[SHE WRITES:

     Last spring and summer while researching a nineteenth century Siberian
     nationalist movement in Irkutsk, I was able to get away to Buriatia.
     Having almost completed a scholarly article on the Russian policy
     toward Buriat Buddhists, I wanted to see the seat of power of the
     Buriat Buddhists in Imperial Russia at Gusino Ozero for myself My
     simple (or simple-minded) desire turned into quite a learning
     experience for me, despite having spent countless hours reading
     articles of similar activities by your members at the turn of the
     century.

     Because of continued sensitivity to issues concerning differences in
     culture and ethnicity in the Russian Republic, I have been
     intentionally vague as to who accompanied me on this journey. After
     being asked by a colleague in Irkutsk if I intended to "stir up ethnic
     trouble" with my research topic, I have redoubled my sensitivity to
     Russian sensitivities.]

The monastery compound on the southwest shore of the Buriat Republic's
Gusino Ozero [Goose Lake] has been silent for sixty years. Only two of the
original structures survive. But that will soon change as the remaining
buildings are being renovated and new buildings to house a school of
Tibetan medicine are being built. Given the derelict state of the compound,
one must ask why the Buriats are spending their precious money at this time
of extreme inflation on an isolated place near the Mongolian border.

The original inhabitants of the surrounding rolling steppe and mountains on
both sides of Lake Baikal were Mongols who moved northward from central
Mongolia in the thirteenth century. Time and intermarriage with the local
Tungus and others resulted in the creation of the Burial people, related
culturally and linguistically to the Mongols, but separated by time and
distance from them. They soon became the dominant group in Baikalia, and
were only supplanted with difficulty by the Russians in the seventeenth
century, with liberal use of the policy of divide and conquer and superior
weaponry. Despite the Russian arrivals some two centuries before, it has
only been since the nineteenth century that the Buriats have shared their
lands with large numbers of Russians.

In the late seventeenth century, Tibetan and newly-converted Mongol
Buddhist monks of the dGe-lugs-pa [Yellow Hat] sect arrived to convert the
shamanist Burials. The Buddhist missionaries were wildly successful. From
the 1740s to 1777 alone twelve monasteries were built in the Transbaikal.
This growth in a religion with foreign leadership caused the Imperial
Russian government some concern, as they continued to fear the security of
this comparatively recently annexed area of Siberia. In order to alleviate
Buddhism's potential threat to Russian sovereignty, an internal leader, a
Bandido Khambo Lama [senior lama], was created. A special seat of power at
Shiretui tsongol'skii datsan [established 1730] was designated to augment
his alienation from Lhasa and the Dalai Lama.

The first seat of power soon became embroiled in a power struggle with the
rival datsan at Gusino Ozero. In 1809, the faction at Gusino Ozero won,
becoming the home of Russia's Buddhist leader. For 120 years it served this
purpose well. Throughout the nineteenth and early twentieth century,
government decrees filtered through this monastery, More importantly for
the faithful, Gusino Ozero became a major depository for Tibetan and Mongol
language books, artifacts, a centre for training monks, and a institutional
base for defence of the Buddhists against the Imperial Russian government's
attempts to curtail their activities.

Buddhist monks and the Khambo Lama were not totally unworldly at this time.
The list of Khambo Lamas removed from their post by the Russian government
in the nineteenth century attests to the continuing struggle between a
government attempting to limit the purview and growth of Buddhism, and the
Buddhist leaders chafing at limitations on religious activities.

By the end of the nineteenth century, the Buriat faithful and a growing
number of Buriat sceptics fervently argued about the correct direction for
Buriats--either towards mainly religious or towards mainly cultural and
economic connections with fellow Mongols and Tibetans. From the time of the
Revolution to the end of the 1920s Gusino Ozero served as a seat of
All-Buriat councils as well as a focal point for Buriat and Buddhist
culture. Religious issues concerning the role of Buddhism in the modern
world, as well as discussion of very secular issues of rights and
directions for the Buriat people within the new state were mooted at these
meetings.

The Buriat Buddhists' internationally renowned, exceptional leader, Agvan
Dorjiev, and his colleagues, defended Buddhism well in Moscow under Lenin,
but they had merely postponed the inevitable. In the late 1920s and early
1930s, in a rapid and clean sweep of Buddhist lamas and their institutions
in the Soviet Union, the compound at Gusino Ozero was closed and its
datsans stripped of their artifacts and books, while the buildings were
destroyed. All fell silent on the lake, and the growing Russian village
surrounded the former monastery and crept ever closer to the remaining
derelict buildings. To underline its "non-existence" in the 1970s, a
surviving shell of a building from Gusino Ozero was rebuilt on the grounds
of the Ethnographic Museum at Ulan-Ude.

