So much news, moving to Kalmykia (video)

Amber Dorrian, Wisdom Quarterly

  

Kalmyk flag, white lotus on blue and gold

(RD100) Elista, the only indigenously Buddhist capital in Europe, is also the Chess Capital of the World. It is the Kalmyk Republic's main city, a multiethnic metropolis with an industrious Eurasian population.
 

Kalmyk president, Dalai Lama (phayul.com)

The Kalmyks are descendants of the Oirats and other Mongol tribes from the time of Genghis Khan. They settled near Southern Volga along the Caspian Sea and fell afoul of Stalin during the Russian revolution.
 
During the time of imperial Russia, Kalmyks joined the Russian Army with the Cossacks. Lenin was part Kalmyk but an atheist rather than a Buddhist. The maniacal dictator Stalin did not take kindly to this minority ethnic group. 
 
So while everyone else around here heads for the Himalayas, I'm aiming for Europe. All I need is a Buddhist temple, a yoga mat, and a chess board. I can take it up with a little help from the friendly space-faring devas the former president of Kalmykia traveled with.

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A most improbable world: Buddhist Kalmykia

Sandji Buvaev (kalmykia.eu),  Tomas Van Houtryve; edited by Seven, Wisdom Quarterly

Girls in Soviet era uniforms, Victory Day celebrations in the capital. Lenin was part Kalmyk, but that didn’t save Russia from the Communist Party’s wrath. Stalin ordered the entire Kalmyk population loaded onto cattle cars and deported to Siberia after WW II.

 
(Russian version) In 2010 I visited one of the most improbable places on Earth, the little-known European Republic of Kalmykia, a former Soviet state. 

Gilded Buddha, Mes Aynak, Afghanistan (CNN)

[Most people are hard pressed to believe that Buddhism made it to Afghanistan, in Central Asia. But Siddhartha Gautama, who became the historical Buddha Shakyamuni, was probably born there 26 centuries ago when it was the northwestern frontier of India called Gandhara, near the portion of the Himalayan range known as the Hindu Kush. Buddhism did not come West to "reach" Afghanistan. 
 

"Hey, it's Seagal!" (kalmykia.eu)

Rather it rather co-originated there, as the recent discovery of the enormous 2,600-year-old Buddhist temple complex archeological site "Copper Well" (Mes Aynak) indicates, along with the maverick archeological research of historian Dr. Ranajit Pal, and the stunning Greek-Buddhist blended treasures, monastic caves, and the world's oldest oil painting art of Bamiyan.]

Located on the arid steppe region south of Volgograd along the Caspian Sea, Kalmykia is Europe’s only Buddhist republic.

 

Modern suburb surrounding the World Chess Federation building, Elista, Kalmykia

 

Nyusha concert (kalmykia.eu)

It is also billed as a Mecca for chess players with the headquarters of the World Chess Federation (FIDE, whose current president is the former president of Kalmykia, Kirsan Ilyumzhinov). An American-style suburb has been built near the capital, Elista, expressly for the purpose of holding tournaments and offering vacation homes to former champions.

  

The game -- which was invented by Buddhist monks averse to war but keen on peaceful expressions of strategy and wit -- is mandatory for all Kalmyk school children.

"We are not alone." Many are contacted by space ("heavens") dwelling humans.

 

Tea girl at car rally (kalmykia.eu)

Oddly, the man behind all of this, billionaire Kirsan Ilyumzhinov, claims to have been abducted by aliens (devas). He says that “chess came to Earth from outer space [in the akasha deva loka or plane of 'shining ones'].” 

Men play open air chess on a massive board in Lenin Square, women do yoga in the main Buddhist temple in front of the Golden Buddha -- whose Western features are not due to Greek artistic influence, as has long been the speculation by Eastern Buddhists but because Siddhartha was from the northwest with a mother who came from even further west in what is now the geopolitical Middle East in or around Iran (Persia, Seistan-Balochistan, according to Dr. Ranajit Pal) -- and time seems to stand still in this arctic region of the Buddhist world.

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Europe's Buddhist Kalmykia to get Bodhi tree

Kalmykia.eu; Amber Dorrian, Dhr. Seven, Wisdom Quarterly; Russia Today

(Kalmykia Tour) Gold Temple of the Buddha Shakyamuni. Хурул Золотой храм в городе Элиста. Калмыкия Европа. Буддийский храм "Золотая обитель Будды Шакьямуни".

