Our neighbor Sasha invited me on a trip to Kurumkan, the region where he grew up in the northern part of Buryatia. I was pretty excited to go along as I had not made it that far north in Buryatia before. The area is a large valley with mountains on the west that go right up to the shores of Lake Baikal. The trip was planned because of an older Buryat couple from Mongolia. Their families had left to Mongolia during the time of the Bolshevik revolution because they wanted to leave the political uncertainty of Russia. They ended up living through some very difficult times in early childhood, but settled into life in Mongolia where they met each other and got married. A few years ago this couple became Christians and began thinking of the place where their family was from. The wife's family was from Kurumkan just like Sasha, so when they met at a conference last year, they asked about going there with him to search for relatives and be a light for the good news for them.
The trip is a long one with the roads further north being dirt roads and in some places rough ones. Our driver was a Buryat pastor from one of the villages east of Ulan-Ude. It was good to meet him and very helpful as he is an older Buryat man who speaks his native language very well. He was able to share well with people in the villages as most of them prefer to speak in Buryat. I could make out words here and there, but was finding myself sitting and praying for the conversations the way I often did when I was first in Russia and listening to conversations around me.
Here is a picture of our "team" plus a dog that followed us around at one place that we stopped. You can see some of the mountain range in the background. I always love seeing the mountains as it reminds me of my own home growing up.
After visiting a couple people in the town of Kurumkan, we went further to the place where Sasha's dad grew up and stayed with some of Sasha's relatives who still live there. There aren't many people still there as the villages are emptying out as people move to larger towns or cities in search of work, but some are still out here with their farms.
Here is Sasha standing by the horse hitch at the house where his parents got married. He was saying that this is a Buryat tradition, to have a horse hitch in this style at a house where someone gets married.
There were herds of sheep as well as cattle as this is the traditional Buryat industry. I took this picture as we walked over to the river where we sang songs praise in Mongolian, Buryat and Russian and prayed for the area.
After this, we traveled further north to last town on the road, and went to a hot spring area. The building at the bottom of the hill behind me had a pool to soak in and there were a number of springs along the bottom of the hill with names of different body parts that that particular spring was supposed to be able to heal. I'm not sure how they came up with one being good for eyes, another for kidneys, another for intestines, etc., but many people travel here believing in the specific healing powers of each one.
As is common for hot springs or other unusual places in nature, there were also many signs that this was regarded as a holy place. These are Buddhist/Shamanist prayer flags and a place for placing offerings to the spirits.
One of my favorite parts of the trip was getting time with the different people on the trip. I really enjoyed getting to know the pastor who drove us, and also talking with the Mongolian couple, thought I was severely limited to using my broken Buryat which is different from Mongolian which was all the husband knew. I also enjoyed getting time with my friend Sasha, and seeing the area where he grew up. The last member of our trip is Bato, who went through a bit of a "prodigal son" story. It was great to see how his heart has changed from when I first met him 19 years ago when he was a teenager. His family is also from an area just south of Kurumkan and he would often stay there in the summers with his grandparents and aunts and uncles. Bato, Sasha and I hiked up from the hot spring to a frozen waterfall and talked and prayed about what could happen in this area. We thought about how great it would be to explore some of these mountains with guys living here and to have opportunity to share about the one who put the mountains in place. Hopefully we will get to make more trips to the north of Buryatia, and will get to see the good news spread to these places that are so far from any churches. These places are definitely on Bato and Sasha's hearts as they think of their extended family and all the people in this beautiful area.
