The article is devoted to pilgrimage and represents an anthropological interview with the researcher’s comments. The interview was recorded on April 2019, in Elista, at the religious community of the Temple “Golden Abode of Shakyamuni Buddha”. The narrative shows how a pilgrimage to India is perceived by Kalmykia’s believers as a means of coping with life’s hurdles and of searching for its new meaning.

The article looks at the Social Flock (sotsial’naia otara) project whereby the sangha gives sheep to laypeople and other locals as a kind of socially engaged Buddhism in Buryatia. It places the Social Flock project into a broader context of moral economy in the region, where through various acts of help, support and other kinds of giving the sangha establishes itself as a “pillar” of society. The article also critically discusses the very concept of socially engaged Buddhism.

The current development of Buddhism in Buryatia is often characterized by the term “revival”. The leadership of Buriat Buddhists, Pandito Khambo Lama Damba Ayusheev and his circle, played the central role in the ideological construction of this revived tradition. The activities of the “Buddhist Traditional Sangha of Russia” (BTSR) are not limited to the religious sphere and cover a variety of aspects of the socio-political and economic life of Buryatia. BTSR is often opposed by other Buddhist organizations and groups.

The article discusses the emergence of Tibetan nationalism in Sino-Tibetan borderland in the period after the fall of the Qing Empire in 1911 and untill the incorporation of Tibet into the PRC in 1951. It argues that the cult of the Bodhisattva of compassion Avalokiteśvara was a key spiritual root of the Tibetan religious nationalism, associating Tibet with the state of the Dalai Lamas.