Ulan-Ude: the city of the big Head and beautiful Buryat women (Russia). Who are the Buryats of Russia? Cute Buryat woman

Annoyingly, he tore the leg of his trousers. I arrived in Ulan-Ude and checked into a hotel. You have to sew up your trousers somehow, don’t walk around with a hole. And the hotel is small, with only 10 rooms. At the reception I asked the girl if she had any needles? She replied that yes, of course, there would be. Brought it to me. He asks, do you have threads? I answer that no. She: “Oh, woe are you, our men, show me your trousers, what happened there?” Of course I didn't let her sew up my pants! But this is only possible in Russia, such maternal care for a stranger, oh, beautiful Russian women. And I sewed the trousers myself, which was a waste of 3 years in the army and 6 years of wandering around rented apartments and dorms.

And the second funny thing: on some subconscious level, and after numerous trips to neighboring China, Japan and Mongolia in recent months, I began to perceive people of Mongoloid appearance exclusively in the context of language problems. People are cool, nice, beautiful, but... in China I communicated exclusively using my fingers, in Mongolia it’s about the same, in Japan and Korea my English is also bad. So, I caught a taxi from the Ulan-Udin railway station to the hotel, and the taxi driver was a Buryat. And out of habit, using a mixture of English and hand gestures, I depict him going to the hotel. And since the guy was a little freaked out at the first moment, I also showed him with signs, like, I want to sleep, hotel, 50th Anniversary of October Street. Then he almost blurted out “sese” (thank you in Chinese) when he helped throw the backpack into the trunk. And suddenly I realize that the guy is absolutely Russian-speaking and I’m actually in Russia. While they were traveling, they both laughed and apologized for their strange behavior, especially since they didn’t get enough sleep on the train, and the numerous trips had completely messed up their brains.

And I liked Ulan-Ude, a bright and pleasant city. But the giant head of Ilyich, which became his symbol, is completely off topic. Just like in the classic “The Head of Professor Dowell” by Alexander Belyaev -

The station in Ulan-Ude, where my knowledge of the city began -

The main square with the colossal head of Lenin. I wonder if the creators of the head simply did not have enough material for the body (estimate the size of the body if the head is about 10 meters high!), or did they initially hint that wisdom should be immortalized and stored in the form of a talking head? But without arms and legs, so as not to run away -

The city center is very compact and pleasant for walking and relaxing; by the way, there is a “singing” fountain -

If it were up to me, I would put the following photo as the title photo for the post. But it just so happens that the symbol of Ulan-Ude is the big-headed Ilyich, there’s no escape.

Buryat girls are much more beautiful, slender and graceful than Mongolian ones, although, it would seem, they are two related peoples, even closer ethnically than Russians and Ukrainians. Yes, imagine, when I travel I pay attention not only to buildings and monuments -

A funny street attraction with a horizontal bar. If you hang for 2 minutes, you get 500 rubles. True, no one succeeds. Do you think the horizontal bar is greased with oil and your hands are slipping? Not at all. It just scrolls -

Unusual election campaigning, the name of the candidate in the form of a rebus -

The city has many interesting monuments of “Stalinist” classical architecture. When I was photographing this building, a man in uniform came out of it and began yelling at me across the road, “You can’t take pictures! Come here!”, to which I replied, “It’s dangerous to cross here, I could get hit by a car, you’d better come here.” ..". He was somewhat confused and silently returned back to the building -

For some reason, the recreation park in the very center of Ulan-Ude was abandoned many years ago -

Inside the park you get the feeling that you are in the zone of a man-made disaster and humanity has become extinct -

Among the weeds, in the middle of the park stands a lonely church -

How, Kashpirovsky again? Or is this his clone?

Well, oh-oh-very “funny” store -

Colorful old trams run around the city -

And there is very cheap Internet here, 390 rubles per month -

But the airport in the capital of Buryatia is not just poor, but I would say terrible. It is called "Baikal" (formerly "Mukhino") and is located approximately 15 km northwest of the city center. The only good thing about it is that before landing you can go out onto the balcony and take pictures of the planes. I have never seen anything like this at any other airport in the world. However, I’m lying, the small airport in the town of Corozal in Belize is even cooler, see “”.

My Ural Airlines plane -

So, regarding the airport. On my day and hour, three planes took off, two to Moscow and one (mine) to Yekaterinburg. Passengers on three flights did not physically fit in the small check-in hall and were forced to jostle outside at the entrance. There is a crowd of people inside, everyone is squeezed like a herring in a can, and many are coughing - it was not enough to catch the flu at the end of the trip. Then it started to rain and we had to “compact” inside. But there is free wi-fi. But before I had time to take out my laptop, they announced some kind of smoke and kicked all the people out into the rain. And also smokers, who in these places are completely unafraid and calmly light up a meter from the entrance to the terminal. There is smoke inside, cigarette smoke at the entrance. It’s definitely not for me to explain to them that there are specially designated smoking areas, literally twenty meters from the entrance. I moved to the arrivals hall, it also stinks of smoke, but at least there are fewer people.

But this photograph, like the above-mentioned photo of the city Ministry of Internal Affairs, is memorable because after I took a photograph of the Ulan-Ude airport upon landing and had already put the camera away, a policeman came up to me and said that it was forbidden to take photographs. To be honest, I didn’t want to argue with him and explain that it is legal to take photographs (except for situations where there is border and customs control, but in this case there is nothing like that), so I apologized and said that I wouldn’t do it again. But he tried to fully realize the “janitor syndrome” and said that I should take out the camera and delete the photo of the airport. I answered him with a categorical refusal. He began to say something about being denied boarding, I answered him that he was not deciding anything here and should call the shift manager, he developed the thought to “I can detain you...”, I also answered him something worthy. But as the argument progressed, boarding ended and the entire board was waiting only for me. And the cop and I stood at the bottom of the ramp and passionately argued about whether I had the right to photograph the airport or not. So I just silently turned my back to the cop and walked up the stairs into the plane. He muttered something from below, but did not run after me. That's where the communication dried up. I laugh.

