Ulan-Ude is the capital of the Republic of Buryatia, a crescent-shaped area east of Lake Baikal that’s home to a million people, roughly a quarter of whom are Buryat.[1] Ethnically, Buryats are related to Mongolians, with similar physical characteristics of broad, high cheekbones and epicanthic folds, and their languages are close enough that some linguists consider Buryat a dialect of Mongolian. The majority of Buryats are Buddhists, and one of Ulan-Ude’s two claims to fame is the Ivolginsky Datsan, the spiritual center of Buddhism in Russia, which is located about 20 miles outside the city. (The other is the largest Lenin head in the world, a 25-foot-tall bronze behemoth looming over the central square in Ulan-Ude.[2])
Gary and I wanted to explore Buryat culture; in particular, we hoped to find a farmer to profile. Though he was Russian, Oleg was the editor of the Buryat Youth newspaper, and he invited us to come to his office one morning to meet a few of his Buryat colleagues. That’s how we met the poet and journalist Tsyren-Dulma Dondagoy.
With her snow-white hair and regal bearing, 63-year-old Tsyren-Dulma was a striking figure. She spoke Russian in a lilting cadence, telling us about what it was like to grow up Buryat. “I was five years old the first time I rode a horse,” she said. “My father just lifted me up and put me on, then gave the horse a slap and off I went. That’s the way a Buryat learns to ride.”
Under Soviet rule, she told us, Buryats suffered discrimination. “During the Brezhnev era, our culture was suppressed,” she said. “People kept their beliefs hidden; that was the only way. I was a Communist Party member then, but even so, I was always a Buddhist. We didn’t have temples or lamas, but all the same, people never stopped believing.” Her words called to mind the Jews of Birobidzhan, who had also seen their culture and religion pushed underground during Soviet rule. But unlike the Jewish community, Buryats had no other homeland to which they could flee. If Buryat culture was to survive, it would have to survive here.
I explained that we were hoping to meet a Buryat farmer, to learn about the region’s culture and see the countryside. Tsyren-Dulma thought for a moment, then reached for a piece of paper and pen. She wrote a few sentences in the Buryat language, then folded the paper and handed it to me.
“Take this letter to the village of Khoshun-Uzur,” she said. “It’s about three hours away, by bus. When you get there, give it to Baldama Shagdanovna.” I asked if she had the woman’s address. “No,” she replied. “But everyone there knows her. You will have no trouble finding her.”
I asked if she would translate the letter into Russian for me, and she happily complied. It said:
Dear Baldama Shagdanovna,
I’m sending these young guests from abroad to you for help. They would like to become acquainted with the life of a Buryat family, and spend the night with them. Try to show them the village of the poet Gombozhoray, or maybe take them to Galtai. Take them to a place where the influence of the city is not so strong. Help them if you can—maybe they can stay with you?
Now, this was an adventure. Gary and I were excited to head into the hinterlands, but the idea of it made Oleg nervous. He didn’t particularly like sending his American guests on a one-way bus trip into the remote countryside, but what other option was there? He couldn’t take us himself, as he had to work. So, early the next morning, he drove us to the station, watched us board the bus, and implored us to call when we arrived, assuming we could find a phone. We promised we would.
It had snowed overnight, and as Gary and I took our seats on the freezing, decrepit bus, all I could think was, Let’s get this show on the road! I was eager for the driver to rev up and turn on the heat, but unfortunately, the posted bus schedule appeared to be merely a suggestion. We sat shivering in the parking lot for an hour and a half before the driver even started the vehicle. Then, not long after we got under way, the bus conked out—the first of three times this would happen. Somehow, the driver managed to fix it each time, and after five hours we finally made it to Khoshun-Uzur, which turned out to be little more than a collection of wooden houses and vegetable gardens.
Gary and I lumbered off the bus, and to my relief a young man happened to be walking nearby. “Excuse me,” I said in Russian. “Do you know where I can find Baldama Shagdanovna?”
“This way,” he said, and led us down a narrow dirt road. After a hundred yards or so, he pointed at a small log cabin surrounded, like many of the houses, by a tall fence.
As we approached, a cacophony of barking erupted inside the fence. The noise startled me, and I stood rooted, unsure what to do. Through the slats, I could see an old Buryat man standing on the porch. “What do you want?” he called out over the yapping of the dogs.
“We have a letter for you!” I shouted back.
“Well, come on, then!” He stepped off the porch and walked toward us, grabbing the dogs’ collars before opening the gate. He gestured for us to walk up to the house, where a tiny older woman with extremely bowed legs met us at the door.
“Come in!” she said, beckoning us into the house. “Take off your coats, sit down.” She beamed at us, even though she had no earthly idea who we were. We handed her the letter and told her we were visiting from America, and she giggled and clapped her hands. “You are the first foreigners I have ever met,” she exclaimed, then quickly corrected herself: “Well, except for Mongolians, but they don’t count.”
She ambled stiffly around the room in search of reading glasses, and when she finally found a pair, she put them on and sank into a chair. Reading Tsyren-Dulma’s letter, she raised a hand to her mouth and giggled again. “Of course I will help you,” she told us. “But first, let’s have something to eat.”
Baldama laid out a feast of beef soup, sliced vegetables, pickles, bread, sour cream, jam, and honey. “Everything on this table, we made with our own hands,” she said with evident pride, explaining that she and her husband felt lucky to live in the countryside, where they could grow their own produce. As we ate, she and her husband spoke quietly to each other in Buryat, apparently discussing what to do with us. “Ah, I know,” she finally said to me. “I’ll send you to Buyanto, in Galtai.”
That was how we met the gentleman farmer Buyanto Tsydypov. Buyanto deserves his own chapter, which will come next; for now, the main thing to know is that his house was the only one in the village of Galtai with a phone, so once we got there, I was able to call Oleg and reassure him that Gary and I were safe. Even so, when we returned to Ulan-Ude a few days later, Oleg greeted us with relief, as though we’d come home from a war.
When I returned to Ulan-Ude in 2005, I was happy to see that Oleg and Sveta had changed very little. Oleg had grown a beard, and Sveta had gotten a wee bit plump, but their apartment was still the same haven of delicious home-cooked meals, lavish vodka toasts, and endless jazz. Just as Gary and I had done in 1995, David and I stayed with them for a couple of relaxing days before heading back out to Galtai to see the farmer.
Sveta and Oleg were smart, well-read, professional people. They were also endearingly goofy. Oleg loved to tell the Russian jokes called anekdoty, and he was forever exclaiming, “Oh, have you heard this one?” before launching into some long, convoluted story, filled with slang, that invariably ended in a punch line I didn’t get.
1
Russia has 22 autonomous republics, mostly in regions having large non-Russian ethnic groups, such as Tuva, Chechnya, and Dagestan. Republics have their own constitutions and can declare their own official languages.
2
Unveiled in 1970 in celebration of Lenin’s one hundredth birthday, the head has been described in various printed reports as cross-eyed; Buryat in its features; and Jewish, because the snow that collects on its head resembles a yarmulke.