Dear friends around the world,

I was very happy to come across these articles about Mr Steven Seagal planning to rebuild the Buddhist temple in Belgrade. I am reproducing these articles here for educational purposes as well as creating awareness towards this noble goal.

The Kalmyks originally came to Yugoslavia (now Serbia) during WWI to escape communism in their Russian Republic of Kalmykia. They were escaping the Bolsheviks. My grandparents, relatives and many of their communities migrated to Belgrade at that time. The Kalmyks wanted religious freedom in their practice of Buddhism. The Yugoslavians at that time gave full freedom and welcomed the Kalmyks to their communities. The Kalmyks worked hard, saved their money, farmed, and built their temple for worship. The Kalmyks and the Yugoslavians got along very well and the Kalmyks kept up their cultural heritage.

My mother Dana Bugayeff and her siblings (Uncle Naran, Uncle Giga, Aunt Elena and Aunt Meda) were all born in Yugoslavia. My mother loved Yugoslavia and often spoke of the old country. They had their house, land, and planted many vegetables. My mother, her siblings and many Kalmyks spoke fluent Yugoslavian as well as Kalmyk language. Their life was idyllic and happy till WWII where there was much upheaval and once again they had to migrate to the USA which became their final stop. Other ethnic Yugoslavians also migrated and settled in Howell, New Jersey along with my mother. They were our neighbors. Our Yugoslavian neighbors were warm, friendly, giving and were very simple and kind people. Some of my best childhood friends were Yugoslavians. My mother spent hundreds of hours visiting our Yugoslavian neighbors, enjoying Yugoslavian coffee, food and conversation about the old country. I really loved our Yugoslavian neighbors and their warmth.

While in Belgrade, prior to WWI, the Kalmyk community built their beautiful Buddhist temple which later was destroyed. They had their Kalmyk monks and geshes, and held traditional religious services. I have never visited this place but would like to one day. I am so happy to hear Mr Seagal will be rebuilding this historical Buddhist temple which meant so much to the Kalmyk community. I certainly would like to visit when completed. It would be surreal to visit a place where my mother was born and I heard so much about. I wonder if there are still Kalmyks living in Belgrade today. My mother prior to passing never had the chance to visit Belgrade and I always wondered why.

I offer my prayers to the supreme Buddha that this noble project by Mr Steven Seagal will reach fruition without much obstacles and I thank him from my heart. A Buddhist temple will indeed be such a blessing for the community in Belgrade and a testament to the Kalmyk people who brought Buddhism to Europe and America.
 
Sincerely,
Tsem Rinpoche

Actor Steven Seagal Keen to Rebuild Europe’s First Buddhist Temple in Belgrade

By Craig Lewis, Buddhistdoor Global | 2016-01-14 |

Steven Seagal with Serbian prime minister Aleksandar Vucic. From warriorzen.com

Recently granted Serbian citizenship, Hollywood action star, musician, and Buddhist Steven Seagal has expressed a strong interest in reconstructing Europe’s oldest Buddhist temple in the Serbian capital of Belgrade.

Seagal was granted Serbian citizenship in a special decree signed by the country’s prime minister, Aleksandar Vucic, on 8 January. The decree followed several visits to Serbia in recent months, during which the 63-year-old martial artist met the prime minister and President Tomislav Nikolic, and suggested that he could open an aikido school in Belgrade. The government also invited Seagal to train Serbian police in aikido. The actor, a friend of Russian president Vladimir Putin, said in a recent interview that he has big plans in Serbia: “I can do a lot here . . . I really want to bring Hollywood to Serbia. I want to bring the whole film community here. I want to build great, sort of a Hollywood-film infrastructure here.” (Sputnik International)

Europe’s oldest Buddhist temple, which was consecrated in December 1929, was constructed in Belgrade by political refugees from Buddhist Kalmykia in southwestern European Russia. Two years later, the street on which the temple was built was renamed Buddhist Street, and in 1934, the temple was presented with a golden statue of the Buddha from Japan. The temple was heavily damaged during World War II, and later demolished. The modern-day Republic of Kalmykia, a Russian federal subject of less than 300,000 people, is the only European region in which Buddhism is practiced by the majority of the population. As Tibetan Buddhists, the Kalmyks regard His Holiness the Dalai Lama as their spiritual leader.

