My Dharma Activities in Eastern Europe and the USSR 1985 to 1992

My new Czech friends soon spread the word that I would be willing to travel to teach in other Eastern European countries, and they arranged a long tour for 1986, from July to October. It covered Czechoslovakia (Prague and Ostrava), Poland (Kraków, Łódź, Warsaw, Gdansk and Wrocław), East Germany (Leipzig, East Berlin), Hungary (Budapest) and Yugoslavia (Zagreb Croatia, Ljubljana Slovenia and Beograd Serbia). 

To give an idea of what that was like, I had to walk across the Czech Polish border, pulling my suitcase and hoping someone would meet me on the other side. My Czech friends could not drive me across because they could not go without a visa, and information about how to obtain one – but only with a private invitation – was almost impossible for them to find. Although there was visa-free travel for Eastern Europeans to each other’s countries, a ban had been imposed on travel to Poland – officially for East Germans, but in practice for the others. It was in response to the rise of the Polish Solidarity labor movement in 1980. The authorities wanted to prevent the spread of any ideas of protest.  

As I soon discovered, each East European country was quite different from the others. The Soviet Union had occupied Hungary in 1956 and Czechoslovakia in 1969. To avoid the same happening to Poland, the government there had banned Solidarity and imposed martial law from December 1981 to July 1983. Now, three years later, the people I met shared with me that most Poles had little respect for the laws and bypassed them mostly by bribing officials. 

Buddhism was officially supported by the Ministry of Religion as an alternative to Catholicism to show that it was not the only religion in Poland. I had therefore been officially invited by the Kagyu Buddhist Association of Poland and, on that basis, had been granted the  visa and permitted to give a lecture at Jagiellonian University in Kraków. In the various other cities I visited, there were Diamond Way Kagyu, Korean and Zen groups. I gave well-received talks at centers of all of them. Only the Zen group had official government license to print Buddhist books in translation, but they only printed their own books. The Polish translations of Tibetan Buddhist books were copied underground and distributed in a hidden manner.

East Germany, by contrast, was even more restrictive than Czechoslovakia. The people I met, however, were extremely warm. They seemed to have developed the ability to sense whom they could trust not to inform the police on them. Although I had obtained a visa to visit Leipzig to see the Mongolian collection in the museum there, it was only possible to get day passes for East Berlin. You had to leave by midnight and could not go beyond the city limits. The inspection when crossing the border was extremely severe and aggressive. Once, they made my translator strip and searched up his anus. 

During this initial visit to East Berlin, the police stopped the car I was in and checked all our papers. It was very tense since we had crossed the city limits. But because we had with us a uniformed East German soldier who had risked coming to our meeting, he talked our way out of being detained. As in Czechoslovakia, we met in only small groups and at a different apartment each day. The people were mostly from a martial arts club. The club was allowed since East Germany promoted sports very strongly, and martial arts were officially permitted. The people who came wanted to learn what the spiritual teachings were that were behind what they were practicing.  

Hungary was again very different. People there were extremely proud of their cultural identity. Alexander Csoma de Körös, who compiled the first Tibetan-English dictionary in the early nineteenth century, is a cultural hero since he set out to find the Central Asian roots of the Hungarian language. Because of this, Hungarians in general were very favorably disposed toward Tibetan culture. There was academic interest in Tibetology at the universities. Dr. József Terjék, for example, taught Tibetan language at Eötvös Loránd University (ELTE) and had just published a Tibetan-Hungarian dictionary. I lectured at the Buddhist Mission, the only Buddhist group at this time. They were followers of Lama Govinda, an early twentieth-century German pioneer of Tibetan Buddhism in the West who had taught a hybrid, esoteric version of it. Dr. Ernő Hetényi, the elderly leader of this group, had close connections with the communist government and maintained a monopoly over Buddhism in Hungary. 

