Kalmykia: Reviving the Dusty Plain

We are standing on what was once the vast, smooth floor of the Caspian Sea. Today, not a drop of water glistens within sight. The parched semi-desert plain, flat as a pancake, extends in all directions. There is not a single tree or telephone pole to be seen. My eyes strain, looking into the distance, searching in vain for anything other than land meeting sky. I have never looked so far for so long.

The Republic of Kalmykia is wedged between the diminished Caspian Sea and the regions of Stavropol, Rostov, and Astrakhan. My husband Igor, a Russian nature photographer, and I are a two-day drive in our Russian army jeep from the Bryansk Forest in western Russia, where we live. I have wanted to visit Kalmykia since working on a project for the World Wildlife Fund in Moscow to save the threatened saiga antelope.

We set up camp in an area known as the “Black Lands” in eastern Kalmykia. We want to find out if anyone or anything calls this seemingly inhospitable spit of land home. A big blank spot on any map of Russia, the Black Lands are named for the dark hue caused by both the frequently snow-free winter landscape and by the grasses scorched by blazing summer heat.

On this warm day in late April, the grassy plain is just turning olive-green, punctuated with red tracts of bare sand and clay. Luminous white tufts of feathergrass sway in the slight breeze. The sweet, pungent smell of wormwood – a silvery-green, low-lying herb – drifts to my nostrils. A loud chirping sound draws my attention to a scurrying colony of pygmy ground squirrels nearby. Their cause for worry is the long-legged buzzard circling overhead. Scanning the boundless horizon, my eyes come to rest on a five-foot mound of reddish clay. This dwelling, built by a Kalmyk shepherd decades ago, has dissolved into its constituent parts – sheep manure, clay, and straw. Finding no higher perch, a rare steppe eagle has constructed its nest of twigs and grasses on the mound, lining it with the fur of some unfortunate animal.

Kalmyks are descendants of the Mongolian

Oirat people, who left their homeland of Dzhungaria, now in the Xinjiang province of China, in the early 17th century. Traveling more than 2,500 miles, they sought out richer pastures for grazing their livestock, and many of them settled in the Caspian lowlands of the North Caucasus Plain – modern day Kalmykia. In 1771, having heard that the Chinese were attempting to destroy the Oirat people, most Kalmyks left the region to return home and aid their people, but few survived the journey, killed either by their enemies (Kazakhs and Bashkirs) en route or on their return trip. Those who stayed earned the name “Kalmyk” in Russian, which comes from the Turkish word for “those that remained.”

Nomadic Kalmyks moved their herds of horses, sheep, cattle, and camels – along with their families – to new pastures as the seasons changed and as scarce water became available. They lived in portable tents called yurts, made of felt pulled over wooden frames. The Black Lands of Kalmykia were a favorite winter grazing ground, as snow was generally swept away by fierce winds, revealing sufficient vegetation to sustain life through the winter. Sheep and cattle provided all of life’s basic necessities. Fur and hides were fashioned into clothing. Sheep dung was packed with clay and straw – a mixture called kizyak – to build shelters for their livestock. Dried patties of sheep dung were burned in the winter for warmth and cooking.

Like other ethnic Mongols, the Kalmyks were traditionally Lamaist Buddhists. After the Russian Revolution in 1917, Kalmykia’s 100 Buddhist temples were destroyed and the Russian language was instituted in schools (the Kalmyk language derives from Mongolian). Collectivization forced Kalmyk shepherds to change their nomadic ways. The state appropriated their livestock and forced them to work in the collective farms.

In the 1940s, Stalin nearly wiped out the ethnic group. Viewing Kalmyks as traitors after their three-year occupation by the Germans in World War II (many actually left the USSR during the war), Stalin shipped the entire population of Kalmyks to Siberia in 1943. Those that survived the journey and ensuing hunger and cold were forced into collective farms and factory jobs. The Kalmyk language was banned and their traditional Buddhist religious beliefs repressed.

It was only in 1956 that the 70,000 surviving Kalmyks (from 129,000 in 1926) began to be allowed to return home. Not all did. Many Kalmyks had emigrated to Europe and the United States during the war (New Jersey is a center of the Kalmyk diaspora; Kalmyks in Germany began emigrating there in 1951), while others stayed in Siberia. Of the 700,000 Kalmyks worldwide, one-quarter presently reside in the southern Russian Republic of Kalmykia, where they make up about 45% of the population (38% are “ethnically” Russian, 4% are Dargins and about 1-2% each are Kazakh, German and Ukrainian).

