Olga was born in the village of Vlasovka in the Zimovnikovsky district of the Rostov region on 15 November, 1929. Her father, Churyumov Sanji Alexandrovich, was from the Bag-Buurul clan, and her mother, Churyumova Evdokia Andreevna, from the Makhchin-Keryad clan. At home her mother was called Ochir. There were two children in the family, including Olga and her older brother who was a lieutenant in the Red Army. Olga’s father made boots, and her mother did sewing. In 1933, following the death of Olga’s maternal grandfather, the family moved to a Russian settlement where they sheltered a former monk in their house. His name was Burmetov and he was from the stanitsa/village of Gelingyakinskaya (Novo-Alekseevskaya). Later that monk was arrested and sent to prison in Zimovnikovskaya where he died. When Olga’s brother was the Head of a local Cultural Club, he asked his parents whether they could shelter another monk in their house. That monk stayed with the family longer than the previous one. With the beginning of World War II, Olga’s brother went to the front, leaving behind his pregnant wife. Olga’s father fell ill and soon died. Olga’s sister-in-law gave birth to a son, and went to live with her own mother who was blind and needed care. Olga, her mother, and the monk moved to the monk’s old village. One day military vehicles arrived at that village. The soldiers jumped out of the lorries and guarded each house so that no one could escape. All the villagers were boarded onto the lorries and sent to the district center. Kalmyks shouted: ‘My father serves in the Red Army!’, ‘My brother is fighting in the front!’ and things like that. In response, one Russian officer shouted: ‘You are all traitors of the Motherland!’ All Kalmyks who were there were put into twelve wagons which were pulled by a couple of locomotives. When the train arrived at Tyumen, the Kalmyk deportees were scattered across Siberia and Sakhalin. Olga and her mother stayed in Tyumen. The monk who lived with them was sent to Krasnoyarsk. One day, he unexpectedly came to visit them, and after staying with them for a year, he died. Before his death, he gave Olga’s mother several papers with prayers, telling her that they would bring her luck. Life in Siberia improved after 1946. From 1949 Olga worked in a plant. In 1950 she married Ivan Kazakovich Budzhalov. Olga’s parents and her brother all played on the accordion. Her father also played on the dombra and could sing well. Olga herself loved dancing. Olga says that in Elista there are many people from her clan, known under a host of surnames including the Shadzhanovs, Dzhirgalovs, Baldinkinovs, Dzhalchinovs, and Dzhengurovs. The Buzavas, of whom Olga is one, were historically divide into 13 stanitsas, or villages, and everyone knew their genealogy.