Yugoslavia was the last stop on this tour. Many of the Yugoslav republics have different religions and, historically, there has been a great deal of fighting among them. As a result, there was much mistrust of religion, and therefore Buddhism was approached in a completely academic manner. Based on my Harvard PhD in Far Eastern Languages and Sanskrit and Indian Studies, I was invited to lecture at universities in three of the republics and at the Yugoslav Academy of Arts and Sciences in Zagreb. Croatia was the most academic and formal of the three. The main interest was in Sanskrit philology. Slovenia was more relaxed and a bit more like Western Europe, with more interest on philosophy. In Serbia, a large group of students attended my lecture, which I oriented toward meditation practice. The professor, who was more of a sensationalist, was displeased that it was not about tantra and sex.

As a result of my experiences on this tour, I realized I could perhaps be of further assistance to His Holiness the Dalai Lama besides occasionally serving as His interpreter for advanced Buddhist teachings. The Tibetans had only Indian refugee travel documents and could not visit any country unless they received an official invitation. At that time, they had very little, if any contact or even information about countries in many parts of the world. I felt it was very important for them to establish relations with as many countries as possible in order to spread His Holiness’s message of nonviolence and to gain support for Tibet in the United Nations. Since, with my academic credentials, I could easily be invited to give guest lectures in universities, and since academics were in the best position to make such official invitations, I decided to do this as an offering to His Holiness. I started once more with the communist world, especially since India had good relations with the USSR. I eventually expanded this to include nearly all of Latin America, the southern and eastern countries of Africa, parts of the Middle East and, after the breakup of the Soviet Union, many of its former republics. 

My next lecture tour around Eastern Europe started about a year later. It lasted from November 1987 to February 1988 and included not only Yugoslavia (Zagreb Croatia and Ljubljana Slovenia), Hungary (Budapest and Szeged), Czechoslovakia (Prague and Kašava), East Germany (East Berlin) and Poland (Poznań, Katowice, Kraków, Warsaw, Drobin and Łódź), but also for the first time the USSR (Moscow and Leningrad) and Bulgaria (Sofia).

It started In Yugoslavia, where I lectured once more at the universities in Zagreb and Ljubljana. In Hungary, I also started giving more academic lectures – at the Catholic Theological Seminary in Budapest and at the József Attila University in Szeged. From there, I returned to Czechoslovakia, where a group of ten of us hid ourselves in a tiny house in a small, countryside village for a weeklong retreat. We kept all the curtains closed, ate only macrobiotic grains and lentils, and none of us ever stepped outside. As a precaution, we also arrived and left the village at different times and only one or two at a time. After that, in East Berlin as well, we were similarly cautious. It was not yet possible to make more official contacts in either country.

From there, I made my first visit to the Soviet Union (the USSR), November 29 to December 5, 1987. His Holiness had already visited in 1979 and 1986. The summer before I arrived, reform under the policies of glasnost and perestroika announced in 1985 by Mikhail Gorbachev, the General Secretary of the Communist Party, had just started to be implemented. The Soviet Union included three traditional Tibetan Buddhist republics – two Mongol ones (Buryatia and Kalmykia) and one Turkic (Tuva) – and had a long history of academic interest in Buddhism. Even during the czarist period, Sanskrit, Mongolian and Tibetan were being taught in several universities. 

I was invited by Dr. Andrey Terentyev, the Curator of the Buddhist Section at the State Museum of the History of Religion and Atheism in Leningrad. Terentyev was well-known to Gyatsho Tshering, the director of the Library of Tibetan Works and Archives (LTWA) in Dharamsala, where I was also associated. There was an enormous, as yet uncatalogued Tibetan collection held at the Library of the Institute of Oriental Studies at the Leningrad Branch of the Academy of Sciences of the USSR, and Terentyev was already exchanging books from it with the LTWA. Terentyev gave me some microfilmed rare texts from the Leningrad collection to bring back as an offering to His Holiness. 

My visit came just a few weeks after the second All Union Buddhological Conference had been held in Moscow, attended by 130 scholars from universities and libraries throughout the Soviet Union. Through Terentyev, I met with some of these scholars coming from the Leningrad Library as well as from other divisions of the Institute of Oriental Studies and Leningrad University. 