As a result of their resettlement and assimilation into Soviet culture, Kalmyks lost many of their traditions and nomadic ways. Small settlements and towns with dreary Soviet apartment buildings popped up on the parched plain. Instead of moving with the seasons to find precious water, Kalmyks were forced to dig canals to irrigate farmlands and truck water into towns to meet domestic needs. People from the neighboring Caucasus region were hired to tend the sheep, while many Kalmyks pursued more urban vocations (today, about 38% of the region’s population is urban). Factories producing construction materials, machines, metal, and processed food rose above the flat plain. Roads were laid to connect the capital city of Elista to rural towns. Many rural Kalmyks became farmers and began to grow grains, corn, hay, sunflowers, and melons. A new breed of sheep, with harder hooves, was introduced to the region. The sheep were raised for wool, while pigs and cattle were kept for meat. Continuous use of the same pastures year round and the sheep’s harder hooves trampled the delicate prairie bare. Desertification began to take over the plain and entire towns were swallowed in sand.

Today, there are no sheep
or people within fifty miles of where we stand. To restore the degraded semi-desert plain in this part of eastern Kalmykia – an important breeding habitat for endangered saiga antelopes and demoiselle cranes – the Russian government created a strictly protected nature reserve in 1990. The Black Lands (Chyornye Zemli) Nature Reserve – covering 334,131 acres – forbids grazing of livestock or trespassing over approximately a third of the Black Lands. Our guide today is Victor Bodmayev, a tall Kalmyk with broad shoulders, who has directed the reserve since its creation.

After surveying the landscape, we pile into our jeep and return to the reserve’s ranger station, where we are camped next to a jumble of dusty dwellings made from kizyak bricks. Trailed by a stream of red dust, we stop briefly at Victor’s request and are enveloped in the red cloud. When the dust settles, Victor points to the right, indicating a stretch of bare sand, referred to as barkhany – “dunes.”

“The damage caused by overgrazing can still be seen today,” Victor explains. To our left is a dry canal, one of the many failed attempts to bring water to the arid region. Degradation of once rich pastures in the region has led to formation of the first man-made desert in Europe. Nearly 80 percent of Kalmykia is in the process of desertification, with half of the land seriously affected. Satellite images confirm that, during dust storms, large quantities of sand are blown great distances, even beyond Russia’s borders and into Europe.

We drive on. After about ten miles, we notice what look like birds flying low over the plain up ahead. As we come closer, we realize that it is a herd of saiga antelopes, gliding effortlessly across the plain. Dozens of saigas stop to look at us, then turn and are gone. Arriving at the ranger station, we are greeted by a small Kalmyk ranger wearing a striped shirt and camouflage pants of Russian army issue. We exclaim about our first saiga encounter and he responds casually, “You should have been here last week. Ten thousand saiga passed just 300 yards from the station. We watched the herd go by for two and a half hours.”

Kalmykia is the last place the antelope – which once roamed from England to Alaska – is found in Europe. Another saiga population is found in Kazakhstan. Saiga numbers in Kalmykia and Kazakhstan have plummeted from their peak of nearly two million in the middle of the 20th century to fewer than 50,000 today. Now the antelope – a traditional symbol of Kalmykia – is on the brink of extinction. Some experts blame wolves, which decimate more than half of the population each year, but poaching has taken a greater toll. The antelope are valued for their meat and horns – used in traditional oriental medicine. Illegal poaching and trafficking of saiga horns have risen since the opening of borders after the fall of the Soviet Union. With unemployment soaring in rural Kalmykia, many people in the Black Lands rely on saiga poaching to supplement their incomes and diets.

Victor motions us towards a kizyak dwelling. We pass by a small shed stacked full of dried patties of sheep dung – used for heating the ranger station in the winter. Inside the hut, Victor invites us to sit in foldout chairs, unfazed by the squalor and dust around us. Victor had suggested earlier that we sleep here, but we decided to set up our tent outside. We sip instant coffee and listen as Victor recounts how he got here. His story is typical for modern-day Kalmyks.

Victor was born in Siberia in 1958, after his parents were deported. He returned with his family to the region in 1965. He learned Russian in school, nearly forgetting the Kalmyk language and culture. An agricultural expert by training, Victor was active in a variety of projects to restore degenerated semi-desert lands throughout Kalmykia before he was appointed director of the newly-created nature reserve in 1990.

Victor’s nomadic roots, however, keep him moving. He spends more time in his green Lada sedan than in his office, traveling several times a week from his home and office in the south of the region to the reserve’s northern territory. He cruises at breakneck speed along the only paved road that crosses this expanse of land.

“For me, driving 300 miles in a morning is nothing,” Victor says. “It’s like going next door to the neighbor’s house for tea. And then I go home.” He laughs and his jet-black mustache frames his bright smile.

