title: James I of Scotland

text: The reaction against the king at the general council had shown Atholl that not only was James on the back foot but his political standing had received a huge setback and may have convinced the earl that James's killing was now a viable course of action. Atholl had seen how assertive action by two of his brothers at different times had allowed them to take control of the kingdom and that as James's nearest adult relative, the earl must have considered that decisive intervention on his part at this time could prove to be equally successful.


title: James I of Scotland

text: The destruction of the Albany Stewarts in 1425 appears to have played a large part in the conspiracy against the king. Their judicial killing and forfeiture of their lands influenced the servants who administered and depended on these estates for their living. The vacuum left by this was filled by Atholl in whose employment many of these disaffected Albany men appear. These included Sir Robert Graham, who only three months earlier had attempted to arrest the king at the Perth council, and the brothers Christopher and Robert Chambers. Even though Robert Chambers was a member of the Royal household, the old Albany ties were stronger.


title: James I of Scotland

text: A general council was held in Atholl's heartland in Perth on 4 February 1437 and crucially for the conspirators, the king and queen had remained in the town at their lodgings in the Blackfriars monastery. In the evening of 20 February 1437 the king and queen were in their rooms and separated from most of their servants. Atholl's grandson and heir Robert Stewart, the king's chamberlain, allowed his co-conspirators—thought to number about thirty and led by Robert Graham and the Chambers brothers—access to the building. James was alerted to the men's presence, giving the king time to hide in a sewer tunnel, but with its exit recently blocked off to prevent tennis balls getting lost, James was trapped and murdered.


title: James I of Scotland

text: The assassins had achieved their priority in killing the king but the queen, although wounded, had escaped. Importantly, the six-year-old prince, now King James II, had been safeguarded from Atholl's control by the removal of the earl's associate, John Spens, from his role as James's custodian. Spens vanished from the records following the regicide but the re-allocation of his positions and lands immediately following the murder indicate his part in the plot. Yet, in the chaos following the murder, it appeared that the queen's attempt to position herself as regent was not guaranteed.


title: James I of Scotland

text: No surviving documentation exists that suggests that there was any general feeling of horror or condemnation aimed at the murderers. It was possible that had the botched attempt at killing the queen succeeded and had Atholl taken control of the young king then his attempted coup might have succeeded. The queen's small group of loyal supporters that including the Earl of Angus and William Crichton ensured her continued hold of James. This in itself greatly reinforced her situation but Atholl still had followers. By the first week of March neither side seemed to have the ascendancy and the Bishop of Urbino, the pope's envoy, called for the council to pursue a peaceful outcome.


title: James I of Scotland

text: Despite this, by the middle of March, it is probable that both Angus and Crichton had mobilised to move against Atholl. It is equally likely that Atholl had gathered his forces to resist incursions into his heartlands—on 7 March the queen and the council entreated the burgess' of Perth to resist the forces of the 'feloune traitors'.


title: James I of Scotland

text: The position of Atholl and his circle of close supporters only collapsed after Earl Walter's heir Robert Stewart had been captured and who, in Shirley's account, confessed to his part in the crime. Walter was taken prisoner by Angus and held at the Edinburgh Tolbooth where he was tried and beheaded on 26 March 1437, the day after the coronation of the young James II. Sir Robert Graham, the leader of the band of assassins was captured by former Atholl allies and was tried at a session of the council sitting at Stirling castle and subsequently executed sometime shortly after 9 April.


title: James I of Scotland

text: Queen Joan's pursuit of the regency ended probably at the council of June 1437 when Archibald, 5th Earl of Douglas, was appointed to act as lieutenant-general of the kingdom.


title: James I of Scotland

text: King James's embalmed heart may have been taken on a pilgrimage to the Holy Land following his internment at Perth Charterhouse, as the Exchequer Rolls of Scotland for 1443 note the payment of £90 to cover the costs of a knight of the Order of St John who had returned it to the Charterhouse from the Island of Rhodes.


title: James I of Scotland

text: James was a paradoxical figure. Although a prisoner of England he still received a good education and developed into a cultured individual becoming a poet, an accomplished musician and skilled in sports. Walter Bower, abbot of Inchcolm, lists James's qualities as a musician—'not just as an enthusiastic amateur' but a master, 'another Orpheus.' His mastery included the organ, drum, flute and lyre. James's sporting abilities such as wrestling, hammer throwing, archery and jousting are also listed by Bower. He described James as possessing an 'eagerness' in 'literary composition and writing', the best known of which is his love poem, "The Kingis Quair". Bower characterised the king as 'a tower, a lion, a light, a jewel, a pillar and a leader 'and was our law giver king' who ended the 'thieving, dishonest conduct and plundering'.


title: James I of Scotland

text: Abbot Bower also described the king as capable of stabbing a near relative through the hand for creating a disturbance at court. The abbot was generally supportive of James but he and others regretted the demise of the Albany Stewarts, and he was confounded by James's greed for territory and wealth. Although Bower did not dwell at length on the negative aspects of James's character, he alluded to the dismay of even those close to the king at his harsh regime. John Shirley's account of the events leading up to James's murder in the work "The Dethe of the Kynge of Scotis" provided an accurate narrative of politics in Scotland and which must have depended upon knowledgeable witnesses. "The Dethe" describes James as 'tyrannous' and whose actions were motivated by revenge and 'covetise ... than for anny laweful cawse'. Shirley agrees with Bower as far as the Albany Stewarts were concerned when he wrote that the Albanys . Writing nearly a century later both the chroniclers John Mair and Hector Boece relied extensively on Bower for their own narratives. They described James as the embodiment of good monarchy with Mair's eulogy that James '...indeed excelled by far in virtue his father, grandfather and his great-grandfather nor will I give precedence over the first James to any of the Stewarts', while Boece, in a similar vein, calls James the . Late in the 16th century the early historians George Buchanan and Bishop John Lesley from opposite ends of the religious spectrum both looked favourably on James's reign but were uneasily mindful of an enduring aggressive history regarding the king.


title: James I of Scotland

text: The first 20th-century history of James I was written by E.W.M. Balfour-Melville in 1936 and continued the theme of James as the strong upholder of law and order and, when describing Albany's trial and execution, he writes 'the King had proved that high rank was no defence for lawlessness; the crown was enriched by the revenues of Fife, Menteith and Lennox'. Balfour-Melville views James as a lawmaker and a 'reformer' whose legislation was aimed at not only increasing the position of the king but of parliament. Michael Lynch describes how James's positive reputation began immediately after his death when the Bishop of Urbino kissed James's wounds and declared him to be a martyr. He suggests that the praise of the pro-James Scottish chroniclers and also of some modern historians to 'find strong king's to applaud' should not diminish the extent of parliament's ability to restrain the king nor minimise the confrontation that took place between James and a more self-assured parliament. Stephen Boardman takes the view that by the time of his death James had succeeded in breaking down the constraints on the exercise of royal authority which were rooted in the 'settlement of the kingdom' by Robert II. Christine McGladdery describes how opposing views were the result of 'competing propaganda after the murder'. To those who were glad to see the king dead, James was a tyrant who, without reason, aggressively assailed the nobility, imposing forfeiture on their estates and who 'failed to deliver justice to his people'. She also provides the opposite viewpoint that the king was seen as giving 'strong leadership against magnate excesses' and that the murder 'was a disaster for the Scottish people, leaving them to endure the instability of years of consequent faction fighting'. McGladdery continues that James was the example for the Stewart kings to follow by putting 'Scotland firmly within a European context'.


title: James I of Scotland

text: Michael Brown describes James as an 'able, aggressive and opportunistic politician' whose chief aim was to establish a monarchy that had stature and was free from the confrontations that had beset his father's reign. He characterises James as 'capable of highly effective short-term interventions' yet had failed to achieve a position of unqualified authority. Brown writes that James had come to power after 'fifty years when kings looked like magnates and magnates acted like kings' and succeeded in completely changing the outlook and objectives of the monarchy. His policy of reducing the power and influence of the magnates, continued by his son James II, led to a more subordinate nobility. Alexander Grant repudiates James's reputation as the 'law giver' and explains that nearly all of the king's legislation were reconstructions of laws laid down by previous monarchs and concludes that 'the idea of James's return in 1424 marks a turning point in the development of Scots law is an exaggeration'. At James's death, only the Douglases of the predominant magnate houses were left and, according to Grant, this reduction was the most far-reaching change to the nobility and was 'by far the most important consequence of James I's reign'.


title: James I of Scotland

text: In London, on 12 February 1424, James married Joan Beaufort, daughter of John Beaufort, 1st Earl of Somerset and Margaret Holland. They had eight children:


title: Voodoo doll

text: The term Voodoo doll commonly describes an effigy into which pins are inserted. Such practices are found in various forms in the magical traditions of many cultures around the world.


title: Voodoo doll

text: The practise has been denounced and declared irrelevant to Voodoo religion by those in High Priesthood of Louisiana Voodoo.


title: Voodoo doll

text: The link between this magical practice and Voodoo was established through the presentation of the latter in Western popular culture, enduring the first half of the 20th century. In this, the myth of this magical practice being closely linked to Voodoo and Vodou was promoted as part of the wider negative depictions of blacks and Afro-Caribbean religious practices in the United States. In John Houston Craige's 1933 book "Black Bagdad: The Arabian Nights Adventures of a Marine Captain in Haiti", he described a Haitian prisoner sticking pins into an effigy to induce illness. Its use also appeared in film representations of Haitian Vodou such as Victor Halperin's 1932 "White Zombie" and Jacques Tourneur’s 1943 "I Walked with a Zombie". Voodoo dolls are also featured in one episode of "The Woody Woodpecker Show" (1961), as well as in the British musical "Lisztomania" (1975) and the films "Indiana Jones and the Temple of Doom" (1984) and "The Witches of Eastwick" (1987).


title: Voodoo doll

text: By the early 21st century, the image of the voodoo doll had become particularly pervasive. It had become a novelty item available for purchase, with examples being provided in vending machines in British shopping centres, and an article on "How to Make a Voodoo Doll" being included on WikiHow. Voodoo dolls were also featured in the 2009 animated Disney movie "The Princess and the Frog".


title: Voodoo doll

text: In 2020, Louisiana Voodoo High Priest Robi Gilmore stated, "It blows my mind that people still believe [Voodoo dolls are relevant to Voodoo religion]. Hollywood really did us a number. We do not stab pins in dolls to hurt people; we don't take your hair and make a doll, and worship the devil with it, and ask the devil to give us black magic to get our revenge on you. It is not done, it won't be done, and it never will exist for us."


title: (I Can't Get No) Satisfaction

text: "(I Can't Get No) Satisfaction" is a song recorded by the English rock band the Rolling Stones. A product of Mick Jagger and Keith Richards' songwriting partnership, it features a guitar riff by Richards that opens and drives the song. The riff by Richards is widely considered one of the greatest hooks of all time. The song lyrics refer to sexual frustration and commercialism.