The Buddhists whom I met in both Leningrad and Moscow were the most serious and learned groups I had seen in the Eastern bloc. They were academically oriented but had interest in practice as well. Unlike in the more restrictive communist countries, they openly kept Buddhist religious objects in their homes. Many of them had studied Mongolian and Tibetan and were translating some texts. Some would visit the elderly Buryat Lamas in the two token monasteries that had been kept open in Siberia – Ivolginsky in Ulan Ude and Aginsky in Chita District – but they were unable to receive any teachings or instructions. 

In both Leningrad and Moscow, I lectured to about ten people in private apartments. Afterwards, they flooded me with questions all day long, lining up to spend a few minutes with me one at a time. It seemed that they were afraid of possible informants if others were to hear of their secret meetings with the old Buryat Lamas. 

East Berlin, after this, seemed even more repressive than before, but Poland next offered me more opportunities to visit Buddhist centers around the country and to lecture not only at Jagiellonian University in Kraków but now also at Warsaw University and the Palace of Culture in Poznań. 

The last stop on this tour was Sofia, Bulgaria. Bulgaria was an extremely repressive country. Everyone seemed paranoid and suspicious of everyone else. The police and ordinary people commonly spied on each other. I made initial contacts and met with a few interested persons. The main one was Dr. Georgi Svechnikov from the Bulgarian Academy of Science, Institute of Thracology (Ancient Bulgarian Studies). He also already had contact with Gyatsho Tshering at the LTWA.

Once I returned to Dharamsala, I briefed His Holiness about my travels. He showed great interest, and so I started submitting detailed reports. The reports not only outlined what was accomplished during each tour, but also provided background material for each country, especially its history, its dominant religion and its present relationship with China. At that time, the Tibetans in exile had little knowledge about the world and appreciated these reports for helping them establish informed international relations. I also described the background of the major political and religious leaders of each country to help His Holiness and his officials to prepare for future meetings with them. 

My next tour to Eastern Europe and the Soviet Union was from the beginning of April to the end of May 1989. The tour included Yugoslavia (Zagreb Croatia, Ljubljana Slovenia and Novi Sad Serbia), Bulgaria (Sofia), Hungary (Budapest and Debrecen), Czechoslovakia (Ostrava), Poland (Kraków, Kuchary and Warsaw), the Soviet Union (Leningrad, Moscow and Tartu Estonia) and East Germany (East Berlin).

Yugoslavia had become very unstable, especially Serbia. There was 1000% inflation and much civil unrest. Although many of the Eastern Bloc countries were starting to become more liberal, Yugoslavia was getting more closed, mostly due to Serbian nationalism. Yugoslavia had come strongly under Chinese influence. At the Yugoslav-Indian Friendship Society in Beograd, for instance, it was explicitly stated, “No Lamaism allowed.” As before, I lectured at several universities. I was very heartened to learn that, as a result of my lecture the previous year, the Sanskrit professor at the University of Zagreb had decided to teach Shantideva’s Engaging in Bodhisattva Behavior the next year, the first Buddhist text to be taught in the country.

This time in Bulgaria, at Svechnikov’s request, I was officially invited by the Nomadic Division of the Institute of Thracology and by Terra Antiqua Balcanica in association with Sofia University. Of the Eastern European countries, Bulgaria had the closest relations with the Soviet Union at that time. The Soviet Buddhologists had no possibility to publish their articles and books in English or to make Russian translations of the LTWA publications and publish and distribute them in the USSR. Dr. Alexander Fol, the Director of both the Nomadic Division and Terra Antiqua Balcanica, was keen to publish these works of the Russian academics and to form an association with the LTWA to facilitate such a project. He was already negotiating forming an association with several Soviet academic institutions and asked me to be the liaison to negotiate this project with the LTWA. Svechnikov expressed interest in possibly inviting His Holiness to Bulgaria in the future.

The Bulgarian secret services had a full report of my first visit. They were interested in Tibetan Buddhism to learn how to control others through ESP. Some of their agents met with me and asked me how to learn such things. To impress me, one of them seemingly made a bank note roll into tube by just holding it in the palm of her hand. 

