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.
MONEY MATTERS: Xi was to highlight projects such as a new high-speed railway between Belgrade and Budapest, as Serbia is entirely open to Chinese trade and investment Serbian President Aleksandar Vucic yesterday said that “Taiwan is China” as he made a speech welcoming Chinese President Xi Jinping (習近平) to Belgrade, state broadcaster Radio Television of Serbia (RTS) said. “We have a clear and simple position regarding Chinese territorial integrity,” he told a crowd outside the government offices while Xi applauded him. “Yes, Taiwan is China.” Xi landed in Belgrade on Tuesday night on the second leg of his European tour, and was greeted by Vucic and most government ministers. Xi had just completed a two-day trip to France, where he held talks with French President Emmanuel Macron as the
With the midday sun blazing, an experimental orange and white F-16 fighter jet launched with a familiar roar that is a hallmark of US airpower, but the aerial combat that followed was unlike any other: This F-16 was controlled by artificial intelligence (AI), not a human pilot, and riding in the front seat was US Secretary of the Air Force Frank Kendall. AI marks one of the biggest advances in military aviation since the introduction of stealth in the early 1990s, and the US Air Force has aggressively leaned in. Even though the technology is not fully developed, the service is planning
INTERNATIONAL PROBE: Australian and US authorities were helping coordinate the investigation of the case, which follows the 2015 murder of Australian surfers in Mexico Three bodies were found in Mexico’s Baja California state, the FBI said on Friday, days after two Australians and an American went missing during a surfing trip in an area hit by cartel violence. Authorities used a pulley system to hoist what appeared to be lifeless bodies covered in mud from a shaft on a cliff high above the Pacific. “We confirm there were three individuals found deceased in Santo Tomas, Baja California,” a statement from the FBI’s office in San Diego, California, said without providing the identities of the victims. Australian brothers Jake and Callum Robinson and their American friend Jack Carter
CUSTOMS DUTIES: France’s cognac industry was closely watching the talks, fearing that an anti-dumping investigation opened by China is retaliation for trade tensions French President Emmanuel Macron yesterday hosted Chinese President Xi Jinping (習近平) at one of his beloved childhood haunts in the Pyrenees, seeking to press a message to Beijing not to support Russia’s war against Ukraine and to accept fairer trade. The first day of Xi’s state visit to France, his first to Europe since 2019, saw respectful, but sometimes robust exchanges between the two men during a succession of talks on Monday. Macron, joined initially by EU Commission President Ursula von der Leyen, urged Xi not to allow the export of any technology that could be used by Russia in its invasion