The name “Buryat” comes from the Mongolian root “bul”, which means “forest man”, “hunter”. This is what the Mongols called numerous tribes that lived on both banks of Lake Baikal. The Buryats became one of the first victims of the Mongol conquests and paid tribute to the Mongol khans for four and a half centuries. Through Mongolia, the Tibetan form of Buddhism, Lamaism, penetrated into the Buryat lands.

At the beginning of the 17th century, before the arrival of the Russians in Eastern Siberia, the Buryat tribes on both sides of Lake Baikal still did not form a single nationality. However, the Cossacks did not soon manage to conquer them. Officially, Transbaikalia, where the bulk of the Buryat tribes lived, was annexed to Russia in 1689 in accordance with the Treaty of Nerchinsk concluded with China. But in fact, the annexation process was completed only in 1727, when the Russian-Mongolian border was drawn.

Even earlier, by decree of Peter I, “indigenous nomads” were allocated for compact settlement of the Buryats - territories along the Kerulen, Onon, and Selenga rivers. The establishment of the state border led to the isolation of the Buryat tribes from the rest of the Mongolian world and the beginning of their formation into a single people. In 1741, the Russian government appointed a supreme lama for the Buryats.
It is no coincidence that the Buryats had the most lively affection for the Russian sovereign. For example, when in 1812 they learned about the fire of Moscow, it was difficult to restrain them from going against the French.

During the Civil War, Buryatia was occupied by American troops, who replaced the Japanese here. After the expulsion of the interventionists in Transbaikalia, the Buryat-Mongolian Autonomous Republic was created with its center in the city of Verkhneudinsk, later renamed Ulan-Ude.

In 1958, the Buryat-Mongolian Autonomous Soviet Socialist Republic was transformed into the Buryat Autonomous Soviet Socialist Republic, and after the collapse of the Union - into the Republic of Buryatia.

The Buryats are one of the most numerous nationalities inhabiting the territory of Siberia. Today their number in Russia is more than 250 thousand. However, in 2002, by decision of UNESCO, the Buryat language was listed in the Red Book as endangered - a sad result of the era of globalization.

Pre-revolutionary Russian ethnographers noted that the Buryats have a strong physique, but in general they are prone to obesity.

Murder among them is an almost unheard of crime. However, they are excellent hunters; Buryats boldly go after a bear, accompanied only by their dog.

In mutual interactions, the Buryats are polite: when greeting each other, they offer each other their right hand, and with their left they grab it above the hand. Like the Kalmyks, they do not kiss their lovers, but smell them.

The Buryats had an ancient custom of honoring the color white, which in their minds personified the pure, sacred, and noble. To sit a person on white felt meant to wish him well-being. Persons of noble origin considered themselves white-boned, and those of poor origin considered themselves black-boned. As a sign of belonging to the white bone, the rich people erected yurts made of white felt.

Many will probably be surprised to learn that the Buryats have only one holiday a year. But it lasts a long time, which is why it is called the “white month”. According to the European calendar, its beginning falls on cheese week, and sometimes on Maslenitsa itself.

The Buryats have long developed a system of ecological principles in which nature was considered as the fundamental condition of all well-being and wealth, joy and health. According to local laws, the desecration and destruction of nature entailed severe corporal punishment, including the death penalty.

Since ancient times, the Buryats have revered holy places, which were nothing more than nature reserves in the modern sense of the word. They were under the protection of centuries-old religions - Buddhism and shamanism. It was these holy places that helped preserve and save from imminent destruction a number of representatives of the Siberian flora and fauna, the natural resources of ecological systems and landscapes.

The Buryats have a particularly caring and touching attitude towards Baikal: from time immemorial it was considered a sacred and great sea (Ekhe dalai). God forbid that a rude word should be uttered on its banks, not to mention abuse and quarrel. Perhaps in the 21st century it will finally dawn on us that it is precisely this attitude towards nature that should be called civilization.

The problem of the origin of the name Buryatis one of the oldest in Buryat studies. The article presents the results of the latest research, obtained on the basis of identifying and studying a large number of new sources and revising existing approaches to revealing the etymology of ethnonyms.

Origin of the ethnic name Buryat

Acquaintance with the ethnic history of peoples convinces us that the most accurate idea of ​​the origin of an ethnic group can be given by deciphering its self-name, which contains information about the history of its bearers in a concentrated form. The above fully applies to the ethnonym Buryat.

For a long time, the steppe Mongols called the tribes that lived in the forest zone forest. “Some of the Mongolian tribes, who had a yurt near the forest, were given the name Khoyin Irgen, that is, forest tribe,” reports the “Collection of Chronicles” (Rashid ad-Din, 1952: 85). Due to the fact that there were many forest tribes in Mongolia and neighboring territories, the steppe Mongols gave their names to the largest and most prominent of them. This is obviously how the name came about bargut, belonging to one of the main tribes of Transbaikalia and meaning “residents of Barga,” i.e. Bargudzhin-Tokum. In turn, Barga has the meaning of “dead, wooded, little-developed corner or region” (Bertagaev, 1958: 173–174).

