Datsan Gunzechoinei

[2] A second large service was held on 9 June 1914 to consecrate a large gilded copper statue of the sitting Buddha Shakyamuni, which was a gift from King Rama VI of Siam (Thailand), and a standing Buddha Maitreya, a gift from G. A. Planson of the Russian Council in Bangkok.

The consecration of the datsan was held on 10 August 1915, when it was given the name of Gunzechoinei, or 'The source of the Buddha's Religious Teaching that has Deep Compassion for All Beings.

Some repairs were carried out in 1922, major restoration was undertaken about 1926 but soon after there was a general persecution of Buddhism throughout the Buryat-Mongol Republic and the Kalmyk Autonomous Region, and monasteries were closed and their property including sacred books, altar ornaments, etc., seized, and lamas heavily repressed.

In late 1933 the last Buddhist service was held at the temple in honour of the recently deceased Thubten Gyatso, the 13th Dalai Lama of Tibet, who had died 17 December 1933.

[6] As of 2013, the temple is actively maintained and a place of practice for scholars and students of the Tibetan Gelugpa school.

The Buddhist temple in St. Petersburg
Northern face of the temple
Main entrance to the temple
Karl Tõnisson Buddhist monk from Estonia, in front of Datsan Gunzechoinei, Saint Petersburg ’s Buddhist Temple
Karl Tõnisson next to the Buddha statue in Datsan Gunzechoinei, the Buddhist temple in Saint Petersburg