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Buddhism
Buddhism ranks third in Russia in number of followers. The religion is professed by less than one percent - around 900,000 people - of the poulation. Russia no longer has predominantly Buddhist-populated regions. It is the faith of one-half of the Kalmyks, one-third of the Buryats, and one-fourth of the Altaians. Followers of non-traditional and marginal forms of Buddhism represent evenly all nationalities. There are about 200 Buddhist communities in this country.
Gelukpa, or the Yellow Hat sect, is the school of Budhism traditional to Russia. Other forms of Buddhism, predominantly marginal, have become widespread since the start of the 1990s. By the present time, they have almost as many followers as traditional Buddhism.
In consequence of its ethnic and confessional heterogeneity, Russia's Buddhist sangha (community) does not have a single center.
This country's biggest Buddhist organization is the Buddhist Traditional Sangha of Russia (BTSR), the successor of the USSR Buddhist Central Spiritual Board. The BTSR has within its jurisdiction predominantly Buddhist communities of Buryatia, Aginskoye and Ust-Ordynskiy Buryat Autonomnous Areas, as well as a part of the Buddhist communities of the Republic of Tyva (negotiations are presently in progress on the accession of Tyva's all Gelukpa communities to the BTSR). The BTSR head is Pandito Hambo Lama Damba Ayusheyev.
The Buddhist Central Spiritual Board of Russia (BCSBR) is an alternative to the BTSR. It sprung up in July 1998 after its followers seized the BTSR-owned St. Petersburg Gunzechoinei datsan (monastery), something that made it possible to add one more BCSBR community to the existing two (Ulan-Ude-based Dharma and Moscow-based Orion) and on that basis to register a centralized organization. The BCSBR head is Pandito Hambo Lama Nimazhap Ilyukhinov. At the present time, it is in a state of internal split.
Tyva's Buddhist communities obey the BTSR and local centralized organizations: Inter-District Buddhist Society of Tyva, Tyva Buddhist Society, and others.
The majority of the Buddhist communities in Kalmykia are members of the Buddhist Association of Kalmykia, which is headed by a representative of the Dalai Lama, Telo Rinpoche. The republic's other widespread Buddhist schools, along with Gelukpa Buddhism, are Karma-pa and Karma-Kagyupa.
As of today, Russia has two Buddhist institutes (based in Ivolginsk and Aginskoye datsans), their student body totalling 150 people.
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