In some cases, this rule applied to separate, somewhat isolated groups of tribes that lived compactly in the same territory. One of these groups consisted of tribes to the west of Baikal, who had common ethnogenetic myths, had strong hunting traditions with the skills of semi-nomadic cattle breeding and agriculture, and had a unique material and spiritual culture, different from pure nomads. The steppe Mongols, and after them other peoples, could call these tribes by one common name buraad, which consists of a base buraa and plurality suffix –d. In Mongolian buraa has the meaning of “dense grove”, “forest thicket”, “dense forest”, “forest growing in heaps or stripes on the mountains or in the steppe” (Mongolian-Russian Dictionary, 1894: 262; Mongol Khelniy..., 1966: 108). Any of them is applicable to the Cis-Baikal region. Therefore the word b wow(in Russian writing burat), broadly meaning “people of the forest,” exactly corresponds to the concept of “forest tribes” or “forest peoples”, which the steppe Mongols used to call the population of southern and central Siberia, including Bargudzhin-Tokum.

Existence of the Protoform burat is proven by a number of sources. The earliest dates back to the 16th century, this is the Uzbek monument “Majmu at-tawarikh”. It states that in the ethnic composition of the Uzbeks there is a genus by name burat(Sultanov, 1977: 165). According to the Dutch scientist N. Witsen, the Oirat ruler Baatar Uvsh Tuman, the head of the Russian embassy to China, a native of Holstein Izbrant Eades, the English diplomat John Bell, the author of the anonymous work “The Newest State of Siberia,” published in Nuremberg in 1725, the indigenous population to the west Baikal in the middle and at the end of the 17th century. was called Burat(Witsen, 1785: 103, 606, 658, 682; Baatar uvsh..., 2006: 34, 65; Ides..., 1706: 32–33; Bell, 1763: 245, 248, 254; Der allerneuеste..., 1725: 175– 179) .

Participant of the First Academic Expedition to Siberia Ya. I. Lindenau, in the early 40s. XVIII century who visited Yakutsk, found that “the Yakuts call fraternal... - Burat” (Lindenau, 1983: 23). What was heard from the Yakuts was confirmed in 1745 and 1746. Already in the Baikal region, during trips from Kachug to Lake Baikal and some other places, Ya. I. Lindenau heard from themselves fraternal what's their name Burat (Russian State Archive of Ancient Acts - RGADA: F. 199. Storage unit 511, part 1. D. 6. Sheets 1-2 vol., 15 vol., 19-20 vol.; Storage unit. 511, part 1. D. 7. L. 17 vol., 21-24; Storage unit 511, part 1. D. 8. L. 10).

The work of V. M. Bakunin “Description of the Kalmyk peoples” (1761) echoes the message of Ya. I. Lindenau. The author writes that in the 16th century. one part of the Kalmyks was called Bargu-Burat. Now the Burats, being subjects of the Russian Empire, live in the Irkutsk province. In their own language they call themselves burat, and the Russians - fraternal Kalmyks(Bakunin, 1995: 20, 21).

In the works of some Western European authors the name burat written a little differently. The French Jesuit Gerbillon lived in Beijing for a long time and at the end of the 17th century. made a number of trips around Khalkha. In his travel notes, he noted that the Mongols, the people living near Lake Baikal, are called Brattes(Du Halde, 1736: 67).

The Soviet scientist B. O. Dolgikh, in contrast to all available data, believed that the ancestors of the Buryats, only after becoming part of Russia, received a common name that they did not have before. He believed that the Russians first united them under the name brothers or brotherly people, and then - Buryats, which began to displace the old tribal names (Dolgikh, 1953: 62). But where could the Russians get the name? brothers or brotherly people? Could they themselves name the indigenous inhabitants of the Baikal region who greeted them in a far from peaceful manner? brothers? Of course no. Therefore, it is clear that we are talking about a name that existed among the population itself long before the arrival of the Russians. That could only be the name burat, which the Russians, like Gerbillon, perceived by ear and wrote down as brother(s).

In addition to written sources, it should be pointed out that at present the Mongols of Inner Mongolia, the Oirats of Kuku-nora and Xinjiang of the People's Republic of China, the population of the western and eastern (Sukhbaatar, Eastern) aimags of Khalkha, the Kazakhs and the Kyrgyz still call the Buryats by their old name burat.

First the word burat was a nickname received from the steppe Mongols. Later it was filled with ethnic content and turned into a self-name, which became the general name of the Cis-Baikal tribes. In consolidating the word burat as an ethnonym, an important role was played by the formation of a tribal association on the western side of Baikal, which in socio-political terms, judging by the ethnic composition, the presence of a common leader in the person of the Bulagat prince Chekodey (Additions to historical acts ..., 1848: 21) and the role for which it was created (for military robbery of the Kyshtym tribes), coincided with the chiefdom.

A guideline for at least an approximate determination of the time of formation of the Burat tribal association is the essay “Majmu at-tawarikh” and the work of V. M. Bakunin. They show that if in the 16th century. The small groups of Burats that became part of the Uzbeks and Oirats already had this name, then the tribal association from which they separated could have arisen in the second half of the 15th century. or at the turn of the XV-XVI centuries.

According to archival documents, before and after the arrival of the Russians, the Burat association was a really existing ethnic community in the Baikal region. The Burats collected tribute not only from their closest Kyshtyms, but also made occasional military expeditions to the basin of the Middle Yenisei and Kan in order to collect tribute from the Arins, Assans, Kotts and other tribes who lived there. This is also evidenced by the events associated with the arrival of Russians in the Burat land and the resistance shown to them by the indigenous population in response to tyranny, pogroms and devastation of the uluses. Participation in the Verkholena and Angara uprisings of the mid-40s and early 50s. Burats of the entire Cis-Baikal region, their development of plans for joint actions, the deployment of united military detachments numbering more than 2000 people (ibid.: 22) would have been impossible in the absence of a well-organized unification of tribes west of Baikal.

