The Buzava or Buzava Kalmyks are the ethnic Kalmyk people centered in the western Republic of Kalmykia, in the present day Southern Federal District of Russia.
In 1699 group of the Dörbets of Oirat, a Choros clan within the Oirat tribe, migrated from the Buddhist Kalmyk people in the Volga River area to join the Don Cossacks people. They eventually became called the Buzava Kalmyks.
They resettled with the Don Cossacks along the middle and lower Don River in Kalmykia.
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Kalmyks are the only Mongolic-speaking people living in Europe, residing in the easternmost part of the European Plain.
Oirats or Oirds, formerly known as Eluts and Eleuths, are the westernmost group of the Mongols, whose ancestral home is in the Altai region of Siberia, Xinjiang and western Mongolia.
Elista is the capital city of the Republic of Kalmykia, Russia.
Kalmyk Oirat, commonly known as the Kalmyk language, is a variety of the Mongolian language, natively spoken by the Kalmyk people of Kalmykia, a federal subject of Russia. In Russia, it is the standard form of the Oirat Mongolian, which belongs to the Mongolic language family. The Kalmyk people of the Northwest Caspian Sea of Russia claim descent from the Oirats from Eurasia, who have also historically settled in Mongolia and Northwest China. According to UNESCO, the language is "definitely endangered". According to the Russian census of 2021, there are 110,000 speakers out of an ethnic population consisting of 178,000 people.
Kalmykia, officially the Republic of Kalmykia, is a republic of Russia, located in the Volga region of Southern Russia. The republic is part of the Southern Federal District, and borders Dagestan to the south and Stavropol Krai to the southwest; Volgograd Oblast to the northwest and north and Astrakhan Oblast to the north and east; Rostov Oblast to the west and the Caspian Sea to the east. Through the Caspian Depression, the Kuma river forms Kalmykia's natural border with Dagestan. Kalmykia is the only polity within Europe where the Indian religion of Buddhism is the predominant religion.
The Dörbet, known in English as The Fours, is the second largest subgroup of Mongol people in modern Mongolia and was formerly one of the major tribes of the Four Oirat confederation in the 15th-18th centuries. In early times, the Dörbets and the Öold were overruled by collateral branches of the Choros lineage. The Dörbets are distributed among the western provinces of Mongolia, Kalmykia and in a small portion in Heilongjiang, China. In modern-day Mongolia, the Dörbets are centered in Uvs Province.
The Khoshut are one of the four major tribes of the Oirat people. They established the Khoshut Khanate in the area of Qinghai in 1642–1717.
The music of Kalmykia, a national republic within Russia, has roots in the musical culture of the Oirats. Traditional instruments include the dombra, which is used to accompany dance music. The state folk ensemble Tulpan was formed in 1937 to promote traditional Kalmyk music.
The Kalmyks are the only Mongolic-speaking people of Europe whose national religion is Buddhism. In 2016, 53.4% of the population surveyed identified themselves as Tibetan Buddhists. They live in Kalmykia, a federal subject of Russia in the southwest. Kalmykia borders Dagestan to the south, Stavropol Krai to the southwest, Rostov Oblast to the west, Volgograd Oblast to the northwest, and Astrakhan Oblast to the east. The Caspian Sea borders Kalmykia to the southeast.
Oirat is a Mongolic language spoken by the descendants of Oirat Mongols, now forming parts of Mongols in China, Kalmyks in Russia and Mongolians. Largely mutually intelligible to other core Central Mongolic languages, scholars differ as to whether they regard Oirat as a distinct language or a major dialect of the Mongolian language. Oirat-speaking areas are scattered across the far west of Mongolia, the northwest of China and Russia's Caspian coast, where its major variety is Kalmyk. In China, it is spoken mainly in Xinjiang, but also among the Deed Mongol of Qinghai and Subei County in Gansu.
The flag of Kalmykia consists of a yellow field with a sky blue circle in the center containing a lotus. The yellow stands for the sun, the people and the religious faith of the nation. The blue represents the sky, eternity, and steadiness. The lotus is a symbol of purity, spiritual rebirth and happiness. Its five upper petals represent the continents and the lower four stand for the quarters of the globe. Together, they symbolize the will of the Kalmyks to live in friendship and to cooperate with all the nations of the world.
The Kalmykian Cavalry Corps was a unit of about 5,000 ethnic Kalmyk volunteers who chose to join the German Army in 1942 rather than remain in Kalmykia as German forces retreated before the Red Army. Stalin subsequently declared the Kalmyk population as a whole to be German collaborators in 1943 and ordered mass deportations to Siberia suffering great loss of life.
Erdne-Basan Ombadykow, also known as Telo Tulku Rinpoche, is the Tibetan Buddhist spiritual leader of the Kalmyk people. He received his formal training as a bhikṣu in India and was recognized by the 14th Dalai Lama as the current reincarnation of mahasiddha Tilopa.
Kho Orluk was an Oirat prince and Taish of the Torghut-Oirat tribe. Around 1616, Kho Orluk persuaded the other Torghut princes and lesser nobility to move their tribe en masse westward through southern Siberia and southward along the Emba River to the grass steppes north of the Russian garrison at Astrakhan. During the process of securing the steppes for his people, Kho Orluk met limited resistance from the local Muslim tribesman, therefore setting the foundation of what later became known as the Kalmyk Khanate.
Kalmyk State University is the oldest and largest university in Kalmykia. Since 2011 it is called Federal State Budget Educational Establishment of Higher Professional Education. The university was established in 1970, and now it has more than 8,000 students, studying at 7 Departments and 1 institute:
The Kalmyk Khanate was an Oirat Mongol khanate on the Eurasian steppe. It extended over modern Kalmykia and surrounding areas in the North Caucasus, including Stavropol and Astrakhan. During their independence, the Kalmyks both raided and allied with Russia in turn, engaging in numerous military expeditions against the Crimean Tatars, the Ottoman Empire, neighboring Muslim tribes, and the highlanders of the North Caucasus. The Khanate was annexed by the Russian Empire in 1771.
The Sart Kalmyks are an ethnic group of the Oirats, who live in Issyk Kul Province, Kyrgyzstan. Their population is estimated to be c. 12,000. They are descendants of the Ööled tribes, who moved to the territory of the Russian Empire after the failure of the Dungan revolt, some part inhabited the area during the rule of the Zunghar Khanate. They used to speak Sart Kalmyk, a dialect of the Oirat language, but have largely switched to the Kyrgyz language by now. As a result of their long co-inhabitance with Kyrgyz people, they have largely incorporated into the Kyrgyz nation, though some Kyrgyz still consider them to be distinct. Today the majority of Sart Kalmyks also identify themselves as Kyrgyz, or as "almost Kyrgyz". They belong to the Muslim faith.
Yergeni is a hilly area in Russia. It is located in the southern corner of the East European Plain, mostly in Kalmykia, with parts in Volgograd Oblast and Rostov Oblast. The highest point of Kalmykia, 222 metres (728 ft) high Shared, is located in the Yergeni hills.
The Congressof the Oirat-Kalmyk People, also known as the Chuulhn in Kalmyk Oirat Mongolian, is an unregistered organization claiming to represent the Kalmyk people or broadly people of Kalmykia.