The article considers one of the earliest written sources on Ayuka Khan of the Kalmyks and his relations with the Russian Empire; it was discovered in the Kalmyk Affairs Funds of the Russian State Archive of Ancient Acts. The transcribed and transliterated document as well as its history connected with the 1685 Kalmyk embassy to Moscow — have never been published before. The content of the letter reveals the actual political situation in Southern Russia and the character of Russian-Kalmyk relations during the mentioned period. Ayuka’s letter is a perfect sample of the epistolary genre characteristic of the diplomatic correspondence between the Kalmyk noblemen of those days. Ayuka’s red square seal (tamga) — the origin of which is still unclear — was attached to it. Further discoveries and investigations of letters by Kalmyk Khans and taishas (princes) form quite a promising research trend in Mongolian studies.

The article examines the Oirat historical and genealogical chronicle “Ööldiyn ug eh [tüüh]” (“The Origin (History) of Ööld Princes”) written in Mongolian in the 19th century. The chronicle is a princely genealogical table of Öölds or Dzungars that inhabited North Mongolia after they had survived the Qing conquest of Dzungaria and subsequent genocide of the Dzungars in 1755–1758. 
The consolidated text of the chronicle published by the contemporary Mongolian historian Ts. Tserendorj on the basis of the existing versions contains a more detailed genealogical table of Dzungar princes as well as data about the circumstances that accompanied the renaming of Mount Ereen Khabirga, about the origin of the name Khara Khula and other interesting facts.

The article analyzes the sources on the history of Kalmykia in the early 20th century and during the October Revolution of 1917 compiled from data of individuals and stored in the funds of the Scientific Archives of the Kalmyk Scientific Center of the RAS. The peculiar feature of the mentioned sources (memoirs, a biography and an autobiography) is that those are close in terms of origin but still each of them is a separate type of a source. Within the research with evidence from concrete documentary materials, a source in the history of the October Revolution of 1917 and Russian Civil War has been characterized, a preliminary analysis to guarantee an undamaged condition of the files in the funds of the Scientific Archives of the KSC of the RAS has been conducted as well. The author concludes that despite the subjectivity of the sources based on individual perceptions (memoirs, a biography and an autobiography) they still contain precious factual materials.

The article examines the transformations experienced by the Buddhist Traditional Sangha of Russia in the 1990s. The main problems the Sangha’s leaders had to deal with were as follows: the state policies during the Soviet period, absence of qualified teachers to train students, lack of funds, absence of Tibetan translators, need to further educate the graduates abroad. In the post-Soviet era, there appeared opportunities to establish independent Buddhist educational institutions. As a result, two religious training Institutions were formed under the auspices of Ivolginsky and Aginsky Datsans (monasteries) in the 2000s and have been functioning ever since. In general, the article discusses the history of Buddhism in contemporary Russia.

The article examines some issues on the history of the genesis of the Kalmyk ethnic subgroup — Khoshuts. With evidence from historical sources, archival materials, scholarly literature, the study depicts the history of the Khoshuts from the time of the 1663 Kundulen Ubashi-led decampment from Dzungaria (where Galdan Khan’s rule had began) towards the Volga. Despite the fact Ablai Taishi of the Khoshuts had considerable military forces under his command, his struggle with Ayuka Khan resulted in the annexation of his people to the Kalmyk Khanate. 
The article draws on the genealogical table of the Khoshut noyons (princes) of Kalmykia that  begins with Khan Noyon Khongor — a 10th generation descendant of Habutu Hasar, Genghis Khan’s younger brother. Special attention is paid to the description of the events connected with the Khoshut Noyon Jamyang (Zamyan) who claimed descent from Baibagas Baghatur’s younger brother — Dzasagtu Chinbaatar. After the 1771 Ubashi Khan-led exodus of Kalmyks, the remaining Khoshut clans, by Catherine the Great’s order, were assigned to the property of Noyon Jamyang as a reward for the loyalty of the latter. After Jamyang’s death, the Khoshuts were ruled by his stepson Tyumenjargal who was succeeded in the position by his sons Serebjab Tyumen and Baatar Ubashi Tyumen.
The author draws on rich research materials to depict in detail the history of the Khoshuts of Kalmykia: the establishment of aimags (settlements), opening of the school, participation in wars, years of deportation, administrative reforms, etc.