From Bulgaria, I went to Hungary, where the conditions and laws were changing almost every week and there was the possibility of more freedom. People were waiting to see in which direction things would go. There was much support for the human rights of the Hungarian minority in Transylvania, Romania. Romania was perhaps the most repressive of all the Eastern European countries, except perhaps for Albania. My Hungarian hosts had arranged for me to visit Transylvania, but when this leaked and they learned that the Romanian secret services would be waiting to arrest me on arrival, we cancelled the visit at the last moment.

In Budapest, I lectured at ELTE University and at the National Orientalist Society of Karl Marx University of Economics, and also at the University of Debrecen. Some years ago, His Holiness had transited through Hungary and had wondered why there was such a special interest in Tibetan culture there. He expressed to me that he might be interested in visiting Hungary, and so I made enquiries on His behalf. I met with the leading Tibetan scholars and concluded that Dr. Terjék, who not only taught Tibetan at ELTE University but was also advisor on Asian matters to the Hungarian Ministry of Foreign Affairs, would be the best contact person to work with. Terjék advised the best procedure to follow, which I communicated to the Private Office of His Holiness. This was the start of my involvement with helping to arrange some of His Holiness’s initial visits to the former communist world. 

I then passed quickly through Czechoslovakia. Although glasnost and perestroika were slowly having an effect in Hungary and Poland and somewhat in Bulgaria, there was great fear of this in Czechoslovakia. People were afraid that if they implemented any liberal reforms, they would be quashed in the future by the Soviets again, as in 1968. The Czech secret services had started to investigate about my previous visits, and although people had been questioned, no one had gotten into trouble – yet. Therefore, so as not to stay overnight and have to register with the police, I just quickly transited to Poland, stopping only for a few hours to meet with people privately in Ostrava.    

I spent twelve days in Poland this time and, while there, on May 2, 1989, Hungary opened the border with Austria, marking the first opening of the Iron Curtain. Although many East Germans vacationing in Hungary fled to Austria, none of the Polish people I met during this visit were aware of this monumental event. I lectured once again at Jagellonian University in Kraków and Warsaw University, as well as at Buddhist centers, including conducting a meditation retreat in Kuchary. Although the enthusiasm for Buddhism was slightly less among the practitioners than before, the interest had grown at the universities. For example, Jagellonian University invited me to give a six-day course there on my next visit.

There was growing interest and sympathy for the Tibetan cause among the Polish people, with programs about Tibet on Polish TV and on the Polish section of Radio Free Europe. There was also interest in publishing articles and books about Tibet in Polish. Already, the underground publishing company of the Kagyu Buddhist Association of Poland had printed four books of my lectures in Poland. Given this interest in Tibet and Buddhism, plus the fluid political situation, I discussed the strategy for a possible future visit to Poland by His Holiness with several key persons interested in organizing it.

Next, I returned to the Soviet Union for a week, May 10 to 16, 1989, again organized by Terentyev. Everything was changing very quickly, and there was much more freedom and more possibilities than ever before. For example, the local Buryat Buddhist community was applying a lot of pressure on the Leningrad City Council to return to them the Leningrad Temple, popularly called the “Kalachakra Temple.” It had been built shortly before the October Revolution and was housing an institute for insect studies at this time.

In Leningrad, in addition to working with individuals on texts they were translating, I lectured to a group of 40 people in one person's apartment, and then to a group of over 60 in a hall. This was the first time that any public talk on Buddhism had been given in the Soviet Union. The people who came didn’t know if they would be punished for attending, but in fact no one got into any trouble. Terentyev has described this as a major turning point in the story of Buddhism in the USSR. 

While in Leningrad, I continued making contacts with academics at the Library of the Institute of Oriental Studies as well as with the curator of the vast Tibetan collection at the Hermitage Museum. Also, while in Leningrad, I made a side visit to see the three stupas that had been built in Estonia. From among all the Soviet republics, Estonia had been leading the trend toward independence. The year before, on August 20, 1988, Estonia had founded the first non-communist political party in the Soviet Union, the Estonian National Independence Party. Then on November 16, 1988, Estonia had asserted the primacy of Estonian law over Soviet law – the first Soviet republic to do so. 