Particular attention should be paid to the Verkholena uprising, which took place in 1645, in which all four main tribes of Cisbaikalia and Transbaikalia took part: Bulagat, Ekhirit, Hongodor, Khori. Most notable is the participation of the Khorin people in the uprising. The bulk of them at that time lived in Transbaikalia, having recently returned from the northeastern regions of Mongolia (the time and reasons for the Khorin people leaving there are unknown. - B.Z.). Some of the Khorin residents, who moved to the western side of Lake Baikal, where the coastal strip adjacent to the Upper Lena basin and the island of Olkhon were also among their “breed” lands, did not want to remain indifferent to the events that were taking place. Taking this event, which is extremely important for understanding the periodization of the ethnic history of the Baikal region, we can conclude that the starting point for the formation of the Buryat people proper should be considered the mid-17th century, specifically 1645.

Name burat, given to the Cis-Baikal people by their southern neighbors, the Mongols, remained unchanged in some places almost until the middle of the 18th century. But already at the beginning of this century, under the influence of the language of the local population, it underwent some phonetic restructuring. As a result, in the 30s, as can be accurately traced from written sources, the majority of the population on the western side of Lake Baikal, instead of the previous buraad a new name was steadily in circulation buraid (Russian spelling - buret). This is evidenced, which is very important, by the works of participants in two expeditions of the Academy of Sciences to Siberia, which at the turn of the 30-40s and 60-70s. XVIII century worked near Lake Baikal. I. G. Gmelin, I. E. Fischer, I. G. Georgi and P. S. Pallas noted in their works that the self-name of fraternal - Burä tten(Gmelin, 1751: 396, 407, 424; Fischer, 1768: 14, 33; Georgi, 1775: 58, 296–298, 503–505; Pallas, 1776: 95, 177, 244). Similar - Burä tten- fixed the name fraternal Swiss Rainier, who in the middle of the 18th century. lived in Irkutsk and wrote a detailed article about the Burets (Beitrage, 1780: 119–180).

Subsequently, in the Cis-Baikal region, the form buret did not undergo any changes, which suggests that with its emergence and consolidation, consolidation processes in the region were completed. At the beginning of the 18th century. unification processes spread to Transbaikalia. Having gained full strength there, they accelerated the transformation of the Burat tribal association, the name of which was later renamed buret, into an ethnic community of a higher taxonomic level - a nationality that occupied territory already on both banks of Lake Baikal. The uninterrupted flow of migrants from the West contributed to the strengthening of unifying tendencies. Finding themselves in the neighborhood in Transbaikalia, representatives of different ethnic groups, which had previously been separated by a lake, became convinced that they belonged to the same ethnic group.

The decisive factor that had a direct and powerful impact on the intensification of consolidation processes was the unification of parts of the emerging nationality within the framework of the Russian state. The establishment of the Russian-Chinese border in 1727, which meant the final annexation of Cisbaikalia and Transbaikalia to Russia, the rapprochement of both territories and the rapid destruction of the previous territorial and ethnic disunity, inevitably led to the fact that numerous Mongolian clans of the south of Transbaikalia. As a consequence of all this, the name buret, having moved to Transbaikalia, began to overlap local tribal names and was used as a common name for the emerging nationality. Probably, the Khorin people were the first to call themselves by this name, as indicated by the frequency of its use in sources. There's a name behind them buret adopted by the Mongols. As a result, starting from the 30s. XVIII century throughout the entire territory of Cisbaikalia, and then Transbaikalia, a single ethnic name was established buret. This is clearly seen from the work of I. Georgi, who in the early 70s. about the burets (in the author's spelling - burettas) he wrote: “They roam in the southern, flat, partly low-lying and open mountainous places of the Irkutsk governorship, starting almost from the Yenisei along the Mongolian and Chinese border, near the Angara and Tunguska, the upper Lena, near the southern coast Baikal, in Dauria, near Selenga, near Argun and its rivers” (Georgi, 1799: 24).

Quite naturally, from the second half of the 18th century. ethnonym buret became known to neighboring peoples. This name is still called by the Buryat Yakuts, the Mongols of the Hulun-Buir and Khingan aimags of Inner Mongolia of the People's Republic of China. In neighboring Mongolia the form buret is used in its central aimaks closest to Southern Transbaikalia: Selenga, Central (Tov), Ubur-Khangai, Ara-Khangai.

Based on the message of I. Georgi, it would be quite possible to assume that in the 70s. XVIII century In general terms, the contours of a new nationality emerged. However, such a statement would be true if the name buret has not undergone further evolution. According to available data, in the 40s. XVIII century, apparently, among the Selenga Mongols, under the influence of the peculiarities of their language, the name buret began to take on the now well-known form Buryat, which eventually stuck with them as their self-name. This hypothesis is supported by the work of P. S. Pallas, in which what is mentioned along with buret Name Buryat and a word derived from it Buryat just belong to Transbaikalia (Pallas, 1788: 102, 235). Since in the book the inhabitants of Cisbaikalia are invariably called burets, Khorintsi - Khorinsky burets or more often just burets, then the name Buryat in it probably used in relation to the Transbaikal Mongols. Thus, we can assume that it originally arose in the specified ethnic environment.