title: (I Can't Get No) Satisfaction

text: The song was first released as a single in the United States in June 1965 and was also featured on the American version of the Rolling Stones' fourth studio album, "Out of Our Heads", released that July. "Satisfaction" was a hit, giving the Stones their first number one in the US. In the UK, the song initially was played only on pirate radio stations, because its lyrics were considered too sexually suggestive. It later became the Rolling Stones' fourth number one in the United Kingdom.


title: (I Can't Get No) Satisfaction

text: It is one of the world's most popular songs, and was No. 31 on "Rolling Stone" magazine's 500 Greatest Songs of All Time list in 2021. It was inducted into the Grammy Hall of Fame in 1998, and it is the 10th ranked song on critics' all-time lists according to Acclaimed Music. The song was added to the National Recording Registry of the Library of Congress in 2006.


title: (I Can't Get No) Satisfaction

text: Keith Richards wrote "Satisfaction" in his sleep and recorded a rough version of the riff on a Philips cassette player. He had no idea he had written it. He said when he listened to the recording in the morning, there was about two minutes of acoustic guitar before you could hear him drop the pick and "then me snoring for the next forty minutes". Sources vary as to where this story happened. While they make reference to a hotel room at the Fort Harrison Hotel in Clearwater, Florida, a house in Chelsea, and the London Hilton, Richards wrote in his most recent autobiography that he was in his flat in Carlton Hill, St. John's Wood. He specifies that Mick Jagger wrote the lyrics by the pool in Clearwater, four days before they went into the studio, hence the confusion.


title: (I Can't Get No) Satisfaction

text: The Rolling Stones first recorded the track on 10 May 1965 at Chess Studios in Chicago, Illinois, which included Brian Jones on harmonica. The Stones lip-synched to a dub of this version the first time they debuted the song on the American music variety television programme "Shindig!" The group re-recorded it two days later at RCA Studios in Hollywood, California, with a different beat and the Maestro fuzzbox adding sustain to the sound of the guitar riff. Richards envisioned redoing the track later with a horn section playing the riff: "this was just a little sketch, because, to my mind, the fuzz tone was really there to denote what the horns would be doing." The other Rolling Stones (Jones, Watts, and Wyman), as well as producer and manager Andrew Loog Oldham and sound engineer David Hassinger eventually outvoted Richards and Jagger so the track was selected for release as a single. The song's success boosted sales of the Gibson fuzzbox so that the entire available stock sold out by the end of 1965.


title: (I Can't Get No) Satisfaction

text: Like most of the Stones' pre-1966 recordings, "Satisfaction" was originally released in mono only. In the mid-1980s, a true stereo version of the song was released on German and Japanese editions of the CD reissue of "Hot Rocks 1964–1971". The stereo mix features a piano (played by session player Jack Nitzsche, who also provides the song's iconic tambourine) and acoustic guitar that are barely audible in the original mono release (both instruments are also audible on a bootleg recording of the instrumental track). This stereo mix of "Satisfaction" also appeared on a radio-promo CD of rare stereo tracks provided to US radio stations in the mid-1980s, but has not yet been featured on a worldwide commercial CD; even later pressings of the German and Japanese "Hot Rocks" CDs feature the mono mix, making the earlier releases with the stereo mix collectors' items. For the worldwide 2002 reissue of "Hot Rocks", an alternative quasi-stereo mix was used featuring the lead guitar, bass, drums, and vocals in the center channel and the acoustic guitar and piano "split" left and right via a delay effect.


title: (I Can't Get No) Satisfaction

text: The song opens with the guitar riff, which is joined by the bass halfway through. It is repeated three times with the drums and acoustic guitar before the vocal enters with the line: "I can't get no satisfaction." The key is E major, but with the 3rd and 7th degree occasionally lowered, creating – in the first part of the verses ("I can't get no ...") – a distinctive mellow sound. The accompanying chords (i.e. E major, D major and A major) are borrowed from the E mixolydian scale, which is often used in blues and rock.


title: (I Can't Get No) Satisfaction

text: The title line is an example of a negative concord. Jagger sings the verses in a tone hovering between cynical commentary and frustrated protest, and then leaps half singing and half yelling into the chorus, where the guitar riff reappears. The lyrics outline the singer's irritation and confusion with the increasing commercialism of the modern world, where the radio broadcasts "useless information" and a man on television tells him "how white my shirts can be – but he can't be a man 'cause he doesn't smoke the same cigarettes as me", a reference to the then ubiquitous Marlboro Cowboy style advertisement. Jagger also describes the stress of being a celebrity, and the tensions of touring. The reference in the verse to not getting any "girl reaction" was fairly controversial in its day, interpreted by some listeners (and radio programmers) as meaning a girl willing to have sex. Jagger commented that they "didn't understand the dirtiest line", as afterwards the girl asks him to return the following week as she is "on a losing streak", an apparent reference to menstruation. The song closes with a fairly subdued repetition of the song's title, followed suddenly by a full shout of the line, with the final words repeated into the fade-out.


title: (I Can't Get No) Satisfaction

text: In its day the song was perceived as disturbing because of both its sexual connotations and the negative view of commercialism and other aspects of modern culture; critic Paul Gambaccini stated: "The lyrics to this were truly threatening to an older audience. This song was perceived as an attack on the status quo." When the Rolling Stones performed the song on "Shindig!" in 1965, the line "trying to make some girl" was censored, although a performance on "The Ed Sullivan Show" on 13 February 1966 was uncensored. Forty years later, when the band performed three songs during the February 2006 Super Bowl XL halftime show, "Satisfaction" was the only one of the three songs not censored as it was broadcast.


title: (I Can't Get No) Satisfaction

text: "Satisfaction" was released as a single in the US by London Records on 5 June 1965, with "The Under-Assistant West Coast Promotion Man" as its B-side. The single entered the "Billboard" Hot 100 charts in America in the week ending 12 June 1965, remaining there for 14 weeks, reaching the top on 10 July by displacing the Four Tops' "I Can't Help Myself (Sugar Pie Honey Bunch)". "Satisfaction" held the number one spot for four weeks, being knocked off on 7 August by "I'm Henry the Eighth, I Am" by Herman's Hermits. While in its eighth week on the American charts, the single was certified a gold record award by the RIAA for shipping over a million copies across the United States, giving the band their first of many gold disc awards in America. Later the song was also released by London Records on "Out of Our Heads" in America. "Billboard" ranked the record as the No. 3 song of 1965. "Billboard" said of the single that a "hard-driving blues dance beat backs up a strong vocal performance."


title: (I Can't Get No) Satisfaction

text: "Satisfaction" was not immediately released by Decca Records in Great Britain. Decca was already in the process of preparing a live Rolling Stones EP for release, so the new single did not come out in Britain until 20 August, with "The Spider and the Fly" on the B-side. The song peaked at number one for two weeks, replacing Sonny & Cher's "I Got You Babe", between 11 and 25 September, before being toppled by the Walker Brothers' "Make It Easy on Yourself".


title: (I Can't Get No) Satisfaction

text: In the decades since its release, "Satisfaction" has repeatedly been acclaimed by the music industry. In 1976, Britain's "New Musical Express" listed "Satisfaction" 7th among the top 100 singles of all time. There was a resurgence of interest in the song after it was prominently featured in the 1979 movie "Apocalypse Now." In 1991, Vox listed "Satisfaction" among "100 records that shook the world". In 1999, BMI named "Satisfaction" as the 91st-most performed song of the 20th century. In 2000, VH1 listed "Satisfaction" first among its "Top 100 Greatest Rock Songs"; the same year, "Satisfaction" also finished runner-up to "Yesterday" in a list jointly compiled by "Rolling Stone" and MTV. In 2003, "Q" placed the song 68th out of its "1001 Best Songs Ever". "Newsweek" magazine has called the opening riff "five notes that shook the world".


title: (I Can't Get No) Satisfaction

text: The song and its opening riff are widely considered both iconic and one of the greatest musical hooks of all time. "Satisfaction" was ranked number 2 on both Rolling Stone's 500 Greatest Songs of All Time list in 2004, and the magazine's list of the band's best songs. A 2021 update ranked the song number 31. According to Acclaimed Music, it is the 10th most celebrated song in popular music history. In 1998, the song was inducted into the Grammy Hall of Fame. It was added to the Library of Congress' National Recording Registry list of sound recordings that "are culturally, historically, or aesthetically important" in 2006.


title: (I Can't Get No) Satisfaction

text: The song has become a staple at Rolling Stones shows. They have performed it on nearly every tour since its release, and concert renditions have been included on the albums "Got Live If You Want It!", "Still Life", "Flashpoint", "Live Licks", "Shine a Light", "Hyde Park Live", and "". One unusual rendition is included in Robert Frank's film "Cocksucker Blues" from the 1972 tour, when the song was performed by both the Rolling Stones and Stevie Wonder's band as the second half of a medley with Wonder's "Uptight".


title: (I Can't Get No) Satisfaction

text: Otis Redding recorded a rendition of "Satisfaction" for his album "Otis Blue/Otis Redding Sings Soul", released in 1965. Redding claimed that he did not know the lyrics of the song. "I use a lot of words different than the Stones' version," he noted. "That's because I made them up." Of that session, Steve Cropper said, "...if you ever listened to the record you can hardly understand the lyrics, right? I set down to a record player and copied down what I thought the lyrics were and I handed Otis a piece of paper and before we got through with the cut, he threw the paper on the floor and that was it." Music writer Robert Christgau described it as an "anarchic reading" of the Stones' original. Redding's soul-style arrangement featured horns playing the main riff, as Keith Richards had originally intended. In 2003, Ronnie Wood noted that the Rolling Stones' later concert renditions of the number reflect Redding's interpretation.


title: (I Can't Get No) Satisfaction

text: English singer-songwriter Jonathan King released his version in 1974 under the name Bubblerock, reaching No. 29 on the UK Singles Chart.


title: (I Can't Get No) Satisfaction

text: The American avant-garde/experimental collective the Residents recorded and released their own performance of "Satisfaction" as their debut single in 1976. Originally released in an edition of only 200 copies, the cover quickly became a cult sensation, thanks in part to the success of Devo's cover the following year, necessitating a re-press in 1978 of 30,000 copies. Brad Laner, writing for "Dangerous Minds", stated the cover "is nearly everything the better known version by Devo from a year later is not: Loose, belligerent, violent, truly fucked-up. A real stick in the eye of everything conventionally tasteful in 1976 America."


title: (I Can't Get No) Satisfaction

text: American new wave band Devo released their rendition of "(I Can't Get No) Satisfaction" as a single in 1977, initially in a self-produced version on their own label Booji Boy Records. The song was re-recorded with Brian Eno as producer for their first album, and that version was also released as a single in 1978, this time by Warner Brothers Records, after it was played for Mick Jagger's approval. Decades after its release, Steve Huey of AllMusic would write that the cover version "reworks the original's alienation into a spastic freak-out that's nearly unrecognizable". This version of the song was featured prominently in the 1995 Martin Scorsese epic crime film "Casino". Devo's version also featured in Netflix's series "Sex Education".