Seagal, a 7th-dan black belt in aikido, rose to fame as the star of a series of martial arts movies, including Above the Law, Under Siege, and On Deadly Ground. While his acting career has been on the wane in recent years, with many of his recent films being released direct to video, Seagal has branched out with a variety of other projects, including in the fields of music and law enforcement, and several business ventures.

In February 1997, Kyabje Drubwang Pema Norbu Rinpoche (Penor Rinpoche), a lama from Palyul Monastery in eastern Tibet (one of the six mother monasteries of the Nyingma school of Tibetan Buddhism) and head of the Nyingma school from 1991 to 2001, announced that Seagal was a tulku, specifically an incarnation of Chungdrag Dorje, a 17th-century tertön (treasure revealer) of the Nyingma tradition.

While Seagal’s recognition was a source of some controversy in the international Buddhist community, Penor Rinpoche responded by saying that the actor had merely been recognized, but not enthroned as a tulku. “In the case of Steven Seagal, he has been formally recognized as a tulku, but has not been officially enthroned. He has also not undergone the lengthy process of study and practice necessary to fully realize what I view as his potential for helping others,” Penor Rinpoche said in a statement. (Palyul Ling International)

Source: http://www.buddhistdoor.net/news/actor-steven-seagal-keen-to-rebuild-europes-first-buddhist-temple-in-belgrade

Seagal to Bring Hollywood Celebrities, Build Buddhist Temple in Serbia

After receiving Serbian citizenship, US actor Steven Seagal plans to keep busy: he plans to develop Serbian cinematography, promote martial arts and even build an ancient Buddhist temple in Belgrade, Seagal told Sputnik in an exclusive interview.

Over the past weekend, Seagal was granted Serbian citizenship after the country’s Prime Minister Aleksandar Vucic signed a special decree on January 8. The decision came after Seagal made several visits to the country over the past few months.

Seagal has big plans for Serbia. He said he asked for Serbian citizenship because he plans to develop the country.

“I can do a lot here… I really want to bring Hollywood to Serbia. I want to bring the whole film community here. I want to build great, sort of a Hollywood-film infrastructure here,” Seagal told Sputnik.

In Seagal’s opinion, Serbia has a great variety of different landscapes that would allow filmmakers to shoot any scenes in the country.

At the same time, Seagal wants to take charge of Aikido in Serbia. Seagal has practiced the Japanese martial art since he was seven years old, and has used his abilities many times in movies. Previously, it was reported that Seagal, who is an Aikido 7th Dan Black Belt, was invited to train Serbian police forces in Aikido.

Lastly, Seagal said he was extremely interested in the restoration of Europe’s oldest Buddhist temple, allegedly built by the Kalmyk people. Currently, Seagal is doing research and studying the fate of the Kalmyk people in Serbia. If the Kalmyks had in fact built the temple in Belgrade, then the newly naturalized Serbian citizen plans to ask the country’s Prime Minister to rebuild the ancient Buddhist holy place.

Source: http://sputniknews.com/art_living/20160113/1033079676/steven-seagal-serbia-movies-buddhist-temple.html

The first Buddhist temple in Europe was built in Belgrade
by LJILJANA BEGOVIC, 2013/04/03

The Kalmyk Temple in Belgrade was the first Buddhist temple in Europe. (Photo: Wikipedia)

Although China is thousands of kilometers away from Serbia, there is a historical connection between the two countries. The first Buddhist temple in Europe was located in the Serbian capital of Belgrade.

Last week, the Confucius Institute of Belgrade and the Qigong Association of Serbia organized a lecture about the Kalmyks and Buddhists who lived and worked in Serbia at the gallery “O3one“ in Belgrade.