 

The Golden Temple, Kalmyk capital, Elista

Kalmykia is an indigenously European Buddhist region in southwestern Russia. It practices Vajrayana Buddhism, an esoteric form of the Dharma blended with Siberian shamanism, establishing a long but little known history of the Dharma on the Continent.. Mongolian and Himalayan Buddhist kingdoms have apparently had a heavy influence its style of practice.

The Buddhist Dead Sea, Europe (kalmykia.eu)

HISTORY: The Kalmyks originate from Central Asia. Their ancestors -- the Oirats -- belonged to the western branch of Mongolian peoples. They represented a very powerful alliance of tribes, formations of the early feudal state under the dominion Mongolia found itself in during the first half of XV сentury. Consequently inter-regional conflicts and a number of military misfortunes caused the reduction of the Oirat Empire. More

Golden Buddha in Gold Temple abode

BODHI TREE: (Sandji Buvaev) On Nov. 27, 2012 the former president of the Republic of Kalmykia, billionaire Kirsan Ilyumzhinov, reported that he met with a Buddhist delegation from Sri Lanka.
 
It was agreed during that in the spring of 2013, a seed or cutting will be brought from the direct descendant of the world's oldest documented tree (the sacred fig or Ficus religiosa), under which the historical Buddha attained enlightenment. It will be planted in the European  Buddhist Republic of Kalmykia, according to KalmykiaNews. Recall that in 2011, the former Kalmyk president... More

• Buddhism in Europe: Girls of Kalmykia (kalmykia.eu)
• American actor Steven Seagal visits Kalmykia
• Non-Jonesian Indology and Alexander (RanajitPal.com)

Buddhism traveled West out of India (TSO)

Life in Siberia
The coldest place on Earth is not Himalayan Ladakh, Nepal, Tibet, or distant Bhutan, some of the highest inhabited places. It is the Russian republic of Yakutia, which makes up a fifth of Russia's land.

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The Asian Tsunami (movie)

DarlowSmithson Productions Ltd. for Channel 4; Wisdom Quarterly

"Tsunami: Caught on Camera" (Part 1 of 7)

The Asian Tsunami that struck on Boxing Day 2004 has now been made into a film -- using real footage from three vantage points. Buddhist Thailand and Sri Lanka and formerly Buddhist Indonesia are all shown close up as the earthquake and waves hit. The footage was recorded by European tourists on Christmas vacation in paradise.

The deadliest tsunami in history?

• Part 3
• Part 4
• Part 5 
• Part 6 
• Part 7

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Science: It's a girl thing! (comedy video)

Wisdom Quarterly; Alba502 (EU video)
What might a sexist commercial about men look like if society wanted less science out of us and more self-defeating behavior like alcohol and pornography addiction?
   

The following public service announcement (PSA) was published by the science commission of the European Union. It is part of a campaign designed to attract more females to a career in science. The commission says the inadvertently sexist video has to "speak their language to get their attention."

   

They add that it was intended to be "fun, catchy" and strike a chord with young people. "I would encourage everyone to have a look at the wider campaign and the many videos already online of female researchers talking about their jobs and lives," the commission added.

(Seattle P.I.) A European Union PSA was supposed to encourage girls to consider a career in the sciences. Instead, it turned out to be a big embarrassment, with critics (and pretty much everyone) saying it’s sexist and insulting... peppered with the words “lipstick,” “stiletto,” and “gawking dude.” More

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Speaking Freely in the New Burma (audio)

TheWorld.org (PRI, Public Radio International); Wisdom Quarterly

This summer, [The Lady] Aung San Suu Kyi will be stepping out onto an international stage.

  

She will finally be picking up her 1991 Nobel Peace Prize and speaking her mind in various European capitals.

   

It will be a far cry from the 15 years she spent under house arrest, unable to participate in elections or speak to her Burmese compatriots. 

  

Suu Kyi, now a member of the Burmese parliament, recently completed her first trip out of Myanmar [Burma as renamed by its military dictatorships after their coup] in 24 years.

  

In a speech in Thailand, she praised President Thein Sein’s efforts to bring democracy to the country. But she didn’t shy away from criticizing more entrenched [authoritarian] forces that are less open to change, in particular the military which she called a “force to be reckoned with.”

Buddhist monastics rose up protesting police state dictators during the Saffron Revolution.

   
Next, Suu Kyi heads to Paris, Oslo, London, and elsewhere for a series of high profile appearances.

   

Her words will be closely analyzed back home -- by those who love her and those who fear her. It’s clear that the government of Myanmar is giving Suu Kyi freedoms that it previously denied her... More

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