The article examines lexical correspondences between Mongolic, Tungusic-Manchu and Turkic languages represented by phonetically similar words the distribution of which among the Altaic language groups is not explained in terms of common Altaic and does not correspond to the principles of known lexical borrowings from Turkic languages into Mongolic ones and from Mongolic languages into Tungusic-Manchu ones. 
The available data on historical phonetics of Turkic and Mongolic languages with special attention paid to the recent conditions of the Mongolic languages (e.g., Buryat dialects and Daghur) and the recent conditions of the Turkic languages (Kazakh, Yakut, Turkic languages of Siberia) and evaluation of perspectives for further structural evolution of Turkic words in those languages that could have fallen into disuse and, thus, were not recorded in Turkic written monuments – served as the basis for the research. Special attention is paid to words containing the phonemes that differ in the correspondences in separate Turkic languages and can have reflections that no longer exist in the living languages. 
The author proposes to consider such words that are numerous enough in Tungusic-Manchu languages and are not part of the common Tungusic lexical fund, as well as some words of Mongolic languages — as old borrowings from dead Mongolic dialects and borrowings from disappeared Turkic languages that had been absorbed by the Tungusic-Manchu languages in the 1st millennium BC. Separate words that could have belonged to disappeared Turkic languages can be found in modern Turkic languages but those are out of the regular system of inter-Turkic phonetic correspondences. 

The article analyses one of the chapters of the Buddhist composition “The Sea of Parables” with evidence from the manuscript of an Oirat translation composed by the famous Kalmyk Buddhist priest Tugmyud-Gavji (O. Dordzhiev) in the 1960s. The subject of the analysis is Chapter 7 of the composition — “About girl Dorje, King Saljalin’s daughter” (Oirat ‘Xān Saljalin okon Dorǰin büloq’) — which tells about a girl that had been born ugly but turned into a beauty. The story is patterned after Jataka tales (stories about the previous births of Gautama Buddha). The article considers the structure and integral parts of the story. 

One of the main objectives of contemporary Kalmyk literary studies is to create a comprehensive concept of the history of Kalmyk literature. In this regard, there appears a need to study its beginnings and evaluate the role of the national poetry in the literary process of the 20th century. 
The article examines the early period (the 1930s) of K. Erendzhenov’s poetry-writing. The artistic mindset of Kalmyk poets and writers expressed the popular opinions and sentiments of the Soviet society. 
The theme of the Mother is deeply and fully represented in Konstantin Erendzhenov’s poetry. In world literature, the image of the Mother is one of the most esteemed ones and is continually connected with the folklore tradition. 

As is known, the question about the folklore source of “the old Kalmyk woman’s fairy tale” from the novel “The Captain’s Daughter” is still open for discussion. The searches for the plot of the Kalmyk fairy tale told by Pugachev in the Kalmyk, Russian and Ural Cossack folklore have proved unsuccessful. The article provides and discusses various opinions on the issue expressed by folklorists of the Urals, resear­chers and expositors of the novel “The Captain’s Daughter” as well as writers and folklorists of Kalmykia. As is evident, the fairy tale about the Eagle and the Raven is an independent and artistically complete literary composition by A. Pushkin created in the genre of a philosophical parable / controversy and included into the novel “The Captain’s Daughter” as the cue element of its plot.

The article aims to study motif AA no. 981. The plot about putting an end to murders of elderly people can be found in fairy tale folklore of many peoples. The Kalmyk fairy tale tradition has retained two such plots. In terms of the plot structure, the peculiarities are as follows: a two-part composition prevails (the first part discusses how getting rid of old people became legal in the community, while the second one describes how the tradition was humanistically revised). The Kalmyk household fairy tale requires further comprehensive research in terms of textology, including the Index of Plots and Motifs. 

The article examines the traditional formulas of Kalmyk fairy tales. The analysis of the fairy tales recorded by G.J. Ramstedt in 1903 shows that frame formulas are widely represented in Kalmyk oral tradition of the early 20th century and reflect the poetic and style fairy tale tradition. The fairy tales begin with the formula of time “Kezyanya sanji” (‘Long time ago’) which implies remoteness of the events. Beginnings to denote topographic characteristics are much rarer. The fairy tale initials introduce two generations of characters and denote their age and social status. The ending formulas of the studied fairy tales are plot endings that inform about the outcome of the events and conflict resolution. In some cases, finalizing formulas relate about the further life of the fairy tale characters after the described events.

The article studies household fairy tales from the repertory of the taleteller Shani V. Boktaev. The plots were identified according to the Comparative Index of Plots developed with evidence from East Slavic fairy tales. The author’s analysis results in a conclusion that plots distributed world-wide are characterized by a specific interpretation and ethnic contents — when applied in Kalmyk fairy tales — which is due to the peculiar nature of the Kalmyk fairy tale tradition.

