Nadezhda says the following: I was born in Iki-Derbet. I am from the Akhnud clan. I finished three classes in my village. My father, Pyurvenov Nyamin Erdniyevich, was a shepherd in a collective farm. Zaisang Lapin was an aristocrat in Bashanta. He built a temple in my village of Akhnud. The local history museum keeps files about that temple which was collected by Chultsumov Kozma Lavganovich in the 1970s. Before the deportation of the Kalmyks, Buddhist celebrations were held at that temple. During Urs Sar, according to my older brother, the monks used to take out Gandzhur texts from inside the temple and carry them outside. The temple was near a pond called ‘Zangta khurla khudg’. Afterwards, the temple was turned into a school. When we returned from exile, the building was converted into a brick factory. My cousin, Badma, a tractor driver, used to dig the ground around that temple. One day he began to drive in circles, and nobody could stop him. After he was finally stopped by my older brother Viktor Nikolaevich, Badma was taken to a hospital in Priyutnoe where the doctors could find nothing wrong with him. A former monk who served in that temple told Badma that he had disturbed the land and that if he wished to live he should quit the job. Badma’s mother sent him off to her relatives in the village of Baga-Tugtun where he got married and had children. The patron of our clan is the lama Tsongkapa whom we worship. When I was a child we were taught to appeal to Tsongkhapa and White Tara in our prayers.