I met with Professor Linnart Mäll of Tartu University, President of the Estonian Oriental Society. He offered to officially invite me for my next visit to the Soviet Union to lecture for a week at his university where he taught Tibetan. He explained that there was enormous interest in Tibet and Buddhism in Estonia. He had translated Shantideva’s Engaging in Bodhisattva Behavior (sPyod-‘jug, Skt. Bodhisattvacāryāvatāra) into Estonian and had printed 20,000 copies. It had completely sold out the first day. 

In Moscow, I again taught privately and met academics at the Institute of Oriental Studies of the Academy of Sciences of the USSR. I also lectured openly at the Moscow office of the Central Spiritual Board of Buddhists of the USSR, established by the Council on Religious Affairs of the Soviet of Ministers, which is a branch of the KGB. Terentyev had relations with them since 1978. The Board, consisting of nine members, was located in Ulan Ude, Buryatia, and their Moscow representative was Tom Rabdonov. Rabdonov arranged Buddhist related affairs with the central government and also visits of foreigners to Ulan Ude. 

In the past, the Council had only registered Ivolginski Datsan in Ulan Ude as an official Buddhist group, but in the previous year, 1988, Aginsky Datsan in Chita and the Kalmyk Buddhists in Elista had also succeeded in getting registered. A dastan is a division within a monastery and, here, was applied to its remaining main temple. The Buryat Buddhist groups in Leningrad and Moscow were now going to apply to be registered. I met with the leaders of both groups. In addition, I discussed with Rabdonov a possible future visit of His Holiness. He offered to officially invite me to the Soviet Union next time, for further discussions and co-operation.

I ended this tour in East Berlin, May 21, 1989, which, as before, was still very restrictive. Again, I met secretly with interested persons from the martial arts community.

By July of 1989, both Solidarity in Poland and the government of Hungary had, in principle, accepted visits from His Holiness. A few weeks earlier, Solidarity had won 99% of the seats in the election for the newly created Polish Senate. Lech Wałęsa, the founder in 1980 of Solidarity as a workers’ union in Gdansk, was now the most influential leader in Poland, setting the example for non-violent freedom movements throughout Eastern Europe. Further, in Bulgaria, Dr. Fol, the Director of the Nomadic Division of the Institute of Thracology was appointed as Minister of Culture, Education and Science. Although His Holiness had expressed interest in visiting Eastern Europe as soon as possible, the decision was made to wait since the situations throughout the region were changing every day, and there was still a great deal of chaos in trying to adjust to the new political situation. 

On August 23, 1989, approximately two million people formed a human chain spanning the three Baltic republics, demonstrating their unity in seeking independence. On September 12, the first non-communist government was established in Poland. The dramatic end of communism in Eastern Europe accelerated with the fall of the Berlin wall on November 9. The next day, the Communist Party gave up its monopoly in Bulgaria. The Velvet Revolution in Czechoslovakia started on November 17, and Nicolae Ceaușescu, the President of Romania, was arrested and executed December 25. 

As I had learned during my previous visits to the region, there was already serious interest in several countries in having a visit from His Holiness. One of the reasons was perhaps to seek His advice and guidance during those uncertain times. But with the crumbling of communism coinciding with His Holiness being awarded the 1989 Noble Peace Prize December 10, the interest in having such a visit became even greater. In my analysis to explain why, I suggested that one of the major problems in the more severely controlled communist countries was that things had been so centrally planned and dictated that people no longer had experience in organizing anything or in making decisions. Although they had strong wishes for new programs and many excellent ideas, they were challenged in knowing how to implement them. Having had a long tradition of not trusting others, most people did not co-operate or work well with each other. It seemed to me that perhaps people were longing for some benevolent authority figure, preferably from outside their system, whom they could respect and trust for guidance and advice. This was, in my view, why there was such great interest throughout the former communist world in inviting His Holiness.

Less than three weeks after His Holiness had received the Nobel Peace Prize, Václav Havel was appointed president of Czechoslovakia on December 29, 1989. Having admired His Holiness for a long time but knowing very little about him or about Tibet, President Havel, soon after taking office, invited His