It is possible that the first among the Mongols to call themselves Buryats were representatives of the largest Tabangut clan. They lived in close proximity to the Selenginsky fort and, moreover, constituted those “Mungal people” with whom constant relations were maintained from Irkutsk and Selenginsk (Zalkind, 1958: 55). This circumstance could have played a decisive role in the fact that the new name Buryat through official channels received quick and wide popularity in the country.

The appearance and consolidation of the name in Transbaikalia Buryat instead of the previous one buret greatly contributed to the activities of Russian government bodies, which, under the pressure of external circumstances, began to prohibit the Mongols living along the Selenga from using their original self-name Mongol. This ban lasted for quite a long time. . In the document, which was drawn up in 1789 on behalf of the Irkutsk Governor-General by the court adviser Franz Langhans, based on information delivered directly from the field, it was noted: “Mongols who are under Russian citizenship, in conversations among themselves and fraternally call themselves Mongols, and when When they deal with Russians, they are called fraternal. For this reason they declare that it has long been forbidden for them to be called Mongols by the Russian governments: in the revisions they are really written as fraternal” (State Archive of the Krasnoyarsk Territory - GAKK: F. 805. Item 1. D. 78. L. 109).

The government ban was due to ongoing claims from the Manchu court, which demanded the return of the Mongolian clans, who ended up within Russia under the Burin Treaty of 1727, to the territory of Mongolia. In order to avoid such a development of events, the state considered it necessary to assign the Transbaikal Mongols to Russia by taking root among them as a self-name as quickly as possible. Buryat(Salkind, 1958: 35). For this purpose, on the one hand, a ban was imposed on them from using the name Mongol. On the other hand, what needs to be especially noted is the new name that arose among them to designate themselves Buryat was given the status of the official name of the entire emerging nation. This step demonstrated to the Manchu authorities that the Mongols living in Transbaikalia are called Buryats. They are residents of the Russian state and it is futile to think about their resettlement to Mongolia. About that name Buryat Almost from its very inception it functioned in exactly this way, as evidenced by the fact that from the middle and almost to the end of the 18th century. it is found exclusively in official documents and educational works about Siberia and its peoples, written in Russian by representatives of the educated part of Russian society.

Change of ethnonym buret V Buryat in the language of the population of Transbaikalia could not have begun earlier than the 40s. XVIII century, because before that time the names Buryat, as evidenced by all sources, simply did not exist. Presumably this transformation began in the 40s. XVIII century The reference point is the work of G. F. Miller, published in 1750 in Russian, “Description of the Siberian Kingdom,” in which the new name was used as the name of the population living near Lake Baikal Buryat, although even in the east of the region, not to mention its western part, the previous form was still firmly in existence buret. Since by the time the work of G. F. Miller was published, the name Buryat was on the list of officially accepted names of the peoples of the Russian Empire, which, of course, was known in the Russian Academy of Sciences, then the publishers of the book had no choice but to use it. As a result, in the work of the German scientist, the entire population of not only Transbaikalia, but even Cisbaikalia, where the names Buryat never existed, got this name.

Such free treatment of the name Buryat, as a result of which the ethnic picture in the region also turned out to be presented in a significantly distorted form, was admitted in the books translated into Russian by I. E. Fisher and D. Bell. Claims cannot be made to the publishers of the work of P. S. Pallas, in which, when translated into Russian, the ethnic names were left in the form in which they existed near Lake Baikal when the German explorer visited there. At the same time, no one should be embarrassed by the fact that of the two names buret And Buryat the latter appears extremely rarely in the book. What is important is that the work mentions, as has been said, the name Buryat and the word derived from it Buryat, without addressing which it was impossible to do. They testified to the development of complex, cross-developing processes in Transbaikalia: on the one hand, the further rapprochement of the Mongolian and Khorinsky populations, on the other, the entry of Mongolian ethnic components into the Buryat people. At first, the Mongols, even after they found themselves cut off by the border from their fellow tribesmen in Mongolia, resorted to their original name in certain life situations Mongol. But later, as they realized the inseparability of their historical fate with the fate of the entire population of not only the eastern, but also the western side of Lake Baikal, they first began to call themselves like him buret, and then Buryat. This fact, confirmed by the work of P. S. Pallas, in which, along with the name Mongol names mentioned buret And Buryat, suggests that at the beginning of the second half of the 18th century. rapidly developing consolidation processes significantly brought the Mongols closer to the rest of the population of Transbaikalia and Cisbaikalia .

One of the earliest, and perhaps even the earliest source that has come down to us, in which the Selenga Mongols call themselves Buriyad, i.e., the Buryats, is a monument to their customary law “1775 on-a namor-un segul sara-yin 8-a edur-a bugede silengge-yin madegen-u khorin hoyar otog-un sayid-nar chuglazhu chagazha hauli-yi togtogozhu higsen dangsu bichig ene amui" (“Book of laws approved by the assembled sides of all 22 clans of the Selenga department on the 8th day of the last autumn month of 1775”), compiled, as can be seen from its title, in 1775 (Institute of Eastern. manuscripts RAS - IVR: N 1). The date of creation of the document suggests that at this time the process of formation of the nationality approached its final stage.

