Russia's Asian and European halves meet and mix in remote Buryatia

On a June evening, everyone in a downtown restaurant of this river valley city is cheering wildly for Russia’s World Cup soccer team. This is not surprising. Ulan Ude is very much part of Russia.

But this is a Russia remarkably different from expectations in many ways.

The city and the Montana-sized republic of which it is the capital, Buryatia, is unmistakably Asian. Some 2,700 miles to the east of Moscow, Buryatia is physically closer to Mongolia and China than to the land most associate with the word “Russian.” Buryatia’s million inhabitants illustrate its place in between worlds: a mix of ethnic Mongols, descendants of Cossack settlers, and members of a Russian Orthodox sect exiled by the czars, among others. The republic offers proof that Russia is more than the cathedral-and-Kremlin society envisaged by the West.

But while Buryatia’s destiny is married to a Western-oriented Russia, there has been little economic development here since the Soviet Union’s collapse. Buryats appear torn between the perceived opportunities of the red-hot “Asian tiger” economies nearby and the more familiar Kremlin-run programs proposed by Vladimir Putin. So far, Moscow’s direction has won out, perhaps because they share not only the Russian language, but 300 years of Russian political control. The republic has been stalled on this crossroads for almost three decades.

“We can't have our own economic or social policy here. Everything depends on Moscow,” says Andrei Rinchino, an economist at Buryat State University. “We know there are dynamic economies, like China and South Korea, that are right in our neighborhood,” he says. “About 35,000 young Buryats are guest workers in South Korea at any given time, and we have considerable trade with China, which is just a few hours' drive away. A lot of young people here are learning to speak Chinese, for practical reasons, but the public mood is quite anti-Chinese. There is a fear that if we let them in, they will buy everything up and squeeze us out.”

Buryats, who make up about half the population, are ethnic Mongols, descendants of Genghis Khan’s hordes that once conquered and ruled over half the known world, including Russia. They still identify closely with their brethren in independent Mongolia just a couple hoursaway.

Since the Soviet Union’s collapse, Buryats have been embracing their ancestral religion, Buddhism, and the republic’s forested mountainsides and steppes are today dotted with Buddhist monasteries, or datsans, whose soaring pagoda-like temples and cone-shaped stupa reliquaries stand out from miles away.

The origins of the ethnic-Russian half of the population are varied. Some are related to the Cossacks who came to conquer this land in the 17th century in a process analogous to the US settlement of North America. Others are Old Believers, religious dissidents who were exiled from European Russia 250 years ago, who unexpectedly thrived here amid the wilds of Siberia.

 At Buryatia’s heart is Lake Baikal, considered to be sacred by native Buryats, and today a recognized UNESCO protected zone. It’s the world’s deepest lake, containing a staggering 22 percent of our planet’s fresh water supplies. It has a unique ecosystem, with scenic rocky shorelines in some places, and broad sandy beaches in others.

It all makes for a surprisingly diverse landscape, and a population who appear – so far – comfortable with their differences. They share the common goal of finding a path out of the economic malaise that has engulfed them since most Soviet-era industries shut down and big Russian companies took over most of Buryatia's natural resources, such as coal, gold, uranium, and jade. That launched an ongoing exodus that sees the best and brightest young people head for opportunities of Moscow and St. Petersburg.

An attractive locale?

Given all this, it may seem that developing tourism is an obvious route out of Buryatia's deep economic torpor. But the republic's government, which is dependent on subsidies from Moscow to keep operating, didn't even have an official tourist department until this year.

During the Soviet era, Buryatia was completely closed to foreigners amid security concerns over its military industries and its proximity to Mongolia and China. Only 63,000 foreign tourists came to Buryatia in 2017, the vast majority of them on Mongolian and Chinese bus tours. The Mongolians even come on day trips, and tend to spend very little on local services. Fewer than 100 US citizens spent at least one night in a hotel here in all of 2017.

The new minister of tourism, Maria Badmanatsirevnova, is an enthusiastic booster of her republic, but also cautions that mass tourism is not an option for Buryatia because of environmental concerns around Lake Baikal, the tremendous distance from most of the developed world, and the very short summer tourist season.

 “We want to make Buryatia a center for eco-tourism,” she says. “We have diverse landscapes, an abundance of animal species – some of which can't be found anywhere else in the world – and unmatched hiking trails. We have great beaches too, but we don't want large numbers of people on them, and our season is too short anyway. We are going to create new national parks, and build an infrastructure” to cater to high-end, environmentally conscious travelers.