The Socialist Way of Life in Siberia: Transformation in Buryatia

Images

Zhigzhit Galsanov, a Buryat clan and Steppe Duma leader pictured here in 1891 wearing imperial medals. Educated in local Buddhist monasteries, Galsanov traveled to Tibet and St. Petersburg with Agvan Dorzhiev. He was arrested in the 1930s during Joseph Stalin’s collectivization and anti-religious campaigns. Buddhist lamas at the Atsagatskii Datsan. The datsan was founded in 1925, abolished in 1936, and rebuilt in the early 1990s. The Buryat lama Agvan Dorzhiev, who served as an emissary for the 13th Dalai Lama, is seated third from the right. Buryat family in a yurt. Early twentieth century. Buryat typesetter at the publishing house in Ulan-Ude in 1933. Workers constructing an administrative building in the Railroad neighborhood in Ulan-Ude in the 1950s. The sign reads “The House of the Soviets. Long live major construction. BMASSR.” The celebrated Buryat writer, Khotsa Namsaraev (1889–1959), at his desk in 1949. A copy of Buriaad-Mongoloi Unen lies to his left. Other copies hang on the wall behind him. Residential housing in the Railroad neighborhood of Ulan-Ude in the 1950s. Large textile factory in the October neighborhood of Ulan-Ude. The factory was founded in 1946 and the photograph was taken in 1967. Andrei Urupkheevich Modogoev, First Secretary of the Buryat ASSR from 1962 to 1984. The House of Culture in the Railroad neighborhood of Ulan-Ude in the 1950s. A statue of Vladimir Lenin stands at the top of the steps. Another statue in the middle of a fountain at the bottom of the steps is of a mother with her children. The dedication ceremony for the Vladimir Lenin Monument on the Square of the Soviets in Ulan-Ude in 1971. The monument was commissioned to commemorate the 100th anniversary of the birth of Lenin. Republican administrative buildings (the one on the left is under construction) stand behind the monument. The Buryat State Agricultural Institute in 1972. The institute was founded in 1931. February 1990 protests in Ulan-Ude against Buryat ASSR First Secretary Anatolii Mikhailovich Beliakov. Beliakov was in power from 1984 until 1990 when widespread opposition forced him to step down. The sign on the left reads, “Beliakov, Resign!” ...