Discover 7 hidden attractions, cool sights, and unusual things to do in Elista (Russia). Don't miss out on these must-see attractions: Chess City, Burkhan Bakshin Altan Sume, and Burkhan Bakshin Altan Sume. Also, be sure to include Geden Sheddup Choikorling Monastery in your itinerary.
Below, you can find the list of the most amazing places you should visit in Elista (Kalmyk).
Table of Contents
Chess City
Also known as: Сити-Чесс
City in Russia. Chess City is a large complex devoted to chess and chess competitions located east of Elista, Kalmykia, in Russia. The neighborhood-size development consists of a central, four-story domed City Chess Hall surrounded by an Olympic-style village of Californian-Mediterranean Revival Style architecture. The site has a conference center, public swimming pool and a museum of Kalmyk Buddhist art. The complex features sculptures and artwork devoted to chess, including a statue of Ostap Bender, a fictional character of popular books written by Ilya Ilf and Yevgeni Petrov, who proposed the creation of a world chess capital. The complex has been used to host visiting dignitaries like the Dalai Lama.
Completed in 1998, the idea and development of Chess City is directly the result of Kirsan Ilyumzhinov, Kalmykia's millionaire President who has ruled the republic since 1993 and was president of FIDE, the international governing body of chess, from 1995 until his ousting in 2018. A fanatical chess enthusiast, Ilyumzhinov had the complex built in time for the 33rd Chess Olympiad.
Chess City has hosted three major FIDE tournaments: the XXXIII Chess Olympiad in 1998, the 2004 Women's World Chess Championship, and the 2006 World Chess Championship.
Future plans for Chess City include a water sport complex, skiing center, government buildings, business centers, opera and ballet theaters, museums, a conservatory, an art school, religious academies, a center of traditional medicine, and residences for any ambassadors who may be accredited to Kalmykia.[1]
Burkhan Bakshin Altan Sume
Also known as: Золотая обитель Будды Шакьямуни
Buddhist temple in Elista, Russia. The Burkhan Bakshin Altan Sume is a Gelug Buddhist monastery in Elista, the capital of the Republic of Kalmykia, a federal subject of the Russian Federation.
It was opened on December 27, 2005. More than 5,000 people attended the opening ceremony, including representatives of Tibetan Buddhist communities from Moscow, Volgograd and Saratov.
The 14th Dalai Lama blessed the site of the future temple just before he left Elista during his November 2004 visit to the Republic and gave it its name on March 11, 2006.
During the opening ceremony, the Republic of Kalmykia President Kirsan Ilyumzhinov dedicated the temple to Kalmyks who died during and after their sudden and forced exile to Siberia after December 27, 1943.[2]
Burkhan Bakshin Altan Sume
Also known as: Золотая обитель Будды Шакьямуни
Buddhist temple in Elista, Russia. The Burkhan Bakshin Altan Sume is a Gelug Buddhist monastery in Elista, the capital of the Republic of Kalmykia, a federal subject of the Russian Federation.
It was opened on December 27, 2005. More than 5,000 people attended the opening ceremony, including representatives of Tibetan Buddhist communities from Moscow, Volgograd and Saratov.
The 14th Dalai Lama blessed the site of the future temple just before he left Elista during his November 2004 visit to the Republic and gave it its name on March 11, 2006.
During the opening ceremony, the Republic of Kalmykia President Kirsan Ilyumzhinov dedicated the temple to Kalmyks who died during and after their sudden and forced exile to Siberia after December 27, 1943.[3]
Address: Улица Ю.Клыкова, Elista
Geden Sheddup Choikorling Monastery
Geden Sheddup Choikorling Monastery is a Tibetan Buddhist monastery in Elista, Republic of Kalmykia, Russia. it was opened on 5 October 1996 in the presence of more than 30,000 people and is the first Tibetan Buddhist monastery to be built in the region since its beginning as an autonomous oblast in 1920. The monastery also is the Republic's first Buddhist place of worship since Joseph Stalin ordered the destruction of all Buddhist temples and monasteries during the Collectivization era and the Great Purge in the 1930s.
Geden Sheddup Choikorling is a Tibetan name, translated as "A Holy Abode for Theory and Practice of the School of Gelugpa." This name was given to the monastery by the 14th Dalai Lama who also chose its location – on the steppes just outside the Republic's capital city, Elista, during his first visit to the Republic in the summer of 1991. It contains a statue of the Sakyamuni Buddha.
The monastery is located just outside the city and is surrounded by the steppe.[4]
Druzba
Druzhba Park is a park of culture and recreation in the center of Elista, the largest recreation area in the city. The park is located along Lenin Street. It begins near the building of the People's Khural of the Republic of Kalmykia and ends near the "Uralan" stadium. At the present time consists of two parts: the new, which begins the alley from the National Khural and ends at the intersection of Lenin and Kirov streets, and the old part, which is limited to the above intersection and the stadium "Uralan".
Dubovaa rosa
Oak Grove is a natural monument of regional importance. Unique forest plantations.
Kalmyk State University
Also known as: Калмыцкий государственный университет
University in Elista, Russia. Kalmyk State University is the oldest and largest university in Kalmykia. Since 2011 it is called Federal State Budget Educational Establishment of Higher Professional Education. The university was established in 1970, and now it has more than 8,000 students, studying at 7 Departments and 1 institute:
- Department of Engineering and Technology;
- Department of Humanities;
- Department of Mathematics, Physics and Information Technology;
- Department of Pedagogical Education and Biology;
- Department of Agriculture;
- Department of Economics;
- Department of Management and Law;
- Institute of Kalmyk Philology and Oriental Studies.