"Buddhism, as an element of this ethnic identity, has always held a foremost position in the construction of Kalmyk ethnic identity.  When the Kalmyks migrated to the present Kalmyk areas in the 17th. century, they were observant Buddhists. A flourishing Buddhist culture developed so that by 1917 there were more than 100 temples in Kalmykia in which about 3000 clergy lived. In the 1930s all their lamaseries were closed and destroyed. Thousands of Kalmyks died in this repression, including lamas; sacred texts, if not salvaged and buried in private household gardens, were burned.  What had been a magnificent and flourishing Buddhist culture, with grand temples, vast monasteries, and thousands of lamas  was completely destroyed or left to ruins" (1) (1). Bakaeva, E.P. Buddism v Kalmikii (Buddism in Kalmykia).  Elista, 1994, Kalmykia: Kalmitskoe Knizhnoe Izdatelstvo.

                             see also: A.  Bormanshinov: The Lamas of the Kalmyk People: The Don Kalmyk Lamas.
                                           (Subseries: Mongolia, Manchuria, and Tibet), 1991 THE RESEARCH INSTITUTE
                                            FOR INNER ASIAN STUDIES Publications,  Indiana University, Bloomington, IN

                                           Arash Bormanshinov: Lama Arkad Chubanov, his predecessors and successors:
                                           a study of the history of the Kalmyk Lamaist Church in the Don Cossacks region of
                                           Russia. College Park, Md.: Birchbark Press, 1980