With evidence from the Kalmyk language as well as, when necessary, Mongolian, Buryat and old-script Mongolian, the article considers the thematic group of ornithological lexics in order to identify Turkic-Mongolian lexical parallels. To confirm a Turkic parallel is actually of Turkic origin, Turkic materials were borrowed from the Old-Turkic Dictionary and dictionaries of Kazakh, Nogai, Tatar, Bashkir and other languages, i.e. the languages of the Kalmyks’ neighboring peoples they had been in continuous contacts with.  Apart from comparative materials from Mongolic and Turkic languages, the considered terms were also subject to comparative historical and etymological analyses which revealed the Turkic origin of the identified Turkic-Mongolian parallels within the Kalmyk ornithological lexics. It was established that a number of the terms exist not only in Kalmyk but also in Khalkha-Mongolian, Buryat and had been recorded in old-script Mongolian. This signifies that the terms have been existing in the Kalmyk language ever since the Kalmyks’ ancestors — the Oirats — inhabited the steppes of Central Asia together with other Mongols and contacted the ancient Turks from whom they borrowed those terms. Many of the ornithological terms can be found in Kalmyk only and coincide with those in Kazakh, Nogai and Bashkir for, as is evident, they were borrowed from the mentioned languages as a result of later contacts. 

Since the development of software that serves the needs of the Kalmyk National Corpus has made it possible to apply digital research methods for the purposes of Kalmyk vocabulary studies, the systematic description of adjectives in the Kalmyk language is thus a new issue. 
The article examines the lexical co-occurrence of the adjective ut ‘long’ which means a long length and characterizes flat pulled and flexible cord-like surfaces, antonymous to the word akhr ‘short’; it also contains a typological classification table of the adjective ut in Kalmyk with two groups of objects identified as well as the types of the objects.
When combined with the words that characterize human speech and time lines, the adjective ut has a figurative meaning ‘of long continuance’, i.e. there is a transference of the meaning from space to time: ut tuuj ‘long stories’, ut soe ‘long night’, ut oedr ‘long day’, ut dun ‘lingering song’.
The adjective ut mostly co-occurs with nouns that denote parts of the body, flexible objects, infinite spaces; rarely co-occurs with words that denote deepenings on a surface, apertures and coreless pulled objects. Rarely if ever one can see the combination ut nyukn ‘long pit’, in most cases they say gyun nyukn ‘deep pit’. The considered combinations of the adjective ut can serve as the basis for further detailed research on the co-occurrence of adjectives.

The article examines the system of definitions of words relating to the lexical-thematic group “clothes” and included in the word list of the Definition Dictionary of the Language of the Kalmyk Heroic Epic of Jangar; a number of dictionary entries containing words of the mentioned lexical-thematic group have also been evaluated. 
Definitions of words relating to the lexical-thematic group “clothes” are incomplete since it is impossible to fully reconstruct the clothes of the Kalmyks’ ancestors – the Oirats; some of the features have been reconstructed due to literary sources and descriptions composed by travelers of later periods. 
The analysis resulted in the following conclusion: when compiling definitions it is also necessary to apply ethnographic sources for the names of clothes in the epic are culture specific words that require detailed descriptions because the words denote items with no direct equivalents in other languages. 
Definitions of names of clothes are to contain the basic differential features characteristic of a certain word of the lexical-thematic group “clothes” (the intended purpose; type of cloth; style of the garment; preferred color; ornaments and other elements; existing limitations relating to the age, gender, status, etc.).

The article describes plural signifiers of Classical Mongolian with evidence from two Mongolian texts of “The Novel of Prince Manibhadra” — one of the most famous monuments of translated Buddhist literature. The first text which is part of the Tibetan Buddhist canon (Kangyur) was presumably created before the 1620s, the second one (manuscript) contains no colophon which complicates the task of identifying the time when it was written down. Almost all plural formants (-s, -d, -ud /-üd, -nuγud /-nügüd, -nar, -tan), except for the affixes -γud and -n, are present in the texts under consideration. The affixes -s and -d proved most productive in the studied materials. The affix -nuγud /-nügüd characteristic of the lofty language is widely used in the canonic text of “The Novel…”. Some cases of use of compound plural signifiers were described which, as deemed by some researchers, testifies that the importance of grammatical number had decreased. Moreover, cases of formal noun-determiner agreement have been discovered in the canonic text of “The Novel…” which is characteristic of ancient Mongolian texts.