title: (I Can't Get No) Satisfaction

text: Devo's version arose from the group's jam sessions, starting with a guitar part from Bob Casale, joined by a drum beat by Alan Myers and a bass part by Gerald Casale. At first, the band tried the lyrics to "Paint it Black," switching to "Satisfaction" when it didn't fit the music.


title: (I Can't Get No) Satisfaction

text: The quirky music video for the song and several others from this album received significant airplay on the upstart MTV. A notable feature of the video was dancer Craig Allen Rothwell, known as Spazz Attack, whose signature dance move, a forward flip onto his back, drew him significant attention.


title: (I Can't Get No) Satisfaction

text: American singer Britney Spears recorded the song with producer Rodney "Darkchild" Jerkins for her second studio album, "Oops!... I Did It Again", on 24–26 February 2000 at Pacifique Recording Studios in Hollywood. The song was remixed into a dance-pop and R&B style.


title: (I Can't Get No) Satisfaction

text: Spears' version received mixed reviews from critics. While reviewing "Oops!", Stephen Thomas Erlewine of AllMusic selected the song as Track Pick, describing "the clenched-funk revision of the Stones' deathless 'Satisfaction'" as emblematic of a "bewildering magpie aesthetic" on Spears' early albums. Robert Christgau declared the song a 'choice cut,' meaning a good song on an otherwise lackluster album," while "New Musical Express" gave the cover a negative review, saying, "the long-awaited [...] [Spears'] cover of the Stones' '(I Can't Get No) Satisfaction' is a letdown".


title: (I Can't Get No) Satisfaction

text: Spears first performed the song on her 2000's Oops!... I Did It Again Tour. The performance ended with a dance sequence set to the familiar Richards guitar lick that was omitted from her recorded version (played here by her guitarist "Skip"). Spears also performed "(I Can't Get No) Satisfaction" on the 2000 MTV Video Music Awards.


title: Kalmyks

text: The Kalmyks (Kalmyk: Хальмгуд, "Xaľmgud", Mongolian: Халимагууд, "Halimaguud"; , archaically anglicised as "Calmucks") are a Mongolic ethnic group living mainly in Russia, whose ancestors migrated from Dzungaria. They created the Kalmyk Khanate from 1635 to 1779 in Russia's North Caucasus territory. Today they form a majority in Kalmykia, located in the Kalmyk Steppe, on the western shore of the Caspian Sea.


title: Kalmyks

text: They are the only traditionally Buddhist people whose homeland is located within Europe. Through emigration, small Kalmyk communities have been established in the United States, France, Germany, and the Czech Republic.


title: Kalmyks

text: The Kalmyk are a branch of the Oirat Mongols, whose ancient grazing-lands spanned present-day parts of Kazakhstan, Russia, Mongolia and China. After the fall of the Mongol Yuan dynasty of China in 1368, the Oirats emerged as a formidable foe against the Khalkha Mongols, the Chinese Ming dynasty (1368–1644) and the Manchus who founded the Qing dynasty in China in 1644. For 400 years, the Oirats conducted a military struggle for domination and control over both Inner Mongolia and Outer Mongolia. The struggle ended in 1757 with the defeat of the Oirats in Dzungaria; they were the last of the Mongol groups to resist vassalage to Qing (Grousset, 1970: 502–541).


title: Kalmyks

text: At the start of this 400-year era, the Western Mongols designated themselves as the Four Oirat. The alliance comprised four major Western Mongol tribes: Khoshut, Choros, Torghut and Dörbet. Collectively, the Four Oirat sought power as an alternative to the Mongols, who were the patrilineal heirs to Genghis Khan. The Four Oirat incorporated neighboring tribes or splinter groups at times, so there was a great deal of fluctuation in the composition of the alliance, with larger tribes dominating or absorbing the smaller ones. Smaller tribes belonging to the confederation included the Khoits, Zakhchin, Bayids And Khangal.


title: Kalmyks

text: Together, these nomadic tribes roamed the grassy plains of western Inner Asia, between Lake Balkhash in present-day eastern Kazakhstan and Lake Baikal in present-day Russia north of central Mongolia. They pitched their yurts and kept herds of cattle, flocks of sheep, horses, donkeys and camels.


title: Kalmyks

text: Paul Pelliot translated the name "Torghut" as "garde de jour". He wrote that the Torghuts owed their name either to the memory of the guard of Genghis Khan or, as descendants of the Keraites, to the old "garde de jour". This was documented among the Keraites in "The Secret History of the Mongols" before Genghis Khan took over the region (Pelliot, 1930:30).


title: Kalmyks

text: The "Four Oirat" was a political entity formed by the four major Oirat tribes. During the 15–17th centuries, they established under the name "10 tumen Mongols", a cavalry unit of 10,000 horsemen, including four Oirat tumen and six tumen composed of other Mongols. They reestablished their traditional pastoral nomadic lifestyle during the end of the Yuan dynasty. The Oirats formed this alliance to defend themselves against the Khalkha Mongols and to pursue the greater objective of reunifying Mongolia.


title: Kalmyks

text: Until the mid-17th century, when bestowal of the title of Khan was transferred to the Dalai Lama, all Mongol tribes recognized this claim and the political prestige attached to it. Although the Oirats could not assert this claim prior to the mid-17th century, they did in fact have a close connection to Genghis Khan by virtue of the fact that Genghis Khan's brother, Qasar, was in command of the Khoshut tribe.


title: Kalmyks

text: In response to the Western Mongols' self-designation as the Four Oirat, the Eastern Mongols began to refer to themselves as the "Forty Mongols", or the "Forty and Four". This means that the Khalkha Mongols claimed to have forty tümen to the four tümen maintained by the Four Oirat.


title: Kalmyks

text: The Oirat alliance was decentralized, informal and unstable. For instance, the Four Oirat did not have a central location from which it was governed, and it was not governed by a central figure for most of its existence. The four Oirats did not establish a single military or a unified monastic system. Lastly, it was not until 1640 that the Four Oirat adopted uniform customary laws.


title: Kalmyks

text: As pastoralist nomads, the Oirats were organized at the tribal level, where each tribe was ruled by a "noyon" or prince who also functioned as the chief "taishi" "chieftain". The chief taishi governed with the support of lesser noyons, who were also called taishi. These minor noyons controlled divisions of the tribe ("ulus") and were politically and economically independent of the chief tayishi. Chief taishis sought to influence and dominate the chief taishis of the other tribes, causing intertribal rivalry, dissension and periodic skirmishes.


title: Kalmyks

text: Under the leadership of Esen, Chief Taishi of the Choros, the Four Oirat unified Mongolia for a short period. After Esen's death in 1455, the political union of the Dörben Oirat dissolved quickly, resulting in two decades of Oirat-Eastern Mongol conflict. The deadlock ended during the reign of Batmunkh Dayan Khan, a five-year-old boy in whose name the loyal Eastern Mongol forces rallied. Mandukhai Khatun and Dayan Khan took advantage of Oirat disunity and weakness and brought Oirats back under Mongolian rule. In doing so, he regained control of the Mongol homeland and restored the hegemony of the Eastern Mongols.


title: Kalmyks

text: After the death of Dayan in 1543, the Oirats and the Khalkhas resumed their conflict. The Oirat forces thrust eastward, but Dayan's youngest son, Geresenz, was given command of the Khalkha forces and drove the Oirats to Uvs Lake in northwest Mongolia. In 1552, after the Oirats once again challenged the Khalkha, Altan Khan swept up from Inner Mongolia with Tümed and Ordos cavalry units, pushing elements of various Oirat tribes from Karakorum to the Khovd region in northwest Mongolia, reuniting most of Mongolia in the process (Grousset, 1970:510).


title: Kalmyks

text: The Oirats would later regroup south of the Altai Mountains in Dzungaria. But Geresenz's grandson, Sholoi Ubashi Khuntaiji, pushed the Oirats further northwest, along the steppes of the Ob and Irtysh Rivers. Afterwards, he established a Khalkha Khanate under the name, Altan Khan, in the Oirat heartland of Dzungaria.


title: Kalmyks

text: In spite of the setbacks, the Oirats would continue their campaigns against the Altan Khanate, trying to unseat Sholoi Ubashi Khuntaiji from Dzungaria. The continuous, back-and-forth nature of the struggle, which defined this period, is captured in the Oirat epic song "The Rout of Mongolian Sholoi Ubashi Khuntaiji", recounting the Oirat victory over the Altan Khan of the Khalkha in 1587.


title: Kalmyks

text: At the beginning of the 17th century, the First Altan Khan drove the Oirats westward to present-day eastern Kazakhstan. The Torghuts became the westernmost Oirat tribe, encamped in the Tarbagatai Mountains region and along the northern stretches of the Irtysh, Ishim and Tobol Rivers.


title: Kalmyks

text: Further west, the Kazakhs – a Muslim Turco-Mongol people – prevented the Torghuts from sending its trading caravans to the Muslim towns and villages located along the Syr Darya river. As a result, the Torghuts established a trading relationship with the newly established outposts of the Tsarist government whose expansion into and exploration of Siberia was motivated mostly by the desire to profit from trade with Asia.


title: Kalmyks

text: The Khoshut, by contrast, were the easternmost Oirat, encamped near the Lake Zaysan area and the Semey region along the lower portions of the Irtysh River, where they built several steppe monasteries. The Khoshut were adjacent to the Khalkha khanates of Altan Khan and Dzasagtu Khan. Both khanates prevented the Khoshut and the other Oirat from trading with Chinese border towns. The Khoshut were ruled by Baibagas Khan and then Güshi Khan, who were the first Oirat leaders to convert to the Gelug school of Tibetan Buddhism.


title: Kalmyks

text: Locked in between both tribes were the Choros, Dörbet Oirat and Khoid, collectively known as the "Dzungar people", who were slowly rebuilding the base of power they enjoyed under the Four Oirat. The Choros were the dominant Oirat tribe of that era. Their leader, Erdeni Batur, attempted to follow Esen Khan in unifying the Oirats to challenge the Khalkha.


title: Kalmyks

text: Under the dynamic leadership of Erdeni Batur, the Dzungars stopped the expansion of the first Altan Khan and began planning the resurrection of the Four Oirat under the Dzungar banner. In furtherance of such plans, Erdeni Batur designed and built a capital city called Kubak-sari on the Emil River near the modern city of Tacheng. During his attempt to build a nation, Erdeni Batur encouraged diplomacy, commerce and farming. He also sought to acquire modern weaponry and build small industry, such as metal works, to supply his military.weapons.