Kalmyk people or Kalmyks as they are called, began to migrate from their homeland of Dzhungaria in the seventeenth century. They traveled west until they reached the Don plain, where they raised cattle and lived a nomad life. The Kalmyks fought as elite horsemen in the Russian army, side-by-side with the Cossacks, defending the vulnerable southern borders of the empire. Since then, the area northwest of the Caspian Sea has been called “Kalmykia“ (today it is a republic in the Russian Federation), and there the Kalmyks struggled to gain autonomy.

In several waves, through the coastal towns located on the Adriatic Sea, many of them (around 400) came to Belgrade, where they formed the largest Kalmykia colony in Europe. At the beginning, they received assistance from the State Commission of the Russian emigrants in Yugoslavia, but as they were very poor, they also often worked in the toughest manual labor jobs to earn extra income. Most of the Kalmyks that came to Belgrade found employment at the brick factory and moved into cheap temporary settlements that were built around these brickyards in the periphery of town.

Kalmyks are Buddhists – lamaists – by religion and their supreme religious leader is the Tibetan Dalai Lama. With the help of the state and city, in just a few months in 1929 in Belgrade, a Buddhist temple was built to serve their religious needs. It was the first Buddhist temple in Europe. The ceremony of consecration in the presence of all of the Belgrade Kalmyks and many of their Serbian friends was held on 12th December in 1929. Two years later, in 1931, the street where the first Buddhist temple had been built was named Buddhist Street.

Buddhist temples all over the world are famous for their statues of Buddha. In 1934, the Belgrade temple also received its own golden statue of Buddha from Tokyo.

Buddhist past remembered

The Buddhists who lived in Belgrade were known as hard-working, humble and honest people who especially loved horses. They were the best coachmen and jockeys in Belgrade. At that time, many of the Buddhists kept their horses in the fields of suburban Belgrade. That is why that part of the city came to be called “Konjarnik,“ which means “a place for horses.”

The Kalmyks were considered good-natured people of the Buddhist religion, but they were also known to dislike communists and Bolsheviks. It was because of them that the Kalmyks had to leave their homeland. For this reason, the Kalmyks supported those who were against communism, and their closest allies were in Germany.

Basically, Hitler and the Nazis believed that the Aryan people originated from Tibet. This is why the whole story about the mystique of Tibet, Asia, secret societies and religion were closely associated with the Buddhists, especially the Tibetan branch of Buddhism. And when you see that connection, it is easy to explain why the Kalmyks saw great danger in the Bolsheviks.

The Bolshevik Revolution forced the Kalmyks out of Russia, and the same thing happened to them in Serbia. The Kalmyks, the great enemies of the Bolsheviks, did not want to wait for the Red Army to invade Belgrade, and so in late September 1944, they took all the holy shrines from the temple with them and fled Serbia to either Western Europe or the US.

During the combats of 1944, the Belgrade Buddhist temple was partially destroyed, and the new regime felt that since there weren’t any Buddhists left in Belgrade anymore, there was no need for a Buddhist temple. First, the dome of the temple was demolished and the ground floor was turned into a culture center, but afterwards the entire temple was taken down. There was nothing left of the first Buddhist temple in Europe, except for historical records, pictures and memories.

The Confucius Institute of Belgrade and the Serbia Qigong Association plan to preserve those memories in a museum to be built on the old site of the temple. There, visitors would be able to learn all about the first Buddhist temple in Europe.

Source: http://gbtimes.com/life/first-buddhist-temple-europe-was-built-belgrade

Related links:

My childhood in Taiwan: https://www.tsemrinpoche.com/?p=8065

Photo album: Taiwan, where I was born: https://www.tsemrinpoche.com/?p=16110

I loved my horse: https://www.tsemrinpoche.com/?p=32091

Picture of my grandmother: https://www.tsemrinpoche.com/?p=4610

Picture of my mother (1): https://www.tsemrinpoche.com/?p=4608

Picture of my mother (2): https://www.tsemrinpoche.com/?p=4604

Picture of my father: https://www.tsemrinpoche.com/?p=4607

My short bio in pictures: https://www.tsemrinpoche.com/?p=10916

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