All around is verdant gently sloping countryside. The Selenge river describes a broad arc through the green hills and plains and then my guide says something that transfixes me, “this is where the tribes that migrated and settled into modern day Hungary came from”. Abroad smile crosses my lips, the Magyars migrated from central Asia and settled in what is now Hungary late in the 9th century AD. I always thought that that was actually from Mongolia. It turns out its from Ulan Ude 200 km on the Russian side of the border. The whole experience gave me pause to reflect on my ethnicity and ancestry.
Ulan Ude is 7 hours by train from my last stop at Lake Baikal. The journey is scenic as the tratcks follow the southern shore of this massive lake quite closely and the fact that it is there for the whole 7 hours really emphasises the massive size of Baikal. Ulan Ude itself is a pleasant city, home to a massive Lenin head statue and a beautiful little square outside of its opera house theatre. I find myself taking late evening photos here when the fountains suddenly start ramping up and speakers start playing Vivaldi’s Four Seasons. Truly sublime I sat there and just soaked it all in.
Ulan Ude is a tale of two religions. My first excursion is to the township of Tarbagatay 50 km south a village of “Old believers”. There is a touch of Amish about this settlement of Russian Orthdox families who adhere to the faith as it was before the reform of the Russian orthodox church 300 years ago. We are shown the church which of course is a new version of that which was razed by Stalin in the 1930s when all religions were prohibited by the Soviets and father Sergey explains the differences between the new church and the old church. To me the differences seem cosmetic and minor. The old faith uses the old, superseeded Russian Cyrillic language their fingure position when making the sign of the cross is different and their crucifixes show Jesus with his feet splayed out rather than crossed as we are used to seeing. Hardly stuff worth splitting a faith over but I keep my opinion to myself. Certainly the people are friendly enough and put on a show in native costume and a meal for us. The houses are old style log cabins, brightly painted.
Kublai Khan became influenced by the Dalai Lama in the 13th century and as aa consequence Mongolia is Buddhist. Unsurprisingly so close to the Mongol border my second excursion is to the Involginsky Datsan (monastery). All of the datsans were destroyed by Stalin in the 1930s. Amazingly, a request by locals in 1946 was granted by the Kremlin and apparently as gratitude for local sacrifices during WW2 a monastery was established. This complex has expanded over the years to multiple temples and as we walk around twirling prayer wheels we visit them all. There are monks praying, chanting, the clash of cymbals, bells and trumpeting conch horn blasts. It is all very atmospheric and takes me back to my travels in Tibet. The piece de resistance is temple displaying the 12th Kambo Lama. His body was exhumed in 2002 70 years after his death. It shows no signs of decomposition. It is an eerie experience standing before the wax model like corpse arranged in a seated pose. It is reminiscent of the viewing of Lenin back in Moscow.