title: Kalmyks

text: The attempted unification of the Oirat caused dissension among the tribes and their Chief Tayishis who were independent minded but also highly regarded leaders themselves. This dissension reputedly caused Kho Orluk to move the Torghut tribe and elements of the Dörbet tribe westward to the Volga region where his descendants formed the Kalmyk Khanate. In the east, Güshi Khan took part of the Khoshut to the Tsaidam and Qinghai regions in the Tibetan Plateau, where he formed the Khoshut Khanate to protect Tibet and the Gelug from both internal and external enemies. Erdeni Batur and his descendants, by contrast, formed the Dzungar Khanate and came to dominate Central Eurasia.


title: Kalmyks

text: In 1618, the Torghut and a small contingent of Dörbet Oirats (200,000–250,000 people) chose to migrate from the upper Irtysh River region to the grazing pastures of the lower Volga region south of Saratov and north of the Caspian Sea on both banks of the Volga River. The Torghut were led by their taishi, Kho Orluk. They were the largest Oirat tribe to migrate, bringing along nearly the entire tribe. The second-largest group was the Dörbet Oirats under their taishi, Dalai Batur. Together they moved west through southern Siberia and the southern Ural Mountains, avoiding the more direct route that would have taken them through the heart of the territory of their enemy, the Kazakhs. En route, they raided Russian settlements and Kazakh and Bashkir encampments.


title: Kalmyks

text: Many theories have been advanced to explain the reasons for the migration. One generally accepted theory is that there may have been discontent among the Oirat tribes, which arose from the attempt by Kharkhul, taishi of the Dzungars, to centralize political and military control over the tribes under his leadership. Some scholars, however, believe that the Torghuts sought uncontested pastures as their territory was being encroached upon by the Russians from the north, the Kazakhs from the south and the Dzungars from the east. The encroachments resulted in overcrowding of people and livestock, thereby diminishing the food supply. Lastly, a third theory suggests that the Torghuts grew weary of the militant struggle between the Oirats and the Altan Khanate.


title: Kalmyks

text: Upon arrival to the lower Volga region in 1630, the Oirats encamped on land that was once part of the Astrakhan Khanate, but was now claimed by the Tsardom of Russia. The region was lightly populated, from south of Saratov to the Russian garrison at Astrakhan and on both the east and the west banks of the Volga River. The Tsardom of Russia was not ready to colonize the area and was in no position to prevent the Oirats from encamping in the region, but it had a direct political interest in ensuring that the Oirats would not become allied with its Turkic-speaking neighbors. The Kalmyks became Russian allies and a treaty to protect the southern Russian border was signed between the Kalmyk Khanate and Russia.


title: Kalmyks

text: The Oirats quickly consolidated their position by expelling the majority of the native inhabitants, the Nogai Horde. Large groups of Nogais fled southeast to the northern Caucasian plain and west to the Black Sea steppe, lands claimed by the Crimean Khanate, itself a vassal or ally of the Ottoman Empire. Smaller groups of Nogais sought the protection of the Russian garrison at Astrakhan. The remaining nomadic tribes became vassals of the Oirats.


title: Kalmyks

text: At first, an uneasy relationship existed between the Russians and the Oirats. Mutual raiding by the Oirats of Russian settlements and by the Cossacks and the Bashkirs, Muslim vassals of the Russians, of Oirat encampments was commonplace. Numerous oaths and treaties were signed to ensure Oirat loyalty and military assistance. Although the Oirats became subjects of the Tsar, such allegiance by the Oirats was deemed to be nominal.


title: Kalmyks

text: In reality, the Oirats governed themselves pursuant to a document known as the "Great Code of the Nomads" ("Iki Tsaadzhin Bichig"). The Code was promulgated in 1640 by them, their brethren in Dzungaria and some of the Khalkha who all gathered near the Tarbagatai Mountains in Dzungaria to resolve their differences and to unite under the banner of the Gelug school. Although the goal of unification was not met, the summit leaders did ratify the Code, which regulated all aspects of nomadic life.


title: Kalmyks

text: In securing their position, the Oirats became a borderland power, often allying themselves with the Russian Empire against the neighboring Muslim population. During the era of Ayuka Khan, the Oirats rose to political and military prominence as the Russian Empire sought the increased use of Oirat cavalry in support of its military campaigns against the Muslim powers in the south, such as Safavid Iran, the Ottoman Empire, the Nogais, the Tatars of Kuban and the Crimean Khanate. Ayuka Khan also waged wars against the Kazakhs, subjugated the Turkmens of the Mangyshlak Peninsula, and made multiple expeditions against the highlanders of the North Caucasus. These campaigns highlighted the strategic importance of the Kalmyk Khanate which functioned as a buffer zone, separating Russia and the Muslim world, as Russia fought wars in Europe to establish itself as a European power.


title: Kalmyks

text: To encourage the release of Oirat cavalrymen in support of its military campaigns, the Russian Empire increasingly relied on the provision of monetary payments and dry goods to the Oirat Khan and the Oirat nobility. In that respect, the Russian Empire treated the Oirats as it did the Cossacks. The provision of monetary payments and dry goods, however, did not stop the mutual raiding, and, in some instances, both sides failed to fulfill its promises (Halkovic, 1985:41–54).


title: Kalmyks

text: Another significant incentive the Russian Empire provided to the Oirats was tariff-free access to the markets of Russian border towns, where the Oirats were permitted to barter their herds and the items they obtained from Asia and their Muslim neighbors in exchange for Russian goods. Trade also occurred with neighboring Turkic tribes under Russian control, such as the Tatars and the Bashkirs. Intermarriage became common with such tribes. This trading arrangement provided substantial benefits, monetary and otherwise, to the Oirat tayishis, noyons and zaisangs.


title: Kalmyks

text: Fred Adelman described this era as the "Frontier Period", lasting from the advent of the Torghut under Kho Orluk in 1630 to the end of the great khanate of Kho Orluk's descendant, Ayuka Khan, in 1724, a phase accompanied by little discernible acculturative change:


title: Kalmyks

text: During the era of Ayuka Khan, the Kalmyk Khanate reached its peak of military and political power. The Khanate experienced economic prosperity from free trade with Russian border towns, China, Tibet and with their Muslim neighbors. During this era, Ayuka Khan also kept close contacts with his Oirat kinsmen in Dzungaria, as well as the Dalai Lama in Tibet.


title: Kalmyks

text: Historically, Oirat identified themselves by their respective sub-group names. In the 15th century, the three major groups of Oirat formed an alliance, adopting "Dörben Oirat" as their collective name. In the early 17th century, a second great Oirat Confederation emerged, which later became the Dzungar Empire. While the Dzungars (initially Choros, Dörbet and Khoit tribes) were establishing their empire in Central Eurasia, the Khoshuts were establishing the Khoshut Khanate in Tibet, protecting the Gelugpa sect from its enemies, and the Torghuts formed the Kalmyk Khanate in the lower Volga region.


title: Kalmyks

text: After encamping, the Oirats began to identify themselves as "Kalmyk." This named was supposedly given to them by their Muslim neighbors and later used by the Russians to describe them. The Oirats used this name in their dealings with outsiders, viz., their Russian and Muslim neighbors. But, they continued to refer to themselves by their tribal, clan, or other internal affiliations.


title: Kalmyks

text: The name Kalmyk, however, wasn't immediately accepted by all of the Oirat tribes in the lower Volga region. As late as 1761, the Khoshut and Dzungars (refugees from the Manchu Empire) referred to themselves and the Torghuts exclusively as Oirats. The Torghuts, by contrast, used the name Kalmyk for themselves as well as the Khoshut and Dzungars. (Khodarkovsky, 1992:8)


title: Kalmyks

text: Generally, European scholars have identified all western Mongolians collectively as Kalmyks, regardless of their location (Ramstedt, 1935: v–vi). Such scholars (e.g. Sebastian Muenster) have relied on Muslim sources who traditionally used the word "Kalmyk" to describe western Mongolians in a derogatory manner and the western Mongols of China and Mongolia have regarded that name as a term of abuse (Haslund, 1935:214–215). Instead, they use the name Oirat or they go by their respective tribal names, e.g., Khoshut, Dörbet, Choros, Torghut, Khoit, Bayid, Mingat, etc. (Anuchin, 1914:57).


title: Kalmyks

text: Over time, the descendants of the Oirat migrants in the lower Volga region embraced the name "Kalmyk" irrespective of their locations, viz., Astrakhan, the Don Cossack region, Orenburg, Stavropol, the Terek and the Ural Mountains. Another generally accepted name is "Ulan Zalata" or the "red-buttoned ones" (Adelman, 1960:6).


title: Kalmyks

text: By the early 18th century, there were approximately 300–350,000 Kalmyks and 15,000,000 Russians. After the death of Ayuka Khan in 1724, the political situation among the Kalmyks became unstable as various factions sought to be recognized as Khan. The Russian Empire also gradually chipped away at the autonomy of the Kalmyk Khanate. These policies, for instance, encouraged the establishment of Russian and German settlements on pastures the Kalmyks used to roam and feed their livestock. In addition, the Tsarist government imposed a council on the Kalmyk Khan, thereby diluting his authority, while continuing to expect the Kalmyk Khan to provide cavalry units to fight on behalf of Russia. The Russian Orthodox Church, by contrast, pressured many Kalmyks to adopt Eastern Orthodoxy. By the mid-18th century, Kalmyks were increasingly disillusioned with settler encroachment and interference in its internal affairs.


title: Kalmyks

text: In January 1771 the oppression of Tsarist administration forced the larger part of Kalmyks (33 thousand households, or approximately 170,000–200,000 people) to migrate to Dzungaria.


title: Kalmyks

text: Ubashi Khan, the great-grandson of Ayuka Khan and the last Kalmyk Khan, decided to return his people to their ancestral homeland, Dzungaria, and restore the Dzungar Khanate and Mongolian independence. As C.D Barkman notes, "It is quite clear that the Torghuts had not intended to surrender the Chinese, but had hoped to lead an independent existence in Dzungaria."


title: Kalmyks

text: Ubashi sent 30,000 cavalry in the first year of the Russo-Turkish War (1768–74) to gain weaponry before the migration. The 8th Dalai Lama was contacted to request his blessing and to set the date of departure. After consulting the astrological chart, he set a return date, but at the moment of departure, the weakening of the ice on the Volga River permitted only those Kalmyks (about 200,000 people) on the eastern bank to leave. Those 100,000–150,000 people on the western bank were forced to stay behind and Catherine the Great executed influential nobles from among them.


title: Kalmyks

text: Approximately five-sixths of the Torghut followed Ubashi Khan. Most of the Khoshut, Choros, and Khoid also accompanied the Torghut on their journey to Dzungaria. The Dörbet Oirat, in contrast, elected not to go at all.


