Pain and bitterness for Russia’s Buddhists; Putin’s regime has begun repression against them

#Kanal13 #likekanal13 #subscribekanal13 #warinukraine
https://www.youtube.com/user/kanal13az?sub_confirmation=1 – SUBSCRIBE TO US!

Moscow police raided a Buddhist festival at the Rassvet cultural hub in the city center, detaining several participants and organizers, Russian media reported.
The Buddhist Festival of Good Fortune was meant to take place on April 4-15 in the Russian capital, but its organizer, the Nalanda Foundation, said Sunday that the event would not go on following the raid, The Moscow Times reports.
“We think it would be inappropriate to continue the festival in the absence of its main participants, the monks of the Gyudmed Tantric Monastery,” Nalanda said on VKontakte.
It said a group of Tibetan monks from India, who had been due to lead group worship and create mandalas, were deported on April 8 after being accused of conducting “unauthorized missionary work.”
While organizers said the monks entered Russia on religious visas and that their documents “were processed in compliance with all required procedures,” law enforcement said they were being deported because they had not obtained a special license to hold a religious event at a secular venue.
“Offending Buddhists, especially on such a flimsy pretext, is a measure of last resort. They are ignorant people, and there’s nothing we can do to help them,” user Dina Kozhukhova wrote under Nalanda’s VKontakte post.
“I really hope the monks weren’t completely disappointed and that they’ll come back sooner or later. We’re always looking forward to seeing them,” she added. While dozens took to social media to decry the abrupt closure of a popular festival, the news has hit especially hard in the Buddhist-majority republic of Kalmykia in southern Russia, The Moscow Times says.
Before Nalanda announced the monks’ deportation, several media outlets offered an alternative reason for the festival’s shutdown: the organizers’ decision to sell a book by Telo Tulku Rinpoche, the former Supreme Lama of Kalmykia who was forced to resign in 2023 after being labeled a “foreign agent.”
Around 1% of Russia’s population identifies as Buddhist, according to an October 2025 survey by the Levada Center, the country’s last major independent pollster.
Most of them live in the Siberian republics of Buryatia and Tyva, as well as in Kalmykia, where Buddhism is the traditional religion of local Indigenous communities.
Functioning under Moscow’s patronage, the Buryatia-based Buddhist Traditional Sangha of Russia positions itself as an umbrella organization for all Russian Buddhists.
In reality, the Buddhist communities in Tyva and Kalmykia have historically operated independently, with the latter’s self-rule being particularly problematic for the Kremlin.
Russian authorities have sought for centuries to limit ties between domestic Buddhist communities and foreign religious centers, particularly in Tibet and Mongolia.
Kalmykia’s Central Khurul has long resisted this policy, maintaining a degree of political and financial autonomy by relying on the monastic community and financial assistance from parishioners.
In the 1990s, when Buddhists across Russia were reviving their faith after decades of Soviet repressions, Kalmykia’s Buddhists gained a new leader in Telo Tulku Rinpoche, who also served as the Dalai Lama’s representative in Russia.
“We had no monks of our own after perestroika, so services in newly constructed temples were led by Tibetan monks from India,” said Dr. Maria Ochir-Goryaeva, an Oirat historian and human rights advocate.
Rinpoche, who was born in the U.S., “was received especially warmly” in Kalmykia, said Ochir-Goryaeva. “For Kalmyks, our religion means a great deal…Buddhism serves as the main pillar of everyone’s life and a manifestation of ethnic identity,” Ochir-Goryaeva told The Moscow Times.
With all historical Buddhist temples in Kalmykia razed to the ground by the Soviet government in the 1930s, the recently regained ability to “communicate and worship together with the lamas of famous monasteries is truly a celebration and a revelation for every Kalmyk,” she said.