Vladimir Chimitdorzhiyev was once an ardent communist who wanted to lead young people in Siberia to a Soviet paradise.
"That was a long time ago. All that is water under the bridge now," he said in his dimly lit retreat near Russia's border with Mongolia, ancient scrolls depicting Buddhist masters hanging over his shaved head.
"I am now a Buddhist monk. I've left irrelevant things behind. I've come here to learn and to teach," he said.
Tibetan teachings Chimitdorzhiyev helped revive in his ancestral homeland 6,000km southeast of Moscow are now at the forefront of a revival of interest in Buddhism in post-Soviet Russia.
After the Soviet collapse in 1991, Chimitdorzhiyev -- now known as Babu Lama -- returned to the rolling hills of his native Buryatia, brought together a dozen Buddhist priests and helped rebuild an old shrine.
Closed for decades in Soviet times, the Aginsk Datsan is now Russia's biggest Tibetan Buddhist temple.
"Peace has returned to this land ... But there was no peace here when the Datsan was closed," said Babu Lama, 46.
Under a fixed stare of a bronze statuette of Buddha, he looked out of a window and gazed at the temple's golden roofs.
Yellow banners with densely printed Tibetan inscriptions flapped in the wind, and worshippers chanted prayers inside the temple.
JAPANESE SPIES
Before Buddhism spread here from Tibet three centuries ago, Siberian tribes worshipped trees, animals and stones, their beliefs linked to other forms of Asian animism such as Japanese Shintoism.
For those tribes -- Buryats, Kalmyks and Tuvans -- Buddhism was their first source of education. In many ways, this is still the case in the most desolate villages like Aginskoye in this swathe of Siberia between Lake Baikal and Mongolia.
Following in his ancestors' footsteps, Babu Lama -- involved in various youth organizations in eastern Siberia in Soviet times -- reopened a Buddhist academy here to teach Buddhist ways to 50-odd disciples from all over Asia.
Russian Buddhism -- still linked to shamanism -- dates back to the 1700s when Empress Elizabeth, the liberal daughter of tsar Peter the Great, issued a decree recognizing Buryatia's Lamaistic beliefs and ordered the building of dozens of Buddhist temples.
Recognized as one of Russia's four official religions, Buddhism numbers 1 million followers in Russia, mainly in Buryatia -- a region once visited by the Tibetan spiritual leader, the Dalai Lama.
Both the Aginsk Datsan and the academy, built by Tibetan astrologists in the 19th century, were shut down in a clampdown on religion by Soviet dictator Josef Stalin in the 1930s.
Many lamas were arrested and deported to penal colonies, some accused of being Japanese spies.
Temples were turned into tuberculosis asylums to scare off believers.
The communists reopened a few temples after World War II to appease predominantly Buddhist tribes and even allowed theologians to travel to Mongolia to study.
BOHEMIAN PRETENSIONS
But it was only after the Soviet collapse that people like Babu Lama returned to Buryatia and Buddhist communities started to mushroom along the Mongolian border.
"And then we who doggedly carried Buddhism through the harsh Soviet years, gathered here in the 1990s and declared the temple open," said Lyubov Austermonas, a sinewy woman in her 50s and the Datsan's chief administrator.
Babu Lama's sanctuary in Buryatia -- one of Russia's poorest regions with an average monthly income of less than US$20 -- has now also turned into a fashionable travel destination for free-spending young Russians with Bohemian pretensions.
"We had this girl a few years ago, Vika from St Petersburg. She was a model," Austermonas said. "Tall, skinny and a bit conceited, she was one of those new Russians who can spend hundreds of dollars on rather useless adventures.
"But she went through this amazing transformation -- settled down in a hut, bought herself some cattle and plunged into Buddhism. She's now a famous theologian in our circles," she said.
DEATH CONSTANTLY LOOMING: Decades of detention took a major toll on Iwao Hakamada’s mental health, his lawyers describing him as ‘living in a world of fantasy’ A Japanese man wrongly convicted of murder who was the world’s longest-serving death row inmate has been awarded US$1.44 million in compensation, an official said yesterday. The payout represents ￥12,500 (US$83) for each day of the more than four decades that Iwao Hakamada spent in detention, most of it on death row when each day could have been his last. It is a record for compensation of this kind, Japanese media said. The former boxer, now 89, was exonerated last year of a 1966 quadruple murder after a tireless campaign by his sister and others. The case sparked scrutiny of the justice system in
The head of Shin Bet, Israel’s domestic intelligence agency, was sacked yesterday, days after Israeli Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu said he no longer trusts him, and fallout from a report on the Oct. 7, 2023, Hamas attack. “The Government unanimously approved Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu’s proposal to end ISA Director Ronen Bar’s term of office,” a statement said. He is to leave his post when his successor is appointed by April 10 at the latest, the statement said. Netanyahu on Sunday cited an “ongoing lack of trust” as the reason for moving to dismiss Bar, who joined the agency in 1993. Bar, meant to
Indonesia’s parliament yesterday amended a law to allow members of the military to hold more government roles, despite criticisms that it would expand the armed forces’ role in civilian affairs. The revision to the armed forces law, pushed mainly by Indonesian President Prabowo Subianto’s coalition, was aimed at expanding the military’s role beyond defense in a country long influenced by its armed forces. The amendment has sparked fears of a return to the era of former Indonesian president Suharto, who ex-general Prabowo once served and who used military figures to crack down on dissent. “Now it’s the time for us to ask the
‘HUMAN NEGLIGENCE’: The fire is believed to have been caused by someone who was visiting an ancestral grave and accidentally started the blaze, the acting president said Deadly wildfires in South Korea worsened overnight, officials said yesterday, as dry, windy weather hampered efforts to contain one of the nation’s worst-ever fire outbreaks. More than a dozen different blazes broke out over the weekend, with Acting South Korean Interior and Safety Minister Ko Ki-dong reporting thousands of hectares burned and four people killed. “The wildfires have so far affected about 14,694 hectares, with damage continuing to grow,” Ko said. The extent of damage would make the fires collectively the third-largest in South Korea’s history. The largest was an April 2000 blaze that scorched 23,913 hectares across the east coast. More than 3,000
RSS