Mongolia | Life and Death of the Ja Lama | Chapter 9

By the beginning of 1914 Dambijantsan’s reign of terror had antagonized many of this former supporters in western Mongolia. According to the Diluv Khutagt, “The people of the Banners of that region were unable to sleep in peace, and secretly went to the Russians with a petition of complaint” accusing Dambijantsan of “autocratic and despotic behaviour.” The complaint was presented to the Russian consul in late January of 1914 by several western Mongolian princes, including the Baid Noyon, the chieftain of the Baid people who had earlier befriended Dambijantsan. They believed he was a Russian citizen and that therefore it was the responsibility of the Russian authorities to somehow rein him in . . . Continued. 

Dambijantsan

Russia | Astrakhan | Dambijantsan

On May 12, 1917, Dambijantsan, still an exile under police supervision, arrived in Astrakhan, the ancient city near the mouth of the Volga River, and took up residence on what is now Pestelya Street.

Pestelya Street

On June 20, 1917 he received a letter from A. V. Burdukov, the Russian trader in Mongolia who had befriend him during his earlier stay in Mongolia. On the same day he sat down and wrote a reply to Burdukov. “I am extremely delighted by the warm greetings from you and your wife and by your kind and sincere wishes for me,” gushed the one-time torturer, always a gentleman in his letters. He mentions that he would be released from police supervision sometime in 1917 but added that he had no plans to return to Mongolia, contrary to what he had written before. Indeed, he now complains that the Mongol people had never properly appreciated the efforts he made on their behalf: “ . . . trying to free Mongolia from the Chinese yoke, I have gained nothing for myself except a lot of psychological and physical problems . . . as a result of my kind efforts toward the well-being of the Mongolia nation I have only suffered . . .”

He is still involved with some kind of unspecified business affairs with Burdukov and asks about the money that was supposed to be forwarded to him via Russian consulate in Khovd. Meanwhile inflation is running wild, the prices of all commodities, including mutton, bread, butter, are soaring. “Nothing is reasonable,” he grouses, and boots are altogether unavailable. He also asks for photos of Mongolian noblemen he knew and a copy of a magazine article about his exploits during the Siege of Khovd in 1912. He may have claimed that he had no intention of returning to Mongolia but his thoughts were clearly turning there. On June 30 he wrote again in reply to a letter of Burdukov’s:

I am safe and sound, thanks the Lord. I would like to thank you for your kindness and sincerity to me. You were the first among my friends whom I met in Mongolia and now the one who writes a letter with kind and faithful regards to me. I am extremely happy to receive your letter, I will never forget your kindness and friendly treatment to me. Could you please send my best regard to your wife?

He then reiterates his complaints about the ingrate Mongolians:

I am really disappointed that my efforts done for the welfare of Mongolia were not valued. I fought with China for two years in order to release my fatherland from the Chinese yoke. I was wounded twice during the war, I didn’t try to spare myself; I risked with my life for Mongolia. This year I am going be released from police supervision, but anyway I am not going to Mongolia this year. I didn’t do or even think to do anything bad for my Fatherland, but my Fatherland didn’t try to save and protect me when I was in a disastrous circumstances . . .

Oddly, he mentions a college he claims to have founded in the “Altai Region.” He only wanted the people there to be “literate and intelligent” but for this act of magnanimity the Mongols were also ungrateful. There is no other mention anywhere of this college by Dambijantsan or anyone else and it might well have been the product of his imagination.

By then situation had deteriorated even further. Bread was valuable only with a ration card. One person was permitted to buy only two pounds of flour and five pounds of rice a month. New boots were a staggering 120 rubles.

The good news was that the Astrakhan officials had been informed by telegram that the money Burdukov had given to the Russian consul in Khovd was on the way by post. He expected to receive it in a few days. He also notes in passing that on June 28, two days before, he had met with the academician B. Ya. Vladimirtsov, who had early recorded the epic poetry about Dambijantsan’s role in the siege of Khovd. For a more substantial account of this encounter we have to turn to Vladimirtsov’s own letter to Burdukov, dated Sept. 12, 1917. Dambijantsan, Vladimirtsov discovered, had changed considerable:

When he first entered the room I did not recognize him. Nothing was left of the previous Ja Lama. Try to picture a thin, gaunt man, dressed in a suit and lacquered books. He made a low bow and with great effort I finally recognized him. Once he was the formidable and awe-inspiring Dambijantsan! Such is Fate!