The official silence and inactivity changed in 1990. As President
Gorbachev's glasnost had resulted in increasingly vocal and open activity
on the part of Orthodox, Jewish, and Moslem Soviets, the Buddhists acted as
well. A new Bandido Khambo Lama. Munko, was named and a new seat for him
provided, Izvolsky datsan. The choice of this datsan, only 40 kilometers
from the Buriat Republic's capital, Ulan-Ude, refects the shift in
concentration of population from the eighteenth century, and moreover does
not invite historical connections.

What then of the former centre? In the spring of 1993 1 told Russian
friends that I was going to be in Irkutsk for some time doing research, and
that I intended to go to Buriatia to see Gusino Ozero. In April they called
friends in Ulan-Ude and replied that they did not think that there would be
any buildings of historical interest to me at Gusino Ozersk. I corrected
them saying that my destination would be the village, Gusino Ozero, on the
southern tip of the lake, not the modern industrial town Gusino Ozersk, on
the northern tip of the lake. This bantering lasted throughout May and into
June of 1993. A Russian who had lived in Ulan-Ude many years and has
extensive Buriat contacts in Ulan-Ude was called and he responded that
after "asking around" he found that no one knew what I was talking about.
The American must be confused.

Nevertheless, the American historian was to be humoured. Even to the day I
arrived in Ulan-Ude my host had no positive information for me. Prevailing
upon his limitless good humour, I encouraged continued efforts on his part
resulting in a final call to a friend, a Buriat artist of international
repute. All of this questioning and negative responses had elicited some
important information; numbers of educated and interested Buriats in
Buriatiia either did not know about the existence of a monastery, or were
vague as to its historical importance. While some Buriats were aware of the
importance of its most illustrious inhabitants, like Agvan Dorjiev, they
were unclear where they had lived or whether the buildings still existed.
If this was the case with educated people in Ulan-Ude, what would I find in
the countryside? Stalin's efforts had succeeded.

Even after the artist agreed that indeed Gusino Ozero was the old centre of
Buriat Buddhism, and that it still existed, amazingly scepticism still
reigned. Nevertheless. on a clear and sunny Saturday at noon we set out in
an eight year old Lada with a bag of left-over cookies and a box of Fig
Newtons from Irkutsk. The two-hour trip south to Gusino Ozersk reminds
visitors of the logicality of traditional Buriat herding, given the
terrain. Among the Buriat herds, the new Chinese vegetable farms are
changing the diet and economy of the Transbaikal. Not only do these new
farms appear prosperous but, upon arriving at Gusino Ozersk and seeing the
bustle and building of new single family homes, they hint at a changing
economy.

My Russian friends still doubted the existence of my datsan, especially
upon hearing either rather vague directions, or outright denials of the
existence of the datsan from people on the road to Gusino Ozersk. With a
second tank of petrol we skirted the eastern side of the beautiful Goose
Lake on a paved road. We finally found a lorry driver who said we would
need to travel on a dirt road on the south end of the lake. One half-hour
later, upon rounding a corner and seeing the open landscape a village
appeared sitting on the southernmost tip of the lake. Some five kilometres
from the village I cried out. "There it is!". Indeed, still soaring, the
main temple stands out above its surrounding apartment houses.

After two false attempts to actually reach the temple, due to the labyrinth
of roads serving the new houses almost completely encircling the compound,
we found a gate, a new gate, identifying this place as Tamchinskii datsan.
Inside, we found a recently remodeled secondary datsan, and a damaged but
salvageable main datsan, 250 years old, being prepared for renovation. The
three-storey building exhibiting the Chinese influence of the eighteenth
century in its roof, lacks all of its original ornamentation on the walls,
columns, and ceiling. The floor itself is seriously damaged. Despite the
derelict state of the main datsan, its solid, thick walls have taken it
through these difficult times. A caretaker in an "Adidas" outfit told us,
in Russian, the history of the destruction of the other buildings by the
Soviets. The caretaker opened up the now functioning datsan for us to see,
with its Buddhas and small collection of nineteenth century photos of
Khambo Lama Gomboev and others. The building itself has once again been
richly, if not profusely, ornamented with painted columns and ceiling. New
prayer wheels were just being built. They are preparing to build a school
of Tibetan medicine and dormitory in the near future, but money is a major
stumbling block. Despite the political changes in the last two years, the
Buddhists still face opposition and misunderstanding from Moscow. They are
perceived as being "rich" and face heavy taxation at a time when every
rouble is needed for rebuilding and refurbishing. In addition, just as in
every other segment of the Russian economy, they face the problems of
obtaining material necessary for rebuilding. The drive towards a truly
independent Buriat Republic might possibly provide them with a far more
sympathetic administration to deal with, both Russia and Buriat, although
administrative support would not solve their problems with obtaining
supplies. Also, a more independent Buriatiia might need even more local tax
money to support their strained administration.

As we walked back to the car, our host suggested that I needed to come back
to see the new school. I replied theat indeed in five years the compound
will be bustling. Despite all of the difficulties facing them, all
indications are that my prediction will be correct.

MAP: Russian Republic

PHOTO: Main datsan Gusino Ozero.