Like many Kalmyks today, Victor is travelling the road between the Soviet past and an uncertain Kalmyk future. Since the fall of the Soviet Union in 1990, Kalmyks have been struggling to revive their traditional religion, culture, and language. Victor’s children are learning Kalmyk in school. He is encouraging them to abide by Kalmyk traditions – teaching them how to greet guests, how to hold a traditional wedding – while still hoping they will fit into today’s world of politics, commerce, and technology. Though not particularly religious, Victor supports the revival of Buddhism among his people and instills some of the values the religion teaches in his children.

Victor departs for home as the light fades, promising to return the 300 miles the next morning, to take us on a tour of an abandoned town, which was buried in sand more than a decade ago. Feeling dusty and dry, we take turns washing under our camp shower – a plastic bag full of water, which has been warming in the sun all day. As I squat inside a large tin barrel for privacy, I am careful to conserve water and interrupt the dribble to soap up and put shampoo in my hair. A scarce and expensive commodity, water is trucked here once every few weeks and dumped into a cement-lined basin.

That night, it rains and the downpour quenches the parched soil. The next morning, I climb out of the tent and trek to the outhouse, 30 yards away. A thick layer of gummy red clay sticks to the soles of my sneakers and I feel like I am wearing platform shoes. In the outhouse, I hear strange noises coming from below. I look down and see a fury of activity. Big black dung beetles are harvesting the previous day’s refuse. Fascinated and revolted, I watch as a beetle rolls up a ball of human dung and wheels it away.

Igor is heating water for coffee on our campstove when I return. I urge him to take an excursion to the wonderful world of animals in the outhouse. He declines. I notice that the mucky clay soil around us is drying quickly. The parched earth hastily absorbs the precious rainwater, leaving only a dry crust.

After breakfast, we head off in our jeep to meet Victor at the appointed hour on the paved road. Crossing the dusty plain, we spot a pair of demoiselle cranes which, upon seeing us, performs a graceful dance to indicate that the territory is occupied. Reaching the road, we park and wait. After three hours, it becomes clear that Victor is not coming, fixed appointments apparently falling victim to nomadic scheduling. We decide to drive to the only town our map shows within 100 miles.

Yashkul – “Pale Lake” in Kalmyk – is the district center of the Black Lands, about 40 miles from the boundary of the nature reserve. But the pale lake has long since dried up and drinking water is trucked into the town. A sizable settlement of 40,000, Yashkul is home to four-fifths of the people in the Black Lands. Approaching the town, we encounter a shepherd who tells us that the annual horse races, a vestige of the Soviet May Day holiday and Kalmyk tradition, are today.

We stop in the town center and enter the only official-looking building on the central square. We are surprised to find the mayor in his office on this holiday. He greets his two bedraggled visitors graciously and offers to act as our guide. He takes us to a Buddhist temple, the jewel of Yashkul. As we walk the few hundred yards to the temple, the mayor tells us that Kalmyk émigrés provided donations to build the temple, which opened in 1995. The temple is one of many built in Kalmykia since the rebirth of Buddhism, which began with perestroika in the mid-1980s.

We enter the temple grounds through a bright red gate from the south, as is customary. Instantly, a short, plump Kalmyk appears. Dressed in a long robe made of burgundy velvet with yellow trim, he is introduced by the mayor as Lama Luzing. He politely corrects our trajectory so that we walk to the left of a colorful row of prayer drums, which we are asked to spin. The outside of the temple, painted yellow with a green roof, is decorated with beautiful bands of brightly-colored, intricate designs.

Inside the temple, we remove our shoes and Lama Luzing shows us the brightly decorated rooms. He tells us that he studied to be a Buddhist monk in Tibet. Sacred mementos from his travels line shelves along an altar-like wall – small carvings of the Buddha, incense burners, a Tibetan teapot, colorful peacock feathers. His chest lifts slightly as he points to a throne at one wall, informing us that the Dalai Lama has been to his temple twice. The empty throne invites another visit.

Lama Luzing leads us into a small adjoining room and carefully unwraps his long, narrow prayer books, written in Kalmyk. Residents of the only Buddhist nation in Europe, Kalmyks speak the only tongue of Mongolian origin west of the Ural Mountains. Created by a Buddhist monk in the mid-17th century, the Kalmyk written language is read in columns from top to bottom.

We are ushered to a small building behind the temple and seated at a plastic table with a white tablecloth. Two pleasant Kalmyk girls serve us tea in small bowls. The mayor describes the recipe for Kalmyk tea – green tea leaves, salt, butter, nutmeg, and milk. Sometimes the tea is made with sheep lard instead of butter. Relieved that there is no lard in my tea, I start to drink it before the mayor stops me, saying that Kalmyks first say a toast with their tea. Usually tea is drunk before the meal, while waiting for the main course – boiled mutton head – to cool. The mayor toasts to our health, to the impending horse races, and to our host, Lama Luzing. I finish the buttery liquid with difficulty.