The turning point came in the 80s. XVIII century At this time the trend is to change the name buret shape Buryat among the autochthonous population of Transbaikalia, in particular the Khorin people, became irreversible. This is evidenced by two documents, one of which is dated 1788, the other - 1789. They show that at this time the unification processes in Transbaikalia were basically completed. The first document, whose long title translates as “Regulations on the rules of life of the Buryat tax-paying people, adopted by the chief ataman of four Buryat cavalry regiments Tseren Badluev and the second taisha of eleven Khorin clans Yumtseren Vanchikov with dignitaries,” was written, which is very important, not by Russians or their interpreters in Russian language, and by representatives of the indigenous population - the Selenga Cossack ataman Badluev and the Khorin Taisha Vanchikov - in the Mongolian language. It contains unified provisions on marriage law, developed for the Khorin and Selenga residents in connection with the increasing frequency of marriages between them (IVR RAS: MsG84. L. 5–8). The document clearly shows that in the late 80s. XVIII century both groups called themselves Buryats, which speaks both of the deepening process of their rapprochement, and of the fact that they recognized themselves as part of a single people, which included not only residents of Transbaikalia, but also Cisbaikalia.

About the fact that in the late 80s. XVIII century the indigenous population of Transbaikalia called themselves Buryat, confirms the second document drawn up on June 12, 1789 by the head of the Nerchinsk factories, the Frenchman Barbot de Marny, which the local population living in their vicinity calls Buryats. Following the government’s order that during the construction of the Petrovsky plant “in the middle of the Buryats, action must be taken with caution,” he demanded that the people subordinate to him treat them politely. In his reports, Barbot de Marny reported that people “with the best behavior” were sent to the plant... and that no obstacles were made to the migrations of the Buryats and their entire circulation... (State Archive of the Trans-Baikal Territory - GAZK: F. 70. Item 2. D. 2. L. 50, 201–202).

And finally, one more source can be cited. This is a monument to Khorin customary law from 1800 “Eb kheb togtogal” (“Conciliation Charter”) on the regulation of trade activities, the signatories of which representatives of all Khorin clans and their main taisha Damba-Dugar Rinzino call themselves Khorin Buryats(Tsibikov, 1992: 124). The value of the document is that it clearly shows the consolidation of the current trend. If at the turn of the XVIII-XIX centuries. Khorin residents firmly called themselves Buryats, this meant that this name irrevocably functioned as a general name for the entire population of Transbaikalia.

In sources in Russian almost from the very beginning of the 17th century. the indigenous inhabitants of the Baikal region are called brothers, which is, as we now know, a somewhat contracted form of the name burat. The name that came after him buret is not found in the sources, which is probably explained by the fact that the Russians also wrote down this name with the word that had become familiar to them brothers. At the same time, it must be assumed that from the end of the 18th century, when the Transbaikal Mongols and Khorins finally decided on a common self-name for them, the Russians approached both them and the population on the western side of Lake Baikal, and not only in business documents, scientific and scientific -in educational literature, as before, but also in colloquial speech, the name began to be widely used Buryat, which led to the massive displacement of their previous name from use brothers. At the turn of the 18th–19th centuries. This long-outdated word, due to the lack of conditions for its functioning, has completely fallen out of use among Russians.

Name appearance Buryat, which replaced the name buret, indicated that in the 80s. XVIII century consolidation processes beyond Baikal, as previously in the Cis-Baikal region, have generally reached their completion. On the scale of the entire region, the established ethnic stability marked the emergence of a new nationality, the main features of which, inherent in this type of ethnic group, were evident. The territorial community was finally consolidated, and a community of economic life, language, culture and psychological make-up was intensively formed. Administrative reforms were of great importance for interethnic rapprochement, unifying local government and completing the destruction of the tribal organization (Zalkind, 1958: 151–164). But most importantly, the population of both Cisbaikalia and Transbaikalia has formed a single ethnic identity, thanks to which they have developed a strong idea of ​​national unity. If there are two slightly different sounding ethnonyms buret And Buryat, established as the names of the population on the western and eastern sides of Lake Baikal, the official name of the nationality Buryat became a unifying factor for both parts of the ethnic group. This meant that in the 80s. XVIII century it acquired the status of a common self-name for the entire autochthonous population of the region, which testified to the completion at this time of the overall process of formation of a new ethnic group on the eastern borders of the Russian state - the Buryat people. This conclusion is entirely consistent with the generally accepted position in Russian ethnology that the process of ethnogenesis ended at the moment the population participating in it manifested a distinct ethnic self-awareness, the external expression of which became a common self-name (Kryukov et al., 1978: 7, 29).

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For several centuries, Buryats have lived side by side with Russians, being part of the multinational population of Russia. At the same time, they managed to preserve their identity, language and religion.

WHY ARE THE BURYATS CALLED “BURYATS”?

Scientists are still arguing about why the Buryats are called “Buryats”. This ethnonym first appears in the “Secret History of the Mongols,” dating back to 1240. Then, for more than six centuries, the word “Buryat” was not mentioned, appearing again only in written sources of the late 19th century.

There are several versions of the origin of this word. One of the main ones traces the word “Buryat” to the Khakass “pyraat”, which goes back to the Turkic term “buri”, which translates as “wolf”. “Buri-ata” is correspondingly translated as “father wolf.”

This etymology is due to the fact that many Buryat clans consider the wolf to be a totem animal and their ancestor.

It is interesting that in the Khakass language the sound “b” is muffled and pronounced like “p”. The Cossacks called the people living to the west of the Khakass “pyraat”. Subsequently, this term was Russified and became close to the Russian “brother”. Thus, “Buryats”, “brotherly people”, “brotherly Mungals” began to be called the entire Mongol-speaking population inhabiting the Russian Empire.

Also interesting is the version of the origin of the ethnonym from the words “bu” (gray-haired) and “Oirat” (forest peoples). That is, the Buryats are peoples indigenous to this area (Baikal region and Transbaikalia).