Dambijantsan told Vladimirtsov that he living fairly well in Astrakhan and that he was pretty much free to come and go as he pleased, although technically he had not been released from police supervision. No one was really interested in him. No one in Astrakhan knew that he had once been a monk (and apparently no one knew about his dubious past in Mongolia). He repeated his gripe that the Mongols did not appreciate his efforts to regain their freedom. He claimed that he suffered greatly in his attempts to help his own people, the Dörböts, but they too did not believe in him. Now, he claimed, he wanted to live among Russians and not Kalmyks or Buryats. He was, so Vladimirtsov thought, renouncing his whole past. “Who is this character, who is this person? wondered Vladimirtsov, “I couldn’t manage to understand this man. In most ways, he now makes a pitiful impression.”

Dambijantan appeared to be at loose ends. “To my mind, if he wanted, he could go anywhere. And despite what Dambijantsan said, Vladimirtsov could not shake the idea that he had “some special plans” up his sleeve.

On August 1 Dambijantsan replied to Burdukov’s letter of June 3, which he had received that very day. Apparently Burdukov had send him some khadags and fabric by separate mail but he had not received these yet. He says that very soon now he will be released from police supervision but that he still has no plans to return to Mongolia. “I want to live in Russia for now, maybe forever,” he writes. But his interest in Mongoiia has not died out completely. He asks Burdukov to send photos of prominent princes and lamas, including the Sartuul Tsetsen Van, Jalchiggombodorj, who ruled over the Sarts who lived in what is now northwest Zavkhan Aimag and eastern Uvs Aimag and who earlier had been a partisan of Dambijantsan’s. Was Dambijantsan just getting nostalgic, or was he actually trying to keep up his links with his former followers in Mongolia. In most of his letters he states that he has not intention of returning to Mongolia but could this have been for the benefit of the police, who might well have been reading his correspondence?

Every day he went to the post office checking for the money which the Russian consul in Khovd had supposedly sent him. Thus he was in the uncomfortable position of having to wait for the proverbial check in the mail. By mid-September he was even more desperate for funds. On September 18, 1917, he wrote to Burdukov that he would like to borrow 14,000 rubles from him. Apparently permission from the Mongolian government is needed to transfer the money out of the country, and he planned to make a formal request to the Russian Consulate in Örgöö, asking that they acquire the proper authorization from the Mongolian authorities. He states again, this time emphatically, that he has no intention of returning to Mongolia. Why would Burdukov be willingly to loan what was then a considerable sum of money to a man with no apparent source of livelihood, who lived thousands of miles away, and who had no intention of returning to Mongolia? Why would the Mongolian government, which had been only too happy to be rid of Dambijantsan, be willing to authorize such a loan?

Meanwhile, on October 25 (Julian Calendar) Bolshevik Red Guards seized the headquarters of the Provincial Government in the Winter Palace in St. Petersburg, triggering the Second Revolution setting in motion a civil war which was to last until 1922 when the Soviet Union was created. In his next letter, dated December 23, Dambijantsan makes no direct mention of the October Revolution, noting only that “it is still quiet and peaceful in Astrakhan city, as well as the whole province,” and that prices of mutton, beef, butter, and flour have soared even higher since he last wrote. The main reason for this letter is to thank Burdukov for forwarding via the Russian Consul in Örgöö 1000 rubles, apparently an advance on the 14,000 ruble loan he had requested. Gushed the Two White Camel Lama:

“I am grateful to you,” and I am really delighted to hear about your good health and the friendly efforts you have made on my behalf. I had been worrying about you and your health since I hadn’t heard from you for so long. There is no one dearer than you for me in this world, you are my only faithful friend forever.”

He also has nothing but kind words for the Russian Consul in Mongolia. It is not clear if this is the same official who had earlier arrested him; if so, all is now forgotten:

Could you pass my regards and gratitude to Mr. [Russian] Consul for his help to me in difficult time, he was the one who pitied me when I was in difficult condition, sending the money he . . . please tell Mr. Consul that I would be grateful to him till the end of my life, that I would never forget his kindness and could you also ask him if he could send me the rest of the money.