title: Kalmyks

text: Catherine the Great asked the Russian army, Bashkirs, and Kazakh Khanate to stop all migrants. Beset by Kazakh raids, thirst and starvation, approximately 85,000 Kalmyks died on their way to Dzungaria. After failing to stop the flight, Catherine abolished the Kalmyk Khanate, transferring all governmental powers to the governor of Astrakhan. The title of Khan was abolished. The highest native governing office remaining was the Vice-Khan, who also was recognized by the government as the highest ranking Kalmyk prince. By appointing the Vice-Khan, the Russian Empire was now permanently the decisive force in Kalmyk government and affairs.


title: Kalmyks

text: After seven months of travel, only one-third (66,073) of the original group reached Balkhash Lake, the western border of Qing China. This migration became the topic of "The Revolt of the Tartars", by Thomas De Quincey.


title: Kalmyks

text: The Qing shifted the Kalmyks to five different areas to prevent their revolt and influential leaders of the Kalmyks soon died. The migrant Kalmyks became known as Torghut in Qing China. The Torghut were coerced by the Qing into giving up their nomadic lifestyle and to take up sedentary agriculture instead as part of a deliberate policy by the Qing to enfeeble them.


title: Kalmyks

text: After the 1771 exodus, the Kalmyks that remained part of the Russian Empire continued their nomadic pastoral lifestyle, ranging the pastures between the Don and the Volga Rivers, wintering in the lowlands along the shores of the Caspian Sea as far as Sarpa Lake to the northwest and Lake Manych-Gudilo to the west. In the spring, they moved along the Don River and the Sarpa lake system, attaining the higher grounds along the Don in the summer, passing the autumn in the Sarpa and Volga lowlands. In October and November they returned to their winter camps and pastures (Krader, 1963:121 "citing" Pallas, vol. 1, 1776:122–123).


title: Kalmyks

text: Despite their great loss in population, the Torghut still remained numerically superior, dominating the Kalmyks. The other Kalmyks in Russia included Dörbet Oirats and Khoshut. Elements of the Choros and Khoit also were present but were too few in number to retain their "ulus" (tribal division) as independent administrative units. As a result, they were absorbed by the ulus of the larger tribes.


title: Kalmyks

text: The factors that caused the 1771 exodus continued to trouble the remaining Kalmyks. In the wake of the exodus, the Torghuts joined the Cossack rebellion of Yemelyan Pugachev in hopes that he would restore the independence of the Kalmyks. After Pugachev's Rebellion was defeated, Catherine the Great transferred the office of the Vice-Khan from the Torghut tribe to the Dörbet, whose princes supposedly remained loyal to the government during the rebellion. Thus the Torghut were removed from their role as the hereditary leaders of the Kalmyk people. The Khoshut could not challenge this political arrangement due to their smaller population size.


title: Kalmyks

text: The disruptions to Kalmyk society caused by the exodus and the Torghut participation in the Pugachev Rebellion precipitated a major realignment in Kalmyk tribal structure. The government divided the Kalmyks into three administrative units attached, according to their respective locations, to the district governments of Astrakhan, Stavropol and the Don and appointed a special Russian official bearing the title of "Guardian of the Kalmyk People" for purposes of administration. The government also resettled some small groups of Kalmyks along the Ural, Terek and Kuma rivers and in Siberia.


title: Kalmyks

text: The redistricting divided the now dominant Dörbet tribe into three separate administrative units. Those in the western Kalmyk Steppe were attached to the Astrakhan district government. They were called Baga (Lesser) Dörbet. By contrast, the Dörbets who moved to the northern part of the Stavropol province were called Ike (Greater) Dörbet even though their population was smaller. Finally, the Kalmyks of the Don became known as Buzava. Although they were composed of elements of all the Kalmyk tribes, the Buzava claimed descent from the Torghut tribe. Their name is derived from two tributaries of the Don River: Busgai and Busuluk. In 1798, Tsar Paul I recognized the Don Kalmyks as Don Cossacks. As such, they received the same rights and benefits as their Russian counterparts in exchange for providing national military services (Bajanowa, 1976:68–71). At the end of the Napoleonic Wars, Kalmyk cavalry units in Russian service entered Paris.


title: Kalmyks

text: Over time, the Kalmyks gradually created fixed settlements with houses and temples, in place of transportable round felt yurts. In 1865, Elista, the future capital of the Kalmyk Autonomous Soviet Socialist Republic was founded. This process lasted until well after the October Revolution of 1917.


title: Kalmyks

text: Like most people in Russia, the Kalmyks greeted the February Revolution with enthusiasm. Kalmyk leaders believed that the Russian Provisional Government, which replaced the Tsarist government, would allow greater autonomy and freedom with respect to their culture, religion and economy. This enthusiasm, however, would soon dissolve after the Bolsheviks took control of the national government during the second revolution in November 1917.


title: Kalmyks

text: After the Bolsheviks took control, various political and ethnic groups opposed to Communism organized in a loose political and military coalition known as the White movement. A volunteer "White Army" was raised to fight the Red Army, the military arm of the Bolshevik government. Initially, this army was composed primarily of volunteers and Tsarist supporters but were later joined by the Cossacks, including Don Kalmyks, many of whom resisted the Bolshevik policy of decossackization.


title: Kalmyks

text: The second revolution split the Kalmyk people into opposing camps. Many were dissatisfied with the Tsarist government for its historic role in promoting the colonization of the Kalmyk steppe and in encouraging the russification of the Kalmyk people. But others also felt hostility towards Bolshevism for two reasons: (1) the loyalty of the Kalmyk people to their traditional leaders (i.e., nobility and clergy) – sources of anti-Communism – was deeply ingrained; and (2) the Bolshevik exploitation of the conflict between the Kalmyks and the local Russian peasants who seized Kalmyk land and livestock (Loewenthal, 1952:4).


title: Kalmyks

text: The Astrakhan Kalmyk nobility, led by Prince of the Baga Dörbets and Prince Sereb-Djab Tiumen of the Khoshuts, expressed their anti-Bolshevik sentiments by seeking to integrate the Astrakhan Kalmyks into the military units of the Astrakhan Cossacks. But before a general mobilization of Kalmyk horsemen could occur, the Red Army seized power in Astrakhan and in the Kalmyk steppe thereby preventing the mobilization from occurring.


title: Kalmyks

text: After the capture of Astrakhan, the Bolsheviks engaged in savage reprisals against the Kalmyk people, especially against Buddhist temples and the Buddhist clergy (Arbakov, 1958:30–36). Eventually the Bolsheviks would draft as many as 18,000 Kalmyk horsemen in the Red Army to prevent them from joining the White Army (Borisov, 1926:84). This objective, however, failed to prevent many Red Army Kalmyk horsemen from defecting to the White side.


title: Kalmyks

text: The majority of the Don Kalmyks also sided with the White Movement to preserve their Cossack lifestyle and proud traditions. As Don Cossacks, the Don Kalmyks first fought under White army General Anton Denikin and then under his successor, General Pyotr Nikolayevich Wrangel. Because the Don Cossack Host to which they belonged was the main center of the White Movement and of Cossack resistance, the battles were fought on Cossack lands and were disastrous for the Don Cossacks as villages and entire regions changed hands repeatedly in a fratricidal conflict in which both sides committed terrible atrocities. The Don Cossacks, including the Don Kalmyks, experienced heavy military and civilian losses, either from the fighting itself or from starvation and disease induced by the war. Some argue that the Bolsheviks were guilty of the mass extermination of the Don Cossack people, killing an estimated 70 percent (or 700,000 persons) of the Don Cossack population (Heller and Nekrich, 1988:87).


title: Kalmyks

text: By October 1920 the Red Army smashed General Wrangel's resistance in the Crimea, forcing the evacuation of some 150,000 White army soldiers and their families to Constantinople, Turkey. A small group of Don Kalmyks managed to escape on the British and French vessels. The chaos at the Russian port city of Novorossiysk was described by Major H.N.H. Williamson of the British Military Mission to the Don Cossacks as follows:


title: Kalmyks

text: From there, this group resettled in Europe, primarily in Belgrade (where they established the fourth Buddhist temple in Europe), Bulgaria, Czechoslovakia and France where its leaders remained active in the White movement. In 1922, several hundred Don Kalmyks returned home under a general amnesty. Some returnees, including Prince Dmitri Tundutov, were imprisoned and then executed soon after their return.


title: Kalmyks

text: The Soviet government established the Kalmyk Autonomous Oblast in November 1920. It was formed by merging the Stavropol Kalmyk settlements with a majority of the Astrakhan Kalmyks. A small number of Don Kalmyks (Buzava) from the Don Host migrated to this Oblast. The administrative center was Elista, a small village in the western part of the Oblast that was expanded in the 1920s to reflect its status as the capital of the Oblast.


title: Kalmyks

text: In October 1935, the Kalmyk Autonomous Oblast was reorganized into the Kalmyk Autonomous Soviet Socialist Republic. The chief occupations of the Republic were cattle breeding, agriculture, including the growing of cotton and fishing. There was no industry.


title: Kalmyks

text: On 22 January 1922 Mongolia proposed to migrate the Kalmyks during famine in Kalmykia but Russia refused. 71–72,000 Kalmyks died during the famine. The Kalmyks revolted against Russia in 1926, 1930 and 1942–1943. In March 1927, Soviet deported 20,000 Kalmyks to Siberia, tundra and Karelia. Soviet scientists attempted to convince the Kalmyks and Buryats that they were not Mongols during the 20th century under the demongolization policy.


title: Kalmyks

text: In 1929, Joseph Stalin ordered the forced collectivization of agriculture, forcing the Astrakhan Kalmyks to abandon their traditional nomadic pastoralist lifestyle and to settle in villages. All Kalmyk herdsmen owning more than 500 sheep were deported to labor camps in Siberia.


title: Kalmyks

text: In June 1941 the German army invaded the Soviet Union, ultimately taking (some) control of the Kalmyk Autonomous Soviet Socialist Republic. In December 1942, however, the Red Army in their turn re-invaded the Republic. On 28 December 1943, the Soviet government accused the Kalmyks of collaborating with the Germans and deported the entire population, including Kalmyk Red Army soldiers, to various locations in Central Asia and Siberia. Within 24 hours the population transfer occurred at night during winter without notice in unheated cattle cars.


title: Kalmyks

text: According to N. F. Bugai, the leading Russian expert on deportations, 4.9% of the Kalmyk population died during the first three months of 1944; 1.5% in the first three months of 1945; and 0.7% in the same period of 1946. From 1945 to 1950, 15,206 Kalmyks died and 7843 were born.


title: Kalmyks

text: The Kalmyk Autonomous Soviet Socialist Republic was quickly dissolved. Its territory was divided and transferred to the adjacent regions, viz., the Astrakhan and Stalingrad Oblasts and Stavropol Krai. Since no Kalmyks lived there any longer the Soviet authorities changed the names of towns and villages from Kalmyk names to Russian names. For example, Elista became Stepnoi.


