The Kalmyk word for wormwood is burulda or shar sharljn. This is a legend about how two Polovets khans were driven into the mountain by Vladimir Monomakh in 1111. The Polovets and the Rusich (ancestors of the Russians) were fighting at the Don river. Two Polovets khans, Syrchan and Atrak, who were brothers, escaped to the mountains. When Monomakh returned to Kiev, Syrchan also came down to his pastureland at the lower Don. After some time Syrchan sent a messenger to his brother Atrak, who had stayed in the mountains, asking him to return home. Atrak did not reply. After some time Syrchan again sent a messenger to his brother with the same request, but again did not receive any reply from his brother. The third time Syrchan gave some wormwood to the messenger and asked him to deliver the herb to Atrak and say nothing. Atrak breathed the smell of the wormwood, cried and returned home. This legend may be based on a true story, because during the Civil War following the Bolshevik Revolution Cossack Kalmyks from Don fled to Europe, and some of them requested that wormwood be sent to them. In the 1990s when émigré Kalmyks visited Kalmykia, some of them also took wormwood with them back home.