As soon as he gets the entire 14,000 rubles, he goes on, he intends to buy a house near the Kalmyk Bazaar about seven miles from Astrakhan. Here, he claims, he intends to “settle down.” The Bolshevik Revolution does not seem to be worrying him unduly at this point, and he once again makes it clear—at least in writing—that he has no intention of returning to Mongolia. Intriguingly he adds: “As you suggested, I have started taking notes and writing down my life experiences up until now. I will I will be able to send these to you in the spring, as soon I finish them.” Was the mysterious badarchin finally going to lift the veil from his myth-strewn life? Would his memoirs shed light on his past, or would they, like the self-serving accounts of maguses like Madame Blavatsky and George Gurdjieff, simply add another layer to the obfuscation? If he did start his memoirs they have not survived

On December 23 Dambijantsan writes again to Burdukov in much the same vein. He has received another 1000 rubles and is waiting for the remaining 12,000. Here he says, confusingly, that the money is not a loan from Burdukov but instead funds owed to him by the Mongolian government. “Transfer the money as quickly as possible,” he pleads, “as I would like to stay forever in Astrakhan, living among the Kalmyks. I would like to buy a house for 4000 rubles near the Kalmyk Bazaar, seven miles from Astrakhan town; flats are very expensive here in the city.”

Dambijantsan’s final letter from Astrakhan is dated February 5, 1918. Civil war has broken out in Astrakhan. On one side are Astrakhan Cossacks, with whom most and the Kalmyks have sided, and on the other is a garrison of soldiers and local workers loyal to the Bolsheviks. The soldiers and workers barricaded themselves in building in the middle of the city and fighting raged for eigthteen days. Dambijantsan:

There were almost 800 Cossacks, with 200 officers . . .and about 1200 soldiers and workers. The Cossacks were armed with twelve field guns, thirteen machine guns and many rifles. The soldiers were armed with rifles and machine guns. The soldiers won the fight. The best part of the center of Astrakhan town has been burnt. Many shops and stores have been robbed by looters. There has been a loss of several millions of rubles. Lots of people-—fighters and peaceful citizen alike—died, about two and a half thousand people. . . Everywhere there is huge unemployment. The capital of all the merchants and the rich have been confiscated.

He has not received the 1200 rubles he was expecting and is in dire straits. Prices of all commodities are now outrageous. “Everything is so expensive I cannot afford anything.” He finally did receive at least some of the money owned him, but here was no longer any question of buying a house and settling down in Astrakhan. The soldiers and workers had established a Soviet and taken tentative control of the region but the civil war was far from over. Astrakhan was not longer a safe haven. Dambijantsan gathered up what money he had and sometime March took the Trans-Siberian Railroad east. Somewhere near Lake Baikal he bought a horse and headed south along the Selenge Valley into Mongolia.

The last and most dramatic chapter of the Ja Lama’s life was about to begin.

Russia | Astrakhan | Dambijantsan | Pestelya Street

I wrote earlier about the Siege of Khovd and Munjaviin Ulaan, where Dambijantsan had established his headquarters in 1913. By the beginning of 1914 Dambijantsan’s reign of terror had antagonized many of his former supporters in western Mongolia. According to the Diluv Khutagt, “The people of the Banners of that region were unable to sleep in peace, and secretly went to the Russians with a petition of complaint” accusing Dambijantsan of “autocratic and despotic behaviour.” The complaint was presented to the Russian consul in late January of 1914 by several western Mongolian princes, including the Bayad Noyon, the chieftain of the Bayad people who had earlier befriended Dambijantsan. They believed he was a Russian citizen and that therefore it was the responsibility of the Russian authorities to somehow rein him in.

