Bulgun Lapsina, About Relations Between Kalmyks and Caucasians

Abstract

Bulgun says that Tersk Kalmyks spoke the languages of their Caucasian neighbours. She also recounts a story of a Kalmyk girl who was abducted by Chechens: Tersk Kalmyks knew the Ossetian, Chechen and Cherkess languages well. In the 1970s I met a specialist from the Chechen-Ingush Autonomous Soviet Socialist Republic. They like to drink Kalmyk tea. That specialist said that many Kalmyks lived in two districts in her republic. My father had a cousin named Dorji. His sixteen-year-old daughter named Yumba was kidnapped by Chechens. She wore a silver belt that her father had made for her. On the way, she tore off silver bits from her belt one by one and tossed them on the road. In this way, the Kalmyks, who tracked the Chechen kidnappers, found the village where the Kalmyk girl was taken to. Local Chechens said to the Kalmyks that they could take their girl back if they found her, and promised to punish the abductors themselves. The Kalmyks looked everywhere, but could not find her. Later it turned out that in order to hide the girl, the Chechens put her in a hole, covered it and set a fire on top. In despair, the girl’s father committed suicide.