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Updated: June 16, 2025
It is the seat of a large temple or lamisary whence all the Bouriats in Siberia receive their religious teachings. A grand lama specially commissioned by the great chief of the Bhuddist faith at Thibet, presides over the lamisary.
I think the tent was not more than five and a half feet high. There was no place inside where I could stand erect. The door is of several thicknesses of stitched and quilted felt, and hangs like a curtain over the entrance. The eyes of the Bouriats were nearly always red, a circumstance explainable by the smoke that fills their habitations and in which they appear to enjoy themselves.
I visited the market place every morning and saw curious groups of Russians, Bouriats, Mongols, and Chinese, engaged in that little commerce which makes the picturesque life of border towns. From 1727 to 1860 the Kiachta merchants enjoyed almost a monopoly of Chinese trade. Fortunes there are estimated at enormous figures, and one must be a four or five-millionaire to hold respectable rank.
Each flock of sheep was tended by one or more herdsmen armed with poles like rake-handles, and attached to each pole was a short rope with a noose at the end. This implement is used in catching sheep, and the Bouriats are very skillful in handling it. I saw one select a sheep which became separated from the flock before he secured it. The animal while pursued attempted to double on his track.
Two English missionaries lived a long time at Selenginsk, but though earnest and hard working I am told they never obtained a single proselyte. It is a curious fact in the history of the Bouriats that Shamanism was almost universal among them two hundred years ago; practically it differed little from that of the natives on the Amoor.
There are great flocks of sheep belonging to the Bouriats in Eastern Siberia, and they form the chief support of that people. Curiously enough the Russians rarely eat mutton, though so abundant around them. Borasdine told me it seldom appeared on a Siberian table, and I observed that both nobles and peasants agreed in disliking it.
This is moistened with sheep's or bullock's blood and pressed into brick-shaped cakes. When dried it is ready for transportation, and largely used by the Mongols, Bouriats, Tartars, and the Siberian peasantry. In some parts of Chinese Tartary it is the principal circulating medium of the people.
To these also belong the Bouriats, by Lake Baikal; the Toungusians from the Yenesei to the Amur; the Lamorets, by the Sea of Okhotsk; and the Olentzi, in the Government of Irkutsk. Races of eastern Siberia: the Koriaks, living in the north-eastern corner of Siberia; the Youkagirs, in the territory of Yakutsk; the Kamchadales, in Kamchatka. Their number amounts to 500,000.
The principal inhabitants are Bouriats, a people of Mongol descent who were conquered by Genghis Khan in the thirteenth century and made a respectable fight against the Russians in the seventeenth. Since their subjugation they have led a peaceful life and appear to have forgotten all warlike propensities. Their features are essentially Mongolian, and their manners and customs no less so.
The Bouriats engage in very little agriculture. Properly they are herdsmen, and keep large droves of cattle, horses, and sheep, the latter being most numerous. I saw many of their flocks near the road we traveled or feeding on distant parts of the plain. The country was open and slightly rolling, timber being scarce and the soil more or less stony.
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