The mayor stands, and we all rise, thanking Lama Luzing for his generosity and time. He leads us through a garden bursting into bloom with purple irises and red tulips to a gate and we exit the temple to the east.

“Na skachki” (“off to the races”), the mayor exclaims, pointing to a black Volga sedan that has appeared outside.

The races are already underway when we pull into the dusty field on the other side of the main highway from Yashkul. A crowd of Kalmyks, many of whom are dressed in traditional holiday costume, line the “race track,” a dirt pathway that runs in an oval around the field, marked with small red flags. Horses and horse racing are a favorite pastime in Kalmykia.

As we walk towards the track to get a better view, I notice a family of Kalmyks drinking kumys, a traditional beverage made of fermented mare’s milk. I begin to talk to one Kalmyk who is traditionally dressed in a velvet hat, long, loose-fitting coat, and heavily-padded long pants. He explains that horse racing is one way for Kalmyks to keep in touch with their nomadic roots.

“Ready, set...GO!” a small Kalmyk yells in Russian, dropping the flag in his right hand to the ground. Three horses take off, kicking up a cloud of red dust behind them. Three young Kalmyk men cling to the horses’ bare backs, digging their heels into their slender sides and whipping their bony rumps with their arms. This is the second of three races, each one for horses of different ages. The winners will receive a monetary prize of 1,000 rubles (just over $30).

Over the roar of the crowd, a loud speaker crackles and squeals while someone announces how many lambs were born that spring on each farm, and how well the livestock survived the winter. The spring horse races mark the end of the cold, harsh winter and all have reason to be joyful that the sunny summer months are on their way.

The races are quickly over and two Kalmyk women, colorfully dressed in traditional costume, begin to sing traditional Kalmyk songs, accompanied by a two-stringed lute called a dombra. Kalmyks, we are later told, once measured distances in how many “songs” it took to get there.

After Yashkul, we spend another day with the apologetic reserve director, who did not make our rendezvous on May Day because of an alleged flat tire. We then set off for the final stop in our Kalmyk expedition: the capital city of Elista, nearly twenty-five songs – or 85 miles – away.

Elista is a lively town of 150,000, although I suppose any town with cars and stores and people would seem lively after spending a week in the deserted plain. On the way into town, we cannot help but notice a newly constructed, colorful conglomeration of buildings, looking much like a suburban housing complex in America. “Chess City” is written on a sign in front of the development.

Elista has earned the disputed title of “Chess Capital of the World.” Kalmykia’s president, Kirsan Ilyumzhinov, a young, wealthy businessman elected in 1993, is a chess fanatic and heads the World Chess Federation. Determined to turn Elista into Chess Mecca, Ilyumzhinov instituted chess classes in schools and exhorted townspeople to play chess, posting signs to that effect around Elista. The city has hosted two world chess tournaments, in 1996 and 1998. “Chess City” – consisting of housing and a central palace for the tournament’s participants – was finished just in time for the second tournament, after $35 million were poured into the project.

When we turn down a main street to get to our hotel, we come across a monument to Ostap Bender, the great manipulator from the satirical works The Twelve Chairs and The Golden Calf, by Ilya Ilf and Yevgeny Petrov. Bender is encircled by 12 chairs, all empty but one. A policeman sits in the center seat, evidently having decided to rest for awhile. Seeing our amazement, he quickly gets up and walks away.

Igor cannot help but laugh as I snap a picture of the statue. President Ilyumzhinov had erected a memorial to a fictional character, whose made false promises (in The Twelve Chairs) to make a provincial town the chess capital of the world, and thereby make loads of money. While Ilyumzhinov’s aspirations to create a chess capital may not have made money for the people of Kalmykia, some think that realization of his dream has helped put Kalmykia on the map, at least in the world of chess. To his credit, he actively promotes the revival of Kalmyk religion and traditions, even if chess is not one of them. Today, an estimated 70 percent of the people in the republic speak Kalmyk. Buddhist temples, gardens, and statues adorn the capital’s clean, pleasant streets. Kalmyks are especially proud of Elista’s Buddhist temple, finished in 1997 on a spot chosen by the Dalai Lama.

Exhausted after a full day of driving, we leisurely take hot showers in our plain room in Elista’s only hotel, a tall, gray Soviet-era building with a bar, disco and beauty parlor in the lobby. I look out the window of the concrete building and see a stone dragon and pagoda gracing the gardens across the street.

The next morning, we load up our jeep and head home. Another day and a half of driving and we arrive in our floodplain forest, relieved to be back in the land of water and trees. But the vast Kalmyk vistas, the hump-nosed saiga, the Buddhist temples, and Chess City are etched in my mind. I realize that Kalmykia has made a lasting impression. A culture that was almost lost to the whims of dictators still has a chance to be revived.  RL