title: Kalmyks

text: Around half of (97–98,000) Kalmyk people deported to Siberia died before being allowed to return home in 1957. The government of the Soviet Union forbade teaching Kalmyk Oirat during the deportation. The Kalmyks' main purpose was to migrate to Mongolia. Under the Law of the Russian Federation of April 26, 1991, "On Rehabilitation of Exiled Peoples", repressions against Kalmyks and other peoples were qualified as an act of genocide.


title: Kalmyks

text: In 1957, Soviet Premier Nikita Khrushchev permitted the Kalmyk people to return to their home. Upon return, however, the Kalmyks found their homeland had become settled by Russians and Ukrainians, many of whom chose to remain. On January 9, 1957, Kalmykia once again became an autonomous oblast, and on 29 July 1958, an autonomous republic within the Russian Soviet Federative Socialist Republic.


title: Kalmyks

text: In the following years bad planning of agricultural and irrigation projects resulted in widespread desertification. In addition, industrial plants were constructed without an analysis of the economic viability of such plants.


title: Kalmyks

text: In 1992, after the dissolution of the Soviet Union, Kalmykia chose to remain an autonomous republic of the successor government, the Russian Federation. The dissolution, however, facilitated the collapse of the economy at both the national and the local level, causing widespread economic and social hardship. The resulting upheaval caused many young Kalmyks to leave Kalmykia, especially in the rural areas, for economic opportunities in and outside the Russian Federation.


title: Kalmyks

text: The local Supreme Soviet decided in 1992 to change the name of the republic to Khalmg Tangch. In June 1993, the Kalmyk authorities laid claim to the of the Volga delta that were not returned to Kalmyks when the Kalmyk ASSR was recreated in 1957. The Kalmyk authorities claimed that under the terms of the 1991 law On the Rehabilitation of Repressed Peoples, the lands, currently in the Astrakhan Oblast and Dagestan, would formally belong to Kalmykia with effect from July 1, 1993. The long-standing dispute over the delineation of Kalmykia's borders with Astrakhan oblast and Dagestan resurfaced in 2005, but no border changes were made.


title: Kalmyks

text: The Kalmyks' ability to maintain a mostly homogeneous existence contrasts with the Russian admixture with other similar people, "as there is evidence for Russian admixture with Yakuts," for example. Thus far, genetic analysis of the Kalmyks supports their Mongol roots that also shows that entire families of Kalmyks moved to the Volga region and not simply males as is generally the case with most nomadic tribal groups.


title: Kalmyks

text: Mongolians name Kalmyks as Halimag. It means "the people moving away". The verb "Halih" in Mongolian means leakage, seepage or overpour. So the name "Halimag" is given, because they were the people who leaked from Mongolians and Mongolian land.


title: Kalmyks

text: The name "Kalmyk" is a word of Turkic origin that means "remnant" or "to remain". Turkic tribes may have used this name as early as the thirteenth century. Arab geographer Ibn al-Wardi is documented as the first person to use the term in referring to the Oirats in the fourteenth century (Khodarkovsky, 1992:5, "citing" Bretschneider, 1910:2:167). The khojas of Kashgaria applied the name to Oirats in the fifteenth century (Grousset, 1970:506). Russian written sources mentioned the name "Kolmak Tatars" as early as 1530, and cartographer Sebastian Muenster (1488–1552) circumscribed the territory of the "Kalmuchi" on a map in his "Cosmographia", which was published in 1544. The Oirats themselves, however, did not accept the name as their own.


title: Kalmyks

text: There are these main ethnic subgroups of Kalmyks: Baatud, Dörbet, Khoid, Khoshut, Olot, Torghut and Buzava. The Torghuts and Dörbets are numerically dominant. The Buzavs are a small minority and are considered to be the most russified Kalmyks.


title: Kalmyks

text: This statistics is about the demographics of the Kalmyks in the Russian Empire, Soviet Union and Russian Federation.


title: Kalmyks

text: The Kalmyks live primarily in the Republic of Kalmykia, a federal subject of Russia. Kalmykia is located in the southeast European part of Russia, between the Volga and the Don rivers. It has borders with the Republic of Dagestan in the south; the Stavropol Krai in the southwest; and the Rostov Oblast and the Volgograd Oblast in the west and the northwest, respectively. Its eastern border is the Astrakhan Oblast. The southeast border is the Caspian Sea.


title: Kalmyks

text: After the collapse of the Soviet Union, a large number of Kalmyks, primarily the young, moved from Kalmykia to larger cities in Russia, such as Moscow and St. Petersburg, and to the United States. The move was precipitated by the desire of these Kalmyks to pursue better educational and economic opportunities and continues today.


title: Kalmyks

text: Currently, Kalmyks form a majority of the population in Kalmykia. According to the 2010 Russian census, there was a total of 162,740 Kalmyks who resided within Kalmykia. This represented 57.4% of the total population of the republic in 2010. In addition, Kalmyks have a much higher fertility rate than Russians and the other Slavic peoples, while the median age of the Kalmyk population is much lower than Russians. This ensures that the Kalmyk population will continue to grow for the foreseeable future.


title: Kalmyks

text: The Kalmyks are the only inhabitants of Europe whose national religion is Buddhism. They embraced Buddhism in the early part of the 17th century and belong to the Tibetan Buddhist sect known as the Gelugpa (Virtuous Way). The Gelugpa are commonly referred to as the Yellow Hat sect. The religion is derived from the Indian Mahayana form of Buddhism. In the West, it was formerly referred to as Lamaism, from the name of the Tibetan monks, the lamas.


title: Kalmyks

text: Historically, Kalmyk clergy received their training either on the steppe or in Tibet. The pupils who received their religious training on the steppe joined Kalmyk monasteries, which were active centers of learning. Many of these monasteries operated out of felt tents, which accompanied the Kalmyk tribes as they migrated. The Oirats maintained tent monasteries throughout present-day eastern Kazakhstan and along the migratory route they took across southern Siberia to the Volga. They also maintained tent monasteries around Lake Issyk Kul in present-day Kyrgyzstan.


title: Kalmyks

text: The Oirats also built stone monasteries in the regions of eastern Kazakhstan. For instance, the remains of stone Buddhist monasteries have been found at Almalik and at Kyzyl-Kent (See image to the right). In addition, there was a great Buddhist monastery in Semipalatinsk (seven palaces), which derives its name from that seven-halled Buddhist temple. Further, remains of Buddhist monasteries have been found at Ablaiket near Ust Kamenogorsk and at Talgar, near Almaty, and at Sumbe in the Narynkol region, bordering China.


title: Kalmyks

text: Upon completion of training, Kalmyk clergy dispensed not only spiritual guidance but also medical advice. As clergymen, the Kalmyk lamas enjoyed great political influence among the nobility and held a strong influence over the general tribal population. For many commoners, the only path to literacy and prestige was to join the Kalmyk monastic system.


title: Kalmyks

text: As a matter of policy, the Tsarist government and the Russian Orthodox Church sought to gradually absorb and convert any subject of another creed or nationality. The aim of the policy was to eliminate foreign influence and to entrench newly annexed areas. The baptized indigenous population would then become loyal to the Russian empire and would agree to be governed by Russian officials.


title: Kalmyks

text: A small percentage of Kalmyk-Cossack families in Belarus converted to Judaism in the early 19th century.


title: Kalmyks

text: The Kalmyks migrated to territory annexed by the Tsarist government and were subject to this policy as long as they remained in this territory. At first, the policies contributed to the conversion of the Kalmyk nobility. One of the earliest converts were the children of Donduk-Ombo, the sixth Khan of the Kalmyks who reigned between 1737 and 1741, and his Circassian-born wife (See Dondukov family). Another important convert was Baksaday-Dorji, the grandson of Ayuka Khan who adopted the Christian name, Peter Taishin. Each conversion was motivated by political ambition to become the Kalmyk Khan. Kalmyk Tayishis, by contrast, were given salaries and towns and settlements were established for them and their ulus (Khodarkovsky, 1992:39).


title: Kalmyks

text: Later on, the Tsarist government policy of encouraging Russian and German settlements along the Volga indirectly pressured Kalmyks to convert for economic reasons. The settlers took the most fertile land along the river, leaving barren lands for the Kalmyks to graze their herds. The resulting reduction of herds led to impoverishment for Kalmyk Tayishis, some of whom led their ulus to Christianity to obtain economic benefits.


title: Kalmyks

text: To discourage the monastic lifestyle, the government required the building of permanent structures at government determined construction sites while imposing Russian architects (Pozdneev, 1914). This policy resulted in the suspension of Lamaist canonical regulations governing monastery construction and in Kalmyk temples resembling Russian Orthodox churches. For example, the Khoshutovsky Khurul is modeled after the Kazan Cathedral in St. Petersburg, Russia.


title: Kalmyks

text: Other policies the Tsarist government implemented sought to gradually weaken the influence of the lamas. For instance, the government limited Kalmyk contact with Tibet. In addition, the Tsar began appointing the Šajin Lama (title of the High Lama of the Kalmyks). Further, the economic crises that resulted from settler encroachment forced many monasteries and temples to close and lamas to adopt a secularized lifestyle. The success of this policy is borne out by the decrease in the number of Kalmyk monasteries in the Volga region during the 19th century (Loewenthal, 1952 "citing" Riasanovsky, 1929).


title: Kalmyks

text: Like the Tsarist government, the Communist regime was aware of the influence the Kalmyk clergy held over the general population. In the 1920s and the 1930s, the Soviet government implemented policies to eliminate religion through control and suppression. Towards that end, Kalmyk khuruls (temples) and monasteries were destroyed and property confiscated; the clergy and many believers were harassed, killed, or sent to labor camps; religious artifacts and books were destroyed; and young men were prohibited from religious training.


title: Kalmyks

text: In the 1920s and 1930s Buddhist temples and monasteries were destroyed and almost all of the spiritual leaders were arrested. By 1940 all Kalmyk Buddhist temples were either closed or destroyed and the clergy systematically oppressed. Dr. Loewenthal writes that the policies were so enforced that the Kalmyk clergy and Buddhism were not mentioned in the work by B. Dzhimbinov, "Sovetskaya Kalmykiya," published in 1940. In 1944, the Soviet government exiled all Kalmyks not fighting in the Soviet army to Central Asia and Siberia, accusing them of collaborating with Nazi Germany. Upon rehabilitation in 1957, the Kalmyks were permitted to return home from exile, but all attempts by them to restore their religion and to build a temple failed.


title: Kalmyks

text: By the 1980s, the Soviet campaign against religion was so successful that a majority of the Kalmyks had never received any formal spiritual guidance. By the late 1980s, however, the Soviet government reversed course and implemented policies favoring the liberalization of religion. As a result, the first Buddhist community was organized in 1988. By 1995, there were 21 Buddhist temples, 17 places of worship for various Christian denominations, and 1 mosque in the Republic of Kalmykia (Grin, 2000:7).