TRIBES AND KINDS

The Buryats are an ethnic group formed from several Mongol-speaking ethnic groups living in the territory of Transbaikalia and the Baikal region, which did not then have a single self-name. The formation process took place over many centuries, starting with the Hunnic Empire, which included the Proto-Buryats as Western Huns.

The largest ethnic groups that formed the Buryat ethnos were the Western Khongodors, Bualgits and Ekhirits, and the Eastern ones - the Khorins.

In the 18th century, when the territory of Buryatia was already part of the Russian Empire (according to the treaties of 1689 and 1727 between Russia and the Qing dynasty), Khalkha-Mongol and Oirat clans also came to southern Transbaikalia. They became the third component of the modern Buryat ethnic group.

To this day, tribal and territorial divisions have been preserved among the Buryats. The main Buryat tribes are the Bulagats, Ekhirits, Khoris, Khongodors, Sartuls, Tsongols, Tabanguts. Each tribe is also divided into clans.

Based on their territory, the Buryats are divided into Nizhneuuzky, Khorinsky, Aginsky, Shenekhensky, Selenginsky and others, depending on the lands of residence of the clan.

BLACK AND YELLOW FAITH

The Buryats are characterized by religious syncretism. Traditional is a set of beliefs, the so-called shamanism or Tengrianism, in the Buryat language called “hara shazhan” (black faith). From the end of the 16th century, Tibetan Buddhism of the Gelug school - “Shara Shazhan” (yellow faith) began to develop in Buryatia. He seriously assimilated pre-Buddhist beliefs, but with the advent of Buddhism, Buryat shamanism was not completely lost.

Until now, in some areas of Buryatia, shamanism remains the main religious trend.

The advent of Buddhism was marked by the development of writing, literacy, printing, folk crafts, and art. Tibetan medicine has also become widespread, the practice of which exists in Buryatia today.

On the territory of Buryatia, in the Ivolginsky datsan, there is the body of one of the ascetics of Buddhism of the twentieth century, the head of the Buddhists of Siberia in 1911-1917, Khambo Lama Itigelov. In 1927, he sat in the lotus position, gathered his disciples and told them to read a prayer of good wishes for the deceased, after which, according to Buddhist beliefs, the lama went into a state of samadhi. He was buried in a cedar cube in the same lotus position, bequeathing before his departure to dig up the sarcophagus 30 years later. In 1955, the cube was lifted.
The body of Hambo Lama turned out to be incorrupt.

In the early 2000s, researchers conducted a study of the llama's body. The conclusion of Viktor Zvyagin, head of the personal identification department of the Russian Center for Forensic Medicine, became sensational: “With the permission of the highest Buddhist authorities of Buryatia, we were provided with approximately 2 mg of samples - these are hair, skin particles, sections of two nails. Infrared spectrophotometry showed that the protein fractions have intravital characteristics - for comparison, we took similar samples from our employees. An analysis of Itigelov’s skin, carried out in 2004, showed that the concentration of bromine in the llama’s body was 40 times higher than the norm.”

CULT OF FIGHT

Buryats are one of the most fighting peoples in the world. National Buryat wrestling is a traditional sport. Since ancient times, competitions in this discipline have been held as part of surkharban, a national sports festival. In addition to wrestling, participants also compete in archery and horse riding. Buryatia also has strong freestyle wrestlers, sambo wrestlers, boxers, track and field athletes, and speed skaters.

Returning to wrestling, we must say about perhaps the most famous Buryat wrestler today - Anatoly Mikhakhanov, who is also called Orora Satoshi.
Mikhakhanov is a sumo wrestler. Orora Satoshi translates to "northern lights" in Japanese and is a shikonu, professional wrestler's nickname.

The Buryat hero was born as a completely standard child, weighing 3.6 kg, but after that the genes of the legendary ancestor of the Zakshi family, who, according to legend, weighed 340 kg and rode two bulls, began to appear. In the first grade, Tolya already weighed 120 kg, at the age of 16 - under 200 kg with a height of 191 cm. Today the weight of the famous Buryat sumo wrestler is about 280 kilograms.

HUNTING THE HITLERS

During the Great Patriotic War, the Buryat-Mongolian Autonomous Soviet Socialist Republic sent more than 120 thousand people to defend the Motherland. The Buryats fought on the war fronts as part of three rifle and three tank divisions of the Transbaikal 16th Army. There were Buryats in the Brest Fortress, which was the first to resist the Nazis. This is even reflected in the song about the defenders of Brest:

Only stones will tell about these battles,
How the heroes stood to the death.
There are Russians, Buryats, Armenians and Kazakhs here
They gave their lives for their homeland.

During the war years, 37 natives of Buryatia were awarded the title of Hero of the Soviet Union, 10 became full holders of the Order of Glory.

Buryat snipers became especially famous during the war. Which is not surprising - the ability to shoot accurately has always been vital for hunters. Hero of the Soviet Union Zhambyl Tulaev destroyed 262 fascists, and a sniper school was created under his leadership.

Another famous Buryat sniper, senior sergeant Tsyrendashi Dorzhiev, by January 1943, had destroyed 270 enemy soldiers and officers. In a report from the Sovinformburo in June 1942, it was reported about him: “A master of super-accurate fire, Comrade Dorzhiev, who destroyed 181 Nazis during the war, trained and educated a group of snipers, on June 12, snipers-students of Comrade Dorzhiev shot down a German plane.” Another hero, Buryat sniper Arseny Etobaev, destroyed 355 fascists and shot down two enemy planes during the war years.

