Sanal Lidzhiev, About My Native Place

Abstract

Sanal talks about his native place, Shorv, in Oktyabrskiy (rayon) of Kalmykia. In the past, Sanal recollects, the water from the lakes in Sarpa reached his sovkhoz. The land was rich and there were canes all around. In the past, winters were cold and snowy. Springs and summers were abundant with rain. Today, by contrast, the land is dry. To improve the situation, the elders from that place perform a ritual of gazr tyaklgn (worship of the land), but without success. In Shorv stood a Buddhist temple in the past. In Sarpa region about 10 arvns (clans) live. Sanal himself is from the Sharadakhn arvn, which was a big clan the past. Members and descendants of this clan lived in many places. Hence a Kalmyk saying, ‘There is no grass without weeds/ (In the same way) there is no place without the Sharadakhn people’.