title: Kalmyks

text: On December 27, 2005, a new khurul opened in Elista, the capital of the Republic of Kalmykia. The khurul was named "Burkhan Bakshin Altan Sume". It is the largest Buddhist temple in Europe. The government of the Republic of Kalmykia sought to build a magnificent temple of a monumental scale in hopes of creating an international learning center for Buddhist scholars and students from all over the world. More significantly, the temple is a monument to the Kalmyk people who died in exile between 1944 and 1957.


title: Kalmyks

text: The Kalmyks of Kyrgyzstan live primarily in the Karakol region of eastern Kyrgyzstan. They are referred to as "Sart Kalmyks." The origin of this name is unknown. Likewise, it is not known when, why and from where this small group of Kalmyks migrated to eastern Kyrgyzstan. Due to their minority status, the Sart Kalmyks have adopted the Turkic language and culture of the majority Kyrgyz population. As a result, nearly all now belong to the Muslim faith.


title: Kalmyks

text: Although Sart Kalmyks are Muslims, Kalmyks elsewhere by and large remain faithful to the Gelugpa Order of Tibetan Buddhism. In Kalmykia, for example, the Gelugpa Order with the assistance of the government has constructed numerous Buddhist temples. In addition, the Kalmyk people recognize Tenzin Gyatso, 14th Dalai Lama as their spiritual leader and Erdne Ombadykow, a Kalmyk American, as the supreme lama of the Kalmyk people. The Dalai Lama has visited Elista on a number of occasions. Buddhism and Christianity have been given the status of state religions. In November 2004 the 14th Dalai Lama visited Kalmykia.


title: Kalmyks

text: "Ethnologue" classifies Kalmyk Oirat as a member of the Eastern branch of the Mongolic languages: "Mongolic, Eastern, Oirat-Khalkha, Oirat-Kalmyk-Darkhat". This places Standard Mongolian – which is essentially Khalkha Mongolian – and Kalmyk Oirat fairly close together.


title: Kalmyks

text: Other linguists, such as Nicholas Poppe, have classified Kalmyk Oirat as belonging to the Western branch of the Mongolian language division and thus more distant from Khalkha and Standard Mongolian as spoken in modern Mongolia, since the language group developed separately and is distinct. Moreover, Poppe contends that, although there is little phonetic and morphological difference, Kalmyk and Oirat are two distinct languages. The major distinction is in their lexicons. The Kalmyk language, for example, has adopted many words of Russian origin. Consequently, mainly on lexical grounds, Kalmyk is classified as a distinct language (Poppe 1970).


title: Kalmyks

text: By population, the major dialects of Kalmyk are Torghut, Dörbet and Buzava (Bormanshinov 1990). Minor dialects include Khoshut and Olöt. The Kalmyk dialects vary somewhat, but the differences are insignificant. Generally, the Russian language less influenced the dialects of the pastoral nomadic Kalmyk tribes of the Volga region.


title: Kalmyks

text: In contrast, the Dörbets (and later on, Torghuts) who migrated from the Volga region to the of the Don Host Oblast took the name Buzava (or Don Kalmyks). The Buzava dialect developed from their close interaction with Russians. In 1798 the Tsarist government recognized the Buzava as Don Cossacks, both militarily and administratively. As a result of their integration into the Don Host, the Buzava dialect incorporated many words of Russian origin. (Anon. 1914: 653–660)


title: Kalmyks

text: During World War II, all Kalmyks not fighting in the Soviet Army were forcibly exiled to Siberia and Central Asia, where they were dispersed and not permitted to speak Kalmyk in public places. As a result, the Kalmyk language was not formally taught to the younger generation of Kalmyks.


title: Kalmyks

text: Upon return from exile in 1957, the Kalmyks spoke and published primarily in Russian. Consequently, the younger generation of Kalmyks primarily speak Russian and not their own native language. This is a subject of popular concern. In recent years, the Kalmyk government has made attempts to revive the Kalmyk language. Some laws have been passed regarding the usage of Kalmyk on shop signs; for example, on entrance doors, the words 'Entrance' and 'Push-Pull' appear in Kalmyk.


title: Kalmyks

text: According to UNESCO's 2010 edition of the "Red Book of Endangered Languages", the Kalmyk language classified as definitely endangered.


title: Kalmyks

text: In the 17th century, Zaya Pandita, a Khoshut Buddhist monk, devised a writing system, Clear Script, based on the classical vertical Mongol script in order to phonetically capture the Oirat language. In the later part of the 19th and early part of the 20th centuries, Clear Script fell into disuse until the Kalmyks abandoned it in 1923 and introduced the Cyrillic script. In 1930, Kalmyk language scholars introduced a modified Latin alphabet, but it was not used for long.


title: Grand Bazaar, Istanbul

text: The Grand Bazaar (, meaning ‘Covered Market’; also , meaning ‘Grand Market’) in Istanbul is one of the largest and oldest covered markets in the world, with 61 covered streets and over 4,000 shops on a total area of 30,700 m, attracting between 250,000 and 400,000 visitors daily. In 2014, it was listed No.1 among the world's most-visited tourist attractions with 91,250,000 annual visitors. The Grand Bazaar at Istanbul is often regarded as one of the first shopping malls of the world.


title: Grand Bazaar, Istanbul

text: The Grand Bazaar is located inside the walled city of Istanbul, in the district of Fatih and in the neighbourhood () bearing the same name (). It stretches roughly from west to east between the mosques of Beyazit and of Nuruosmaniye. The Bazaar can easily be reached from Sultanahmet and Sirkeci by trams (Beyazıt-Kapalıçarşı stop).


title: Grand Bazaar, Istanbul

text: The construction of the future Grand Bazaar's core started during the winter of 1455/56, shortly after the Ottoman conquest of Constantinople and was part of a broader initiative to stimulate economic prosperity in Istanbul. Sultan Mehmed II had an edifice erected devoted to the trading of textiles and jewels near his palace in Constantinople. It was named ("Bedesten of Gems") and was also known as ("New Bedesten") in Ottoman Turkish.


title: Grand Bazaar, Istanbul

text: The word is adapted from the Persian word "bezestan", derived from "bez" ("cloth"), and means "bazaar of the cloth sellers". The building – named alternately in Turkish ("Internal"), ("Ancient"), or ("Old") Bedesten – lies on the slope of the third hill of Istanbul, between the ancient Fora of Constantine and of Theodosius. It was also near the first sultan's palace, the Old Palace (), which was also in construction in those same years, and not far from the Artopoleia (in Greek) (), the city's bakers' quarter in Byzantine times.


title: Grand Bazaar, Istanbul

text: The construction of the Bedesten ended in the winter of 1460/61, and the building was endowed to the "waqf" of the Hagia Sophia Mosque. Analysis of the brickwork shows that most of the structure originates from the second half of the 15th century, although a Byzantine relief representing a Comnenian eagle, still enclosed on the top of the East Gate () of the Bedesten has been used by several scholars as proof that the edifice was a Byzantine structure.


title: Grand Bazaar, Istanbul

text: In a market near the Bedesten, named in Turkish , the slave trade was active, a use also carried over from Byzantine times. Other important markets in the vicinity were the second-hand market (), the "Long Market" (), corresponding to the Greek "Makros Embolos" (, "Long Portico"), a long porticoed mall stretching downhill from the Forum of Constantine to the Golden Horn, which was one of the main market areas of the city, while the old book market () was moved from the Bazaar to the present picturesque location near the Beyazid Mosque only after the 1894 Istanbul earthquake.


title: Grand Bazaar, Istanbul

text: Some years later—according to other sources, this occurred in 1545 under Sultan Suleiman I—Mehmed II had another covered market built, the "Sandal Bedesten" (the name comes from a kind of thread woven in Bursa, which had the colour of sandalwood), also named ("Little"), or (both words meaning "New") Bedesten, which lay north of the first.


title: Grand Bazaar, Istanbul

text: After the erection of the Sandal Bedesten the trade in textiles moved there, while the was reserved for the trade in luxury goods. At the beginning the two buildings were isolated. According to the 16th-century French traveller Pierre Gilles, between them and the Mosque of Beyazid stood the ruins of churches and a large cistern. However, soon many sellers opened their shops between and around them, so that a whole quarter was born, devoted exclusively to commerce.


title: Grand Bazaar, Istanbul

text: At the beginning of the 17th century the Grand Bazaar had already achieved its final shape. The enormous extent of the Ottoman Empire in three continents, and the total control of road communications between Asia and Europe, rendered the Bazaar and the surrounding "han"s or caravanserais the hub of the Mediterranean trade. According to several European travelers, at that time, and until the first half of the 19th century, the market was unrivaled in Europe with regards to the abundance, variety and quality of the goods on sale. At that time we know from European travelers that the Grand Bazaar had a square plan, with two perpendicular main roads crossing in the middle and a third road running along the outer perimeter. In the Bazaar there were 67 roads (each bearing the name of the sellers of a particular good), several squares used for the daily prayers, 5 mosques, 7 fountains, 18 gates which were opened each day in the morning and closed in the evening. Around 1638 the Turkish traveller Evliya Çelebi gave us the most important historical description of the Bazaar and of its customs. The number of shops amounted to 3,000, plus 300 located in the surrounding "han"s, large caravanserais with two or three stories round a porticoed inner courtyard, where goods could be stored and merchants could be lodged. In that period one tenth of the shops of the city were concentrated in the market and around it. For all that, at that time the market was not yet covered.


title: Grand Bazaar, Istanbul

text: Recurrent calamities, fires and earthquakes hit the Grand Bazaar. The first fire occurred in 1515; another in 1548. Other fires ravaged the complex in 1588, 1618 (when the was destroyed), 1645, 1652, 1658, 1660 (on that occasion the whole city was devastated), 1687, 1688 (great damage occurred to the ) 1695, and 1701. The fire of 1701 was particularly fierce, forcing Grand Vizier Nevşehirli Damad Ibrahim Pasha to rebuild several parts of the complex in 1730–1731. In 1738 the Kızlar Ağası Beşir Ağa endowed the Fountain (still existing) near Mercan Kapı.


title: Grand Bazaar, Istanbul

text: In this period, because of the new law against fires issued in 1696, several parts of the market which lay between the two Bedesten were covered with vaults. Despite that, other fires ravaged the complex in 1750 and 1791. The quake of 1766 caused more damages, which were repaired by the Court Chief Architect () Ahmet a year later.


title: Grand Bazaar, Istanbul

text: The 19th-century growth of the textile industry in western Europe, introduction of mass production methods, the capitulations signed between the Empire and many European countries, and the forestalling – always by European merchants – of the raw materials needed to produce goods in the Empire's closed economy, were factors which caused the Market's decline. By 1850, rents in Bedesten were ten times lower than two to three decades before. Moreover, the birth of a West-oriented bourgeoisie and the commercial success of Western products pushed the merchants belonging to the minorities (Greek, Armenian, Jewish) into moving out of the Bazaar, perceived as antiquated, and into opening new shops in quarters frequented by Europeans, such as Pera and Galata.


