Travels beyond Ulan-Ude

Since arriving in Ulan-Ude, I hadn’t managed to get out of the city until last Tuesday. In the company of Zhargal, my gracious host here, and two lamas, I traveled to in neighboring Zaigraevskiy rayon to visit Atsagatskiy Datsan. The Datsan is located near the village of Khara-Shibir, which was the birthplace of Agvan Dorzhiev. Dorzhiev is one of the better-known Russian Buddhist (relatively speaking); he served as Russia’s official emissary to Lhasa (Tibet’s capital) at the end of the 19th century and founded the Buddhist community in St. Petersburg (the basis for the subsequent adoption of Buddhism by ethnic Russians). He’s also the subject of John Snelling’s Buddhism in Russia, in case you’re interested...

The head lama at the Datsan was quite a character. When we arrived, he was seated at his desk, surrounding by texts in Tibetan and pictures of both the Dalai Lama and Dorzhiev, and wearing a captain’s hat. Actually, these seem to be all the rage here in Russia; I subsequently saw a number of them in the resort town of Arshan. Interestingly, when some visitors showed up to visit the Datsan and offer a prayer, the lama barred two young girls dressed in shorts from entering; he went in, however, without doffing his hat.

The aim of the trip was to plan a round-table that will be held near the datsan in the middle of September. For me, it was an opportunity to see what the country to the east of Ulan-Ude looks like, and to snap photos of the Datsan. It was also a nice break from the demands on the survey I’m currently conducting here, which you can read about in the next post. Here are some of the above-mentioned photos:


Atsagatskiy Datsan








Stupa at the Datsan

























Towards the hills to the north