The Buryats are the second largest people in Siberia after the Yakuts. In total, there are more than 460 thousand Buryats in Russia, who live mainly in the Republic of Buryatia, the Irkutsk region and the Trans-Baikal Territory. There is a Buryat diaspora in Mongolia (45 thousand) and China (about 10 thousand). The Buryat language is one of the Mongolian languages. Peoples related to the Buryats in language and culture include the Mongols and Kalmyks. Believing Buryats profess Buddhism and shamanism.

The following are the most beautiful Buryat women according to the portal Top-Antropos.com. The rating includes only famous Buryat women - models, actresses, singers, dancers.

20th place: Anna Markakova(born April 8, 1992) - “Miss Buryatia-2011”, “Beauty of Buryatia-2011”. She represented Buryatia at the Miss Russia 2011 competition. Height 178 cm, body measurements 86-60-89. VKontakte page - https://vk.com/anna_mark

19th place: Dulma Sunrapova(born November 15, 1985, village of Tsokto-Khangil, Trans-Baikail Territory) - Buryat singer. VK page - https://vk.com/dulmasunrapova

18th place: Donara (Dora) Baldantseren- ballet dancer of the Buryat State National Song and Dance Theater "Baikal" (Ulan-Ude), People's Artist of the Republic of Buryatia. She toured in South Korea, Taiwan, the United Arab Emirates, Greece, Spain, Germany, Poland, and Holland. Page in Odnoklassniki - http://www.odnoklassniki.ru/profile/194241150705

17th place: Elena Mardaeva(born January 28, 1985, Bokhan village, Irkutsk region) - fashion designer, organizer of the "Moscow Beauty of Buryatia" competition. VK page - https://vk.com/elenamardaeva

16th place: Natalya Zhamsoeva- winner of the competition "Moscow Beauty of Buryatia-2007", representative of Buryatia at the competition "Beauty of Russia-2008". Height 168 cm, body measurements 83-64-92. VK page - https://vk.com/id144218255

15th place: Yulia Zamoeva- ballet dancer of the Baikal Theater (Ulan-Ude), People's Artist of the Republic of Buryatia.

14th place: Anna Obozhina- Buryat singer, participant in the “Battle of the Choirs” project on the “Russia 1” channel. VK page - https://vk.com/id8070133

13th place: Galina Tabharova- ballet dancer of the Baikal Theater. She toured with the theater in European countries and Russian cities. She was awarded diplomas and letters of gratitude from the Ministry of Culture of the Republic of Buryatia. VK page - https://vk.com/id90942937

12th place: Aryuna Bubeeva(born October 19, 1993) - “Beauty of Buryatia-2010”, “Miss Asia Alma Mater-2012”. She represented Buryatia at the Beauty of Russia 2010 competition, where she took second place in the Young Beauty of Russia category. Aryuna also became the winner of the beauty contest of the ethno-festival of nomadic peoples of Eurasia “Erdyn Games” in 2011. Aryuna Bubeeva’s height is 175 cm.

11th place: Ayuna Albasheeva- "Beauty of Buryatia-2006".

10th place: Alena Albasheeva- "Beauty of Buryatia-1999". Alena is the older sister of Ayuna Albasheeva "(Beauties of Buryatia-2006").

9th place: Victoria Lygdenova- "Beauty of Buryatia-2008". At the age of 17, Victoria received the title "Third Beauty of Russia - 2008", corresponding to fourth place. On March 15, 2013, a 22-year-old girl died from heart disease - cardiomyopathy.

8th place: Evgenia Shagdarova- winner of the “Top Model of Buryatia” competition, participant in the third season of the television project “Top Model in Russian” on the Muz-TV channel. Height 172 cm.

7th place: Oyuna Osodoeva(born August 18, 1992) - “Moscow beauty of Buryatia-2010”. VK page - https://vk.com/oyunaos

6th place: Irina Batorova(born December 22, 1978, Ulan-Ude) - ballet dancer of the Baikal Theater, choreographer, Honored Artist of the Russian Federation. VK page - https://vk.com/id7013273

5th place: Irina Pantaeva(born October 31, 1967, Ulan-Ude) - model, actress, writer. In 1989 she became the winner of the first beauty contest in Buryatia - "Miss Ulan-Ude". Then she worked as a model in Moscow, Paris, New York, appeared on the covers of Vogue, Harper's Bazaar, Elle magazines. Irina starred in several films: “The Return of Khoja Nasreddin” (USSR, 1989), “Mortal Kombat 2: Extermination” (USA, 1997), “Escape from the Gulag” (Germany, 2001), etc. Irina Pantaeva’s autobiography “Siberian Dream” was published in several languages ​​(English, French, German, Japanese, etc.). Irina Pantaeva’s height is 178 cm. model parameters 86-63-89. Official website - http://www.irinapantaeva.net

4th place: Darima Chimitova- "Miss Ulan-Ude 2012". Height 174 cm, measurements 85-59-87. VK page - https://vk.com/darichi

3rd place: Anastasia Tsydenova(born June 10, 1986, Irkutsk), better known under the pseudonym Asia, is a TV presenter on the Muz-TV channel.

2nd place: Madegma Dorzhieva- Buryat singer, composer, professional pianist, producer. Laureate of numerous international competitions and festivals. The repertoire includes both ancient Buryat chants and modern rhythms. She has released three successful solo albums. VK page - https://vk.com/midigma_dorzhieva

1st place: Maria Shantanova- model. After graduating from school in Ulan-Ude, she went to study in China, where she became the face of Nesсafe Gold in China, Hong Kong, Taiwan and Macau. She played the main role in the 6th episode of the project “Speaking Buryat”. Height 167 cm, body measurements 86-60-88. VK page - https://vk.com/maria_shantanova