Writer Colin Thubron traveled through Siberia and met a Buryat woman on a train, who recounted how her family practiced Buddhism during the Soviet times.
"in a village somewhere east of Ulan Ude, she remembers, her grandparents kept a scroll painted with the Buddha infringed and blue silk. It seemed very old. But it was the caressing silk border which the small girl remember, not the sage it enframed. there were 3 statuettes of the Buddha 2, to which the old people burn incense and offered me and fruit. Sometimes the girl would watch secretly to catch the Buddhas eating. She remembers the cupboard where they sat, how its doors opened after Stalin's death, and the sleepy fumes of incense.
'every morning they offered the Buddhas TML, then sprinkled it to the corners of the porch. That's how Buddhism survived – in secret, the old people remembering. In Stalin's day they rolled up the scroll with their prayer-books in a wooden box, and buried them under the house. But our family's clan still had an altar on a hill, where they offered sacrifices.' She frowns with remembered rebellion. 'I wasn't allowed to go, because I was a girl. But my brother told me about it.'"
Reference: Thubron, Colin. 1999. In Siberia. New York: HarperCollins. Pages 172-173
"in a village somewhere east of Ulan Ude, she remembers, her grandparents kept a scroll painted with the Buddha infringed and blue silk. It seemed very old. But it was the caressing silk border which the small girl remember, not the sage it enframed. there were 3 statuettes of the Buddha 2, to which the old people burn incense and offered me and fruit. Sometimes the girl would watch secretly to catch the Buddhas eating. She remembers the cupboard where they sat, how its doors opened after Stalin's death, and the sleepy fumes of incense.
'every morning they offered the Buddhas TML, then sprinkled it to the corners of the porch. That's how Buddhism survived – in secret, the old people remembering. In Stalin's day they rolled up the scroll with their prayer-books in a wooden box, and buried them under the house. But our family's clan still had an altar on a hill, where they offered sacrifices.' She frowns with remembered rebellion. 'I wasn't allowed to go, because I was a girl. But my brother told me about it.'"
Reference: Thubron, Colin. 1999. In Siberia. New York: HarperCollins. Pages 172-173