title: Grand Bazaar, Istanbul

text: According to an 1890 survey, in the Bazaar there were 4,399 active shops, 2 "bedesten", 2195 rooms, 1 "hamam", one mosque, 10 medrese, 19 fountains (among them two "şadırvan" and one "sebil"), one mausoleum and 24 "han". In the 30.7 hectares of the complex, protected by 18 gates, there are 3,000 shops along 61 streets, the 2 "bedesten", 13 "han" (plus several more outside).


title: Grand Bazaar, Istanbul

text: The last major catastrophe happened in 1894: a strong earthquake that rocked Istanbul. The Minister of Public Works, Mahmud Celaleddin Pasha, supervised the repair of the damaged Bazaar until 1898, and on this occasion the complex was reduced in area. To the west, the Bit Pazarı was left outside the new perimeter and became an open-sky road, named "Çadırcılar Caddesi" ("Tentmaker Road"), while the old gate and the "Kütkculer Kapi" were demolished. Among all the "han"s which belonged to the Market, many were left outside, and only nine remained enclosed in the structure.


title: Grand Bazaar, Istanbul

text: In 1914 the Sandal Bedesten, whose handlers of textile goods had been ruined by the European competition, was acquired by the city of Istanbul and, starting one year later, was used as an auction house, mainly for carpets. In 1927 the individual parts of the bazaar and the streets got official names. The last fires of bazaar happened in 1943 and 1954, and the related restorations were finished on 28 July 1959.


title: Grand Bazaar, Istanbul

text: The last restoration of the complex took place in 1980. On that occasion, advertising posters around the market were also removed.


title: Grand Bazaar, Istanbul

text: The Iç Bedesten has a rectangular plan (43.30 m x 29.50 m). Two rows of stone piers, four in each row, sustain three rows of bays, five in each row. Each bay is surmounted by a brick dome with blind drum. In the inner and in the outer walls have been built 44 cellars (), vaulted rooms without external openings. The sunlight in Bedesten comes from rectangular windows placed right under the roof: they can be accessed through a wooden ambulatory. Due to the scarce illumination, the edifice was kept open only some hours each day, and was devoted to the trade of luxury goods, above all textiles. Moreover, the Bedesten's Mahzen were also used as safes. The building can be accessed through four gates:


title: Grand Bazaar, Istanbul

text: The Sandal Bedesten has also a rectangular plan (40.20 m × 42.20 m), with 12 stone piers bearing 20 bays surmounted by brick domes with blind drum. In this case shops are carved only in the outer walls. In both edifices, each bay is tied to the others through brick arches tied by juniper beams, and masonry is made with rubble. Both buildings were closed by iron gates.


title: Grand Bazaar, Istanbul

text: Aside from the bedestens, originally the Grand Bazaar structures were built with wood, and only after the 1700 fire, they were rebuilt in stone and brickwork, and covered. All the bazaar edifices, except the fur dealers market (), a later addition which is two-story, are one story. The roofs are mainly covered with tiles, while the part burnt in 1954 uses now tarmac. In the bazaar no artificial light was foreseen, also to prevent fires, and smoking was strictly prohibited. The roads outside the inner Bedesten are roughly parallel to it. The damages caused by the many fires and quakes along the centuries, together with the repairs done without a general plan, gave to the market – especially in its western part – a picturesque appearance, with its maze of roads and lanes crossing each other at various angles.


title: Grand Bazaar, Istanbul

text: Until the restoration following the quake of 1894, the Grand Bazaar had no shops as found in the western world: along both sides of the roads merchants sat on wooden divans in front of their shelves. Each of them occupied a space in width, and in depth. This was named in Turkish , meaning 'stall'. The most precious merchandise was not on display, but kept in cabinets. Only clothes were hung in long rows, with a picturesque effect. A prospective client could sit in front of the dealer, talk with him and drink a tea or a Turkish coffee, in a relaxed way. At the end of the day, each stall was closed with drapes. Another peculiarity was the complete lack of advertising. Moreover, as everywhere in the East, traders of the same type of goods were forcibly concentrated along one road, which got its name from their profession. The Inner Bedesten hosted the most precious wares: jewelers, armourers, crystal dealers had their shops there. The Sandal Bedesten was mainly the center of the silk trade, but also other goods were on sale there. The most picturesque parts of the market were – apart from the two Bedestens – the shoe market (), where thousands of shoes of different colors (Ottoman sumptuary laws prescribed yellow shoes for Muslims, blue for Greek Orthodox, black for Jews and red for Armenians) were on display on high shelves; the spice and herbs market (later concentrated in the Egyptian Bazaar), which stood near the jewelers; the armour and weapon market; the old book market; and the flea market.


title: Grand Bazaar, Istanbul

text: This kind of organization disappeared gradually, although nowadays a concentration of the same business along certain roads can be observed again:


title: Grand Bazaar, Istanbul

text: Actually, the main reason of concentrating the trade in one place was to provide the highest security against theft, fire and uprising. The goods in the Bedesten were guaranteed against everything except turmoil. Gates were always closed at night, and the bazaar was patrolled by guards paid by the merchants' guilds. In order to access the complex during night hours, an imperial edict was required. The only official night opening in the history of the Bazaar occurred in 1867 during the feast organized for the return of Sultan Abdülaziz from Egypt, when the sovereign crossed the illuminated market riding a horse among the rejoicing populace. Despite the immense wealth present in the Bazaar over the centuries—as an English traveller recorded as late as c. 1870, a tour of the inner Bedesten could easily ruin a few Rothschild families—theft occurred extremely rarely. The most important such incident happened in 1591, when 30,000 gold coins () were stolen in the old Bedesten. The theft shocked the whole of Istanbul, the Bazaar remained closed for two weeks and people were tortured, until the money was found hidden under a floor matting. The culprit was a young Persian musk seller. Thanks to the intercession of the Sultan Murad III he was executed by hanging and not by torture.


title: Grand Bazaar, Istanbul

text: The ethics of trade in the Market until the Tanzimat age (i.e. until the mid-19th century) were quite different from the modern ones: indifference to profit, absence of envy in the successes of other traders, and a single and correct price were peculiar traits of the Ottoman bazaar during its golden age. The reason for such behavior lies partly in the ethics of Islam, and partly in the guild system which provided a strong social security net to the merchants. Afterwards, the westernization of the Ottoman society and the influence of the national minorities caused the introduction of mercantile ethics in Ottoman society.


title: Grand Bazaar, Istanbul

text: Right during the westernization of Ottoman society, the Grand Bazaar became an obligatory topos of the romantic literature. We owe descriptions of the Bazaar in the middle of the 19th century to writers such as Edmondo De Amicis and Théophile Gautier.


title: Grand Bazaar, Istanbul

text: Another peculiarity of the market during the Ottoman age was the total lack of restaurants. The absence of women in the social life and the nomadic conventions in the Turkish society made the concept of restaurant alien. Merchants brought their lunch in a food box called "sefertas", and the only food on sale was simple dishes such as doner kebab, tavuk göğsü (a dessert prepared with chicken breast, milk sugar and rose water sprinkled on it) and Turkish coffee. These simple dishes were prepared and served in small two-story kiosks placed in the middle of a road. The most famous among these kiosks is the one—still extant but not functioning any more—placed at the crossing of "Halıcılar Caddesi" and "Acı Çesme Caddesi". It is alleged that Sultan Mahmud II came there often in disguise to eat his pudding. The Bazaar was in the Ottoman Age the place where the "Istanbullu" (the inhabitants of the city) could see each other. Not only was the market the only place in town where the ladies could go relatively easily (and this circumstance made the place especially interesting for the Europeans who visited the city), but—especially from the Tanzimat age on—it was also the only public place where the average citizen had a chance to meet the members of the Imperial Harem and of the Court casually.


title: Grand Bazaar, Istanbul

text: The Bazaar's merchants were organized in guilds. In order to establish a new one, it was only necessary to have enough traders of the same good. Afterwards, a monopoly was formed and the number of traders and shops was frozen. One could only be accepted in the guild through co-optation, either as son of a deceased member, or after paying a suitable sum to a member who wanted to retire.


title: Grand Bazaar, Istanbul

text: The guild's chief was a public officer called "Kethüda". He was paid by the guild but appointed by the "Kadı" of Istanbul. Fixation of prices and taxes were matter of the "Kethüda". He was joined by a representative of the guild's member, called "Yiğitbaşı" ('chief of the brave young fellows'). These two officers were flanked by the assembly of the elders, non necessarily old in age, but comprising the most experienced traders. Parallel to the guilds, there were purely religious organizations, called "fütüvvet tariks". Their members met in Dervish shrines and performed religious functions. These organizations became less and less important with time due to the increased weight of the Greek, Armenian and Jews merchants in the bazaar's trade. Each guild had a financial department which collected a moderate monthly fee (some silver coins; ) from the members and administered it taking care of the needs of each associated person. The guilds lost increasingly their importance during the Tanzimat period, and were abolished in 1913, being replaced by an association of Bazaar merchants. Nowadays, there are several merchant associations in the Bazaar, but none is representative of the whole seller community.


title: Grand Bazaar, Istanbul

text: Today the Grand Bazaar is a thriving complex, employing 26,000 people visited by between 250,000 and 400,000 visitors daily, and one of the major landmarks of Istanbul. It must compete with modern shopping malls common in Istanbul, but its beauty and fascination represent a formidable advantage for it. The head of the Grand Bazaar Artisans Association claimed that the complex was in 2011 – the year of its 550th birthday – the most visited monument in the world. A restoration project starting in 2012 should renew its infrastructure, heating and lighting systems. Moreover, the "han"s inside the Market will be renovated and later additions will be demolished. This project should finally solve the big problems of the market: for example, in the whole Bazaar there is no proper toilet facility. Moreover, the lack of controls in the past years allowed many dealers to remove columns and skive walls in their shops to gain space; this, together with the substitution of lead (stolen in the last years) with concrete on the market's roof, has created a great hazard when the earthquake expected in Istanbul in the next years will occur.


title: Sinking of the MS Estonia

text: The MS "Estonia" sank on Wednesday, 28 September 1994, between about 00:50 and 01:50 (UTC+2) as the ship was crossing the Baltic Sea, en route from Tallinn, Estonia, to Stockholm, Sweden. The sinking was one of the worst maritime disasters of the 20th century. It is one of the deadliest peacetime sinkings of a European ship, after the in 1912 and the in 1914, and the deadliest peacetime shipwreck to have occurred in European waters, with 852 lives lost.


title: Sinking of the MS Estonia

text: "Estonia" departed slightly behind schedule at 19:15 on 27 September and was expected in Stockholm the next morning at about 09:00. She was carrying 989 people: 803 passengers and 186 crew. Most of the passengers were Swedish, although some were of Estonian origin, while most of the crew members were Estonian. The ship was fully loaded, and was listing slightly to starboard (to the right looking from the ship in the direction of its travel) because of poor cargo distribution.