The now-deserted site of Munjaviin Ulaan,
on the border between Khovd and Uvs aimags

As we have seen, Russia had enjoyed the right of extraterritoriality in Mongolia during the time when the Qing Dynasty controlled the country. It was under the laws of extraterritoriality, which gave Russia authority over its own citizens in Mongolia, that Dambijantsan was arrested and deported back in 1891. It is not clear if these rights of extraterritoriality still pertained in the newly independent Mongolia ruled by the Bogd Gegeen, but in these unsettled times the niceties of international law might well have been overlooked. In western Mongolia Dambijantsan had clearly become a law onto himself and perhaps extra-legal measures were necessary to deal with the extraordinary menace he represented.

In response to the complaint a detachment of eighty Cossack under the command of one Captain Bulatov was dispatched from the Russian border town of of Khöshöö Mod. On February 8, 1914, they suddenly appeared at Muunjaviin Ulaan and surrounded Dambijantsan’s ger. Apparently he was arrested without a struggle. Searching his ger, the Cossacks discovered two complete human skins of people who had been flayed alive by his orders. One of the skins reportedly was that of Khaisan, the Kazakh chieftain with whom Dambijantsan had been feuding with earlier. The human skins along with a chest of silver and other items in his ger were confiscated.

Dambijantsan was taken under arrest to Khovd City and hauled up before the Russian consul. The consul recognized Dambijantsan as an “Astrakhan Kalmyk” going by the name of Amar Sanaev. As mentioned before, it is unclear whether this was his real name or if he just had forged documents to this effect. On March 7, 1914 an official connected with the Russian Consulate, A. Ya. Miller, filed a dispatch with the details of Dambijantsan’s arrest directly to the attention of the Minister of Foreign Affairs in St. Petersburg, S. D. Sazunov, which one historian claims “testifies to the great importance attached to the arrest of the despotic adventurer by the Russian government.” The official charges against Dambijantsan were at this point unclear. Possible charges included complicity in murder, if not murder itself, kidnapping, torture, and theft, to name a few. The first point of business, however, was to deport him in back to Russia.

Under escort he was taken first to the city of Biisk, the first large Russian town northwest of Mongolia. After a short stay in Biisk he was transferred to Tomsk, a major city on the Tom River, a tributary of the Ob, where he was incarcerated for a year. For someone who stood accused, if not convicted, of a host of crimes and misdemeanors he seemed to have a pretty easy regime. As he later wrote to Burdukov, “In the city of Tomsk I lived alone and was in a prison the whole time. But thanks be to God, the chief of the prison was a very kind man. It wasn’t that bad for me to live there; indeed it was even good for me.”

Then he was transferred to the Aleksandrovsky Central Prison, located on the steppe in the Irkutsk region west of Lake Baikal. This notorious penal colony provided much of the labor for the construction of the difficult Lake Baikal section of the Trans-Siberian Railroad, and also served as a transit point from which prisoners from Russia where sent on to other destinations within the vast prison network of East Siberia. After a brief stay here he sent to the city of Yakutsk, capital of in the immense province of Yakutia (now the Sakha Republic, part of the Russian Federation). Since some sources say he was “exiled” to Yakutsk, it is not clear whether was actually imprisoned or simply living as an exile in the city. He himself later told Burdukov that he lived in Yakutsk City, with no mention made of prison. Exile in Yakutia, ferociously cold in winter (the coldest temperature ever in the Northern Hemisphere, 90 below Fº, was recorded here), plagued by mosquitoes and flies in summer, and lacking any but the simplest amenities, was considered by many to be just as bad as imprisonment in other parts of the country. But again Dambijantsan did not seem to be suffering greatly, although he claimed that he did mind the cold. He later wrote, “It was not so bad for me there either”—perhaps he found solace in the arms of the legendarily sensuous Yakutian women—“but the weather was really cold—it sometimes got minus 65 degrees of centigrade [–85 Fº]” After one winter in Yakutia he had had enough. “Because of the freezing weather,” he later wrote in a letter, “I had to ask the appropriate people to transfer me somewhere else where it is warmer. As a result I was transferred to the city of Astrakhan”.

Again we must ask just what were the terms of Dambijantsan’s confinement and exile. The very mention of prison and exile in Siberia under the Czars conjures up visions of the knout, of cracking whips and clanking chains, of endless toil under the most brutal and degrading conditions—the world so evocatively called up in Dostoevsky’s The House of Dead—yet by his own admission Dambijantsan was not treated badly and most astonishingly seems capable of arranging his own transfers when he doesn’t find the weather to his liking. Clearly Dambijantsan was no ordinary prisoner destined to rot in the wastes of Siberia.