The Kalmyk Scientific Center of the Russian Academy of Sciences conducts work aimed at compiling a Definition Dictionary of the Kalmyk Heroic Epic of Jangar which presents a lot of difficulties and problems. One of the difficulties is to find meanings of the words that have not been automatically analyzed by the TextAnalyzer — the morphological analyzer created within the project on the development of the Kalmyk National Corpus — and the semantics of which is unclear since the words have gone out of use and are nowadays part of the passive vocabulary. The paper examines some of the words (khuvng ‘jar’, khashr ‘jade’, jootu/joetu ‘small (about a shagai)’) that have not been analyzed automatically for a number of reasons. Another goal of the research study is to reveal the reasons of the failure of the analysis in case of certain lexical items. The article attempted to describe the reasoning algorithm based on the analysis of the formal structure of the word, its position within a sentence, the context and its lexical category, with evidence from corresponding lexicographic sources which allowed to make conclusions regarding the semantics of the lexical unit.

The article considers the system of definitions of header words relating to the thematic group “cold steel weapons” introduced into the glossary of the Definition Dictionary of the Kalmyk Heroic Epic of Jangar; a number of dictionary entries with header words of the mentioned group have also been appraised. 
When it comes to compiling definitions of words denoting cold steel weapons there appear some difficulties since the semantics of the words which have become historisms and archaisms is not clear enough. Definitions of names of cold steel weapons are incomplete since the Epic contains no detailed descriptions while sources on the military hardware of the Oirats, ancestors of the Kalmyks, are dramatically insufficient. 

With evidence from official correspondence of the 18th century, the work attempts to reveal and analyze affixal word formation of the Kalmyk noun during the corresponding period. Derivative nouns are mainly formed from verbs and nouns by means of suffixes. Depending upon the meanings of the source verb / noun and the word formative suffix, such nouns can have most diverse meanings. Kalmyk affixal word formation is not same in various times. It changes as the language develops, experiences significant changes which influences the stock of suffixes, their meanings, productivity and phonetic appearances. 

The article examines the structure of the database “The Bibliographic Directory of the Kalmyk Expatriate Community” implemented to be used within the local area network. The data structure and some processing algorithms are described. Development of such a database is largely determined by the need to study the unexplored pages of life of expatriate Kalmyks.
The developed database contains unique research materials of national and global importance and allows to comprehensively analyze the data bulk. The database is full-text searchable, every bibliographic record connected with corresponding texts of publications found in the archives and largest libraries of Russia. This allows a researcher to review a number of rare sources.

The article considers the level, structure and dynamics of social expenditures of the budget of the Republic of Kalmykia as the financial basis for social policies of the region. The category “Social Expenditures” is interpreted both in a wide sense (social expenditure funding — public health service, education, culture, etc.) and in a narrow sense when it comes to the expenditures in the section “Social Policies”. For a proper analysis of the expenditure part of the budget, the revenue part was analyzed as well. Some negative aspects related to the formation of the revenue part of Kalmykia’s budget have been mentioned, namely the growth of state debt, low revenue supply (few sources of revenue supply in the region). The main expenditure items of the budget are public education, health service and social policy. The data on the Republic of Kalmykia have been considered in the context of the typology of fiscal capacity and budgetary conditions in other regions. The author concludes that the budget of the Republic of Kalmykia, like most budgets of the federal subjects of Russia, bears the heavy burden of social expenditures which hinders it from becoming a budget for economic development of the region. 

The article analyses the problems of development of peasant (farm) households (enterprises) in Kalmykia. The dynamics of changes of this business pattern with evidence from materials of the State Statistics Service and the republican media has been considered. Peasant (farm) households form the leading sector of the agricultural economy of the republic. Those account for 40,1 % and 39,6 % of the total cattle and sheep (goat) population respectively. The farmers play a significant role in the solution of crucial problems in the rural community. They perform a number of social functions, e.g., repairs and maintenance of schools, funding of cultural events, financial support of young sportsmen and talented pupils’ participation initiatives in corresponding tournaments and contests held both in Elista and outside the republic.  

On the basis of the research conducted by the author in the Republic of Kalmykia in 2015, two aspects of leisure-time activities of modern teenagers have been investigated: engagement in hobby and sports clubs, leisure-time structure. The main leisure-time resources of schoolchildren have been considered. The leisure-time structure comprises as follows: the Internet and social networking services, meetings with friends, games in the yard, sleeping, computer games and reading. 
The analysis of biographical details indicated the relations between the character of the teenagers’ leisure-time activities and the age, gender and place of residence.