Wipes brow with a toilet roll

Yes, it wards away evil.
It was funny to watch all of the antics of people surviving the Great 2020 TP crisis.

As one of my friend's mother posted on social media

"It's interesting to recall that several weeks ago
Australia was preoccupied with fighting awful bush
fires ,
We the public gave donations of cash , ( many millions)
..
It was said that Australians were a very generous lot , it
was wonderful how we all banded together. To help
those in need ,
How ever , a month or so on ward a situation that may effect
us all has arisen namely the Carona virus ,
...with ugliness , rudeness and
selfishness , All l see is a mob of Bullies
Shame on the lot of them , they are bringing up
a future generation , the mind boggals All this
For Toilet paper"

But that's not what my post is about.

It is about ...

Kalmyks

image

To those who are enamored, or even know of, the You Tuber travel vlogger, Mr Bald, traipsing through weird and wonderful locations where normal adventurers rarely tred.

He travelled to the remote Russian Elista in province of Kalmykia.

As with everything internet, it is just wonderful to be led down a garden path of fascinating information.

The Kalmyks are a Buddhist republic within the former USSR.

A few centuries ago, due to alot of turmoil and conflict in Mongolia, orginal groups migrated across to Russia to start a new life.
There are lots of history that I don't care to repeat.
In a nutshell, like all human history, there is never a complete simple linear explanation to anything.

Kingdoms rise and fall, governments change and so forth, differing opinions and idealogies lead to conflict, common purpose, betrayals of common purpose and tit for tat ensues.

Some interesting points were that the Kalmyks were used to great effect against Turkish forces, who labelled them the Kalmyk people.

Kalmyk being a Turkic word meaning "remnants". The original peoples being called Oirat Monguls.

Their nomadic lifestyle, differing religion, appearance, language & culture often brought them at odds with the russian people, but their uniqueness provided that buffer from potential Muslim encrouchment.

As with everything Russian, the cultural differences were always an advantage against a common enemy, however, it couldn't prevent persecution when internal Russia became divided.

Russia has had Empires, Religious powers, Communism and so on. The Reds vs The Whites split the country, causing splits within communities as there was no option to choose the midde ground. I guess that would be a Pinkish group.
You're damned if you do and damned if you don't.

And just when you think that you've found your Russian roots, somebody comes along, let's call that person Mr Stalin.
Mr Stalin suspects that you were helping the Germans when they invaded Russia. Mr Stalin liked to teach lessons on a mass grouping levels.

You're moving to Siberia

Nothing like the open road for nomadic peoples.

The Kalmyks were among the fourteen ethnic groups punished by Stalin
through deportation, beginning in 1943

I guess it is irony that the open road symbolises "hope" and nomadic mobility.

That hope is extinguished when 120,000 people are crammed into trucks & trains that are used to transport cattle.

An oven is provided in the boxcar, that few knew how to operate as they were used to using dung fired ovens and not how to use the wet coal that was provided.

Siberia

map

I met a girl from Siberia once when I was visiting China. She wanted to experience life outside of Siberia. To challenge the status quo, to go against the grain and to find a husband in China and teach English & Russian there.
She's back in Siberia now. I have to say that, from seeing some of the pictures she posts from there, that it is a beautiful place. Terrible winters though but modernisation seems to make life much easier. But probably not back in 1943.

The Kalmyks arrived in Siberia in winter, with inadequate clothing, local suspicions that they were cannibals, and lacking the necessities to survive. Many people died getting there, died being there.

In the winter of 1944, fifty to sixty Kalmyk families were brought into our
village Kornilovo, Krasnoyarsk krai. Entire families perished due to the cold
and famine. The frozen soil was so hard to dig, the dead bodies were often
just left under snow hills. In the spring winds scattered dark black braids of
hair around our village and corpses remained lying where they had been left.
After some time [two or three months—E. G.] only one Kalmyk family had
survived. . . .

As there were many events, affected many people that lived in many areas, it is hard to find just one mindset and story to summarise everything. The most obvious word of summary would be - suffering.

The Siberian spirit was used to outsiders coming into their region. The powers that be always sent dissenters there.
It just took a little bit of time for the locals to overcome their fears & to realise that they were just people.

Once the end of Stalin's reign came the Kalmyk people were allowed to return to their previous homes.
A bit worse for wear, their culture hanging by threads, their language and traditions still alive even after the purging attempts.

It reminds me of the mindset of the Salem Witch Trials where a madness sweeps across the land creating irrational behaviour that seemed justifiable in the shadows.
Our Toilet paper madness again demonstrates that even in our modern world & knowledge, that Fear, can reduce us to our primal survival mechanisms.

Throat singing

An amazing form of throat singing forms part of the Kalmyk culture.

A rock version for the amped up crowd

And the lovely Merry Carousel song that I came across.

I hope it gets you interested in this amazing people & their history.

1. (Mr Bald)

Deportation of Kalmyks

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