[11] The republic of Kalmykia is home of the Kalmyks, a people of Oirat Mongolian origin who are mainly of Tibetan Buddhist faith.

The republic's wildlife includes the saiga antelope, whose habitat is protected in Chyornye Zemli Nature Reserve.

According to the Kurgan hypothesis, the upland regions of modern-day Kalmykia formed part of the cradle of Indo-European culture.

Some of the first recorded peoples to move into this territory were the Scythians and Sarmatians from the central Eurasian steppe, bringing their respective religious systems with them.

The Alans were a major Muslim people group, who faced the invading Mongols and their Tengrist practices, with some of the latter settling permanently.

The ancestors of the Kalmyks, the Oirats, migrated from the steppes of southern Siberia on the banks of the Irtysh River, reaching the Lower Volga region by the early 17th century.

The Kalmyks expelled the Nogais, who fled to the Caucasian plains and to the Crimean Khanate, areas (at least theoretically) under the control of the Ottoman Empire.

The Kalmyks settled in the wide-open steppes – from Saratov in the north to Astrakhan on the Volga delta in the south and to the Terek River in the southwest.

Although these territories had been recently annexed by the Tsardom of Russia, Moscow was in no position to settle the area with Russian colonists.

During his era, the Kalmyk Khanate fulfilled its responsibility to protect the southern borders of Russia and conducted many military expeditions against its Turkic-speaking neighbours.

The Khanate experienced economic prosperity from free trade with Russian border towns, with China, with Tibet and with Muslim neighbours.

In July 1919, Bolshevik leader Vladimir Lenin issued an appeal[14] to the Kalmyk people, calling for them to revolt and to aid the Red Army.

The promise came to fruition on 4 November 1920, when a resolution was passed by the All-Russian Central Executive Committee proclaiming the formation of the Kalmyk Autonomous Oblast.

[15]After establishing control, the Soviet authorities did not overtly enforce an anti-religion policy, other than through passive means, because it sought to bring Mongolia[16] and Tibet[17] into its sphere of influence.

The government also was compelled to respond to domestic disturbances resulting from the economic policies of War Communism and the 1921 famine.

The passive measures that were taken by Soviet authorities to control the people included the imposition of a harsh tax to close places of worship and religious schools.

[18] The Kalmyks of the Don Voisko Oblast were subject to the policies of de-cossackization where villages were destroyed, khuruls (temples) and monasteries were burned down and executions were indiscriminate.

[citation needed] In December 1927 the Fifteenth Party Congress of the Soviet Union passed a resolution calling for the "voluntary" collectivization of agriculture.

By the end of the war, the remnants of the Kalmuck Cavalry Corps had made their way to Austria where the Kalmyk soldiers and their family members became post-war refugees.

Those who did not want to leave formed militia units that chose to stay behind and harass the oncoming Soviet Red Army.

In conjunction with the deportation, the Kalmyk ASSR was abolished and its territory was split between adjacent Astrakhan, Rostov and Stalingrad Oblasts and Stavropol Krai.

To completely obliterate any traces of the Kalmyk people, the Soviet authorities renamed the former republic's towns and villages.

Khrushchev finally allowed their return in 1957, when they found their homes, jobs, and land occupied by imported Russians and Ukrainians, who remained.

On orders from Moscow, sheep production increased beyond levels that the fragile steppe could sustain, resulting in 1.4 million acres (5666 km2) of the artificial desert.

After the dissolution of the USSR, Kalmykia kept the status of an autonomous republic within the newly formed Russian Federation (effective 31 March 1992).

Two men, Sergei Vaskin and Tyurbi Boskomdzhiv, who worked in the local civil service, were charged with her murder, one of them having been a former presidential bodyguard.

After prolonged investigations by the Russian authorities, both men were found guilty and jailed, but no evidence was discovered that Ilyumzhinov himself was in any way responsible.

Many of those Kalmyks living in Germany at the end of World War II were eventually granted passage to the United States.

There are three cultural subgroups within the Kalmyk nation: Turguts, Durbets (Durwets), and Buzavs (Oirats, who joined the Russian Cossacks), as well as some villages of Hoshouts and Zungars.

[45] Most of the Republic of Kalmykia lies in the Caspian Depression, a low-lying region down to 27 meters (89 ft) below sea level.