Dmitriy talks about how people behaved during fasting days (matsg) in the Soviet period: During that day Kalmyks read prayers and tried to abstain from doing bad deeds. Old men would warn ahead that matsg was approaching and that we should stop drinking alcohol and start behaving ourselves and praying. All this was in the Soviet times and we did not know how to pray properly. Our elders used to say that ‘Even if you can’t pray, just saying the word Dyark (i.e. goddess Tara) is enough’. Our elders also taught us that we could pray inside us, and that we did not have to know mantras.