So he arrived in Astrakhan, the ancient city on the east bank of the Volga near where the river debouches into the Caspian Sea. Although Astrakhan itself is on the well-watered delta of the Volga River, the adjacent areas are arid steppes and deserts of scant grass and gravel flats dotted with wormwood and camel thorn. In the summer temperature can reach 100º F and like Yakutsk the city of Astrakhan was in summer infested by plagues of gnats, mosquitoes and flies. Here the recent arrival from Siberia found that it was too hot.

While traveling in Gov-Altai Aimag of Mongolia, which as we shall soon see was a major staging ground for Dambijantsan’s next appearance in Mongolia and where still live the children and grandchildren of people who actually knew the monk-adventurer, I heard a curious legend stating that in cold places Dambijantsan always felt uncomfortably hot, while in hot places he always suffered from chills. This legend referred specifically to his time under arrest and in exile. Thus, according to this legend, in Yakutia he was actually too hot and in Astrakhan he was too cold, and not vice-versa. Supposedly Dambijantsan himself had made this claim. Perhaps this was just one more attempt to create an air of mystery about himself, or perhaps others just wanted to further embroider the host of myths about the man.

In a letter to Burdukov in far-off Mongolia dated March 18, 1917, Dambijantsan wrote, “It was also not miserable to live in Astrakhan, but anyway I couldn’t stay there for long: the weather was humid and I couldn’t drink the water. Therefore I asked the chief of the province to transfer me to a distant town of the province, and I was sent to Tsarev town, where I am staying now.”

Tsarev is the current-day town of Akhtubinsk, 145 miles up the Volga River from Astrakhan, near the current city of Volgograd (Stalingrad). Tsarev—located near one of the capitals of the Golden Horde, founded by Chingis Khan’s grandson Batu —was on the Pontic-Caspian Steppe, north of the Caspian Lowland Desert, and was slightly milder in temperature and considerably less humid.

So yet again Dambijantsan was able to arrange his transfer to more hospitable climes. And there was no more question of confinement in prison. He was apparently required to register with the local authorities and may not have been free to leave the Astrakhan gubernaria, in which Tsarev was located, but otherwise he was free to come and go as he pleased. Renting lodging from a “very kind and pleasant person” named Zlobinov, he quickly settled in and was soon writing to Burdukov “I really like life here.”

Curiously, he admits that he had trouble speaking Russian. This admission only deepens the mystery about Dambijantsan’s linguistic abilities. He was born (apparently) on Russian territory but was not ethnically Russian, and may have left Russia to become a monk when he was a small boy, so he can perhaps be excused for not learning Russian as a child. But later he worked for Russian expeditions, traveled extensively through areas where Russian was a lingua franca, came into contact with many Russians, not the least of which was Burdukov, while in Mongolia, and had just spent over two years in the Russian prison system, and yet by his own admission he had trouble communicating in Russian with the people of Tsarev, where he was now living. Although he is now in his fifties he even engages Zlobinov to give him lessons in reading and writing Russian.

Dambijantsan also admitted that “I am having a little problem with money. . .” This is understandable, since he had apparently been hauled out of Mongolia with only the shirt on the back and had spent the last two years in prison. What was he living on in Tsarav? Supposedly all of his property at Munjaviin Ulaan had been been confiscated, including livestock, gers, considerable amounts of silver, and other personal possessions Dambijantsan had also loaned out large amounts of silver to local officials and individuals. After his arrest local officials apparently tried to collect these loans. But what had happened to the wealth he had gathered during his years in Mongolia? Had the Russian consul seized it, or the Mongolian government? It would appear that the Russian consul seized at least some of his possessions. On March 18, 1917 we see Dambijantsan writing to Burkudov that he “was very pleased with the Consul for his efforts in sending me money.” Why was the Russian consul sending him money? Had some of the property which had seen seized at the time of his arrest been sold and the proceeds returned to him? If he was a criminal why was he entitled to his ill-gotten gains? And Burdukov too appeared to be forwarding money to him, apparently the proceeds from some unspecified business deals. Even in far-off Astrakhan province Dambijantsan seems to have kept his fingers in various pies in Mongolia.

Meanwhile the February Revolution of 1917 had erupted. Imperial Russia collapsed, Tsar Nicholas abdicated, ending the Romanov Dynasty, and as provisional government headed by Prince Georgi Lvov was sworn in. The Revolution soon made itself felt in Tsarev. Under the new Provisional Government the governor of the region, the chief of police, and various military leaders had been arrested. “As you know,” he tells Burdukov, “I was a criminal under the old regime. But now I am supposed to get a pardon. As soon as my pardon comes through I will come and visit you.” He also asks Burdukov to send him some photos of himself dressed in traditional Mongolian clothing. “That would be very interesting for me,” he notes.

But the situation in Tsarev kept deteriorating. The government was in chaos and inflation had gone through the roof. Although apparently still under police supervision, Dambijantsan was not longer obliged to stay to stay in Tsarev. He does not give the exact reasons for his move, but in early May he traveled down the Volga, arriving in Astrakhan on May 12, 1917. Here he took lodging in District #4, on Sado-Aptekar Street, at the house of a man named Verenin.

By Dambijantsan’s time the city was still dominated by the Kremlin, located on a low hill a quarter of a mile from the east bank of the Volga. Above the walls of the Kremlin soared the green and gold onion-shaped domes of the Ascension Cathedral and the Trinity Cathedral, both built around the beginning of the 18th century. About a third of a mile north of the Kremlin a narrow canal runs east from the Volga, eventually connecting with another canal which branches off from the Volga south of the Kremlin. Sado-Aptekar Street, where Dambijantsan lived, is one block beyond the northern canal. It was probably not one of the best neighborhoods. Although close to downtown, it was on the other side of the canal, the Astrakanian equivalent to the wrong side of the tracks. It was a neighborhood were a man in exile and still technically under police supervision could find lodging without attracting too much attention.

Canal running east from the Volga

This was the neighborhood I was now about to visit. Along the southern embankment of the canal dozens of fisherpersons were angling for their evening supper.


I crossed one of the footbridges across the canal and followed the northern embankment to Kalinin Street. The embankment here is lined with new and restored commercial buildings and up-scale apartment houses. I turned right on Kalinin Street and walked two blocks north to Pestelya Street, the current name of Sado-Aptekar Street, which runs parallel to the canal. Pestelya Street is only four blocks long. To the south of Pestelya Street is the embankment, and to the east, west, and north are Soviet-era and later, more up-scale high-rise apartments buildings.

Turning off Kalinin Street I am surprised to see that Pestelya Street, completely unlike the surrounding area, is lined with very old two-story wooden houses. I am seized by the uncanny feeling that I have stepped through a time warp and emerged into the nineteenth century. The street is like a time capsule embedded in modern Astrakhan. Many of the building are dilapidated, but still clearly lived in, although at the moment the street is eerily deserted. The only hints of modernity are a few rusty air-conditioner units hanging out of second-story windows. There is now no way to determine which was the house of Verenin where Dambijantsan lived. In his letters from here he does not give a house number and in any case the house numbering system may have changed since then. Still I walk the entire four-block length of the street, peering through ancient wooden gates into courtyards, some with tiny kitchen gardens, and stopping to photograph the more unusual buildings. Dambijantsan had lived in one of the buildings on this street and it was no doubt here that he plotted his final return to Mongolia. Eventually I do pass a few people, shabbily dressed Russians, but they pay not the slightest attention to me, as if they do not even see me.

Pestelya Street

Pestelya Street

Pestelya Street

Pestelya Street

Pestelya Street

Pestelya Street

Pestelya Street

During my travels in Mongolia I met many people who believed that the spirit of Dambijantsan continues to haunt his former hangouts. Preposterous as it may sound, I could not shake the feeling that Dambijantsan, in one manifestation or another, had cast a spell over this odd, anachronistic street. Turning south on Kalinin Street I am suddenly back in modern-day Astrakhan. The shade of Dambijantsan was hopefully left behind.

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 | 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.