride from Denver International to Boulder; plus, there is so much more ambience, not to mention the aromatic bouquets of your fellow passenger.
In Volgograd I stayed in the Hotel Volgograd, which is located in one of the few buildings that survived World War II. I didn’t get a chance to explore Volgograd much, given the length of the trip (again via marshrutka) to Elista, Kalmykia’s capital. This was a six-hour journey, covering 300km. If you do the math, we weren’t moving very fast. It is, however, better than the alternative of travelling across the steppe in the traditional fashion of Kalmyk nomads, via horse. The weather started off nice, and deteriorated into a ground blizzard by the end of trip. Fortunately, we had one of the few responsible drivers in the Russian Federation, and I only feared for my life a handful of occasions. This is well below the median of seven for the average long-distance marshrutka trip.
The first photo is of one of the main roundabouts in Volgograd. The sign reads: Glory to our City and our Victors. The other two photos are from the village of Ketcheneri, in Kalmykia proper, one of our stopping points on the way to Elista. The depth of the snow increased suddenly once we got to this town; we had to get out and push at one point to extract ourselves from a drift.
Kolomenskoye is one of my favorite places in Moscow. Perched above the Moscow River, it offers a sweeping view back towards the city that includes a delightful mixture of graying Soviet-era apartment buildings and Orthodox churches. The main draw for me, originally, was the Church of the Ascension, a UNESCO World Heritage site. Some would say that I’m obsessed with World Heritage sites (you can find out more about them here); I regard it as a healthy interest.
The Church of the Ascension was built in the early 1530s, most likely to celebrate the birth of the heir who would become Ivan Grozny (the Terrible). It is inscribed on the World Heritage list for its architectural significance, as it draws inspiration from the wooden churches on the Orthodox tradition (the most famous being Khizi Pogost on Lake Onega). When I first visited in the summer of 2002, the church was undergoing remont (the Russian word for repair; there is a façade in Red Square that is still being worked on since I was last here). This time, I had a clear shot of the Church. I’ve posted a couple of the better photos below. Unfortunately, according to the pleasant lady working at the ticket office, the Church is rarely open, so I was again stymied in my attempt to see the interior. That leaves something for me to aim for when I get back to Moscow. That, and visiting ol’Vladimir Ulyanov, if he hasn’t been buried by then.
I arrived in Moscow around noon on Friday afternoon. The city looks good. For all that we hear about the rough winters, Moscow’s residents seem to have developed an adequate set of coping mechanisms: a middle-distance stare, a quick-step to negotiate the perpetual ice on the sidewalks, and the mandatory hat and paket (shopping bags from any number of stores). The hierarchy of the paketi is particularly interesting, though I can’t claim to be an expert; I did hear when I was last here that H + M bags, from the discount Swedish clothing store, were a status symbol.
And yet, somethings haven’t changed about Moscow. There are still drunks on the metro and the gypsies being chased after by police near Kiev Station; families out for walks together in the city’s parks or packed into the Макдоналдс; and guards standing watch over Lenin’s tomb. As an urban space, Moscow most reminds of Mexico City (having been there since I was last here, 7 ½ years ago); sprawling, alive, and a place that would be rewarding to really get to know, if only you had the time and the stamina.
I can’t say, though, that I like Moscow. There are some magical places: Red Square and St. Basil’s Cathedral (even for all its touristy-ness), the park at Kolomenskoye (see more below), and the metro stations with their gracefully-aging, Soviet-era artwork. To really like Moscow, I think that you have to be a twenty-something with an expense account, loose morals, and more than a connoisseur’s interest in alcohol. Even then, I have to imagine it would get old.
After three days here, I’m flying to Volgograd (née Stalingrad) tomorrow. After a night there, it’s on to Kalmykia.
One of the key events in Kalmyk national history was the nation's deportation, en masse, during World War II. Like a number of other groups in the Russian south, including the Chechens, the Kalmyks were accused of collaboration with the Nazis, and harshly punished. On December 28, 1943, the Kalmyks were herded into cattle cars and began the journey to Siberia and central Asia for "resettlement". There were no exception made; pregnant women, the elderly, and infants were all forced into the cars. Roughly half of those deported died en route. 
Valeriy's grandmother was one of those deported, and his mother was born in Siberia, in Krasnoyarsk krai. When she was alive, his grandmother told him stories about the conditions in the cattle cars. Like those sent to concentration camps by the Nazis, next to nothing was provided for those who were deported. When people died, their bodies were simply dumped on the side of the train tracks. There was no partition for those who needed to use the bathroom; according to Valeriy, his grandmother told him a story of a woman who died because she couldn't bring herself to go in front of the other passengers. 
The deportation has been commemorated with a sculpture and memorial. The sculpture is by Ernst Neizvestniy (whose name translates from Russian as 'unknown'), who has also done large-scale sculptures for the Aswan Dam in Egypt and in remembrance of those individuals who perished in the Gulag (specifically the Mask of Sorrow in Magadan). The memorial includes a cattle car, typical of the ones that transported the Kalmyks across the steppe, and a series of 14 stones marking each of the years that the Kalmyks were exiled. After Stalin's death in 1953, Khrushchev initiated his thaw, to rehabilitate those who had suffered under Stalinism. In 1956, the Kalmyks were finally allowed to return to Kalmykia.
