With great emotion the Dalai Lama, spiritual head of Tibetan Buddhists, was welcomed at the airport of Elista, capital of the Kalmuck Republic, to the north of Daghestan on the Caspian Sea, on Monday 29 November. The Kalmuck people are mainly Buddhist: the most westerly and indeed only majority Buddhist people in Europe. Just a few days previously the Russian Ministry of Foreign Affaits had granted authorization to the Dalai Lama to enter the country, fearing to arouse the displeasure of Beijing. On the other hand, Moscow could not fail to reply to the thousands of requests that had long been arriving from the Kalmuck population. The local authorities explained that the Tibetan leader would meet no Russian political leader in the course of his visit to the country, but only religious authorities, adding that these were the conditions imposed by Moscow for allowing the visit to take place. On his arrival at the airport, the Dalai Lama was met by a group of some fifty religious dignitaries: Buddhist lamas dressed in traditional orange and maroon robes, women in national costume and some thirty journalists. “I welcome your Holiness said the spiritual head of Kalmuck Buddhists, his welcoming speech interrupted by tears to the Kalmuck Republic where you have not set foot for 12 years. I would like to ask your forgiveness for the problems that have beset this visit. And forgive me that I am unable to restrain my emotion”. The Dalai Lama made no political statement on his arrival, emphasizing that “his main message” was that of “promoting human values”. Finding himself in a land where Buddhism, Orthodoxy and Islam live together, the Tibetan leader stressed that religious differences spread “the same message, a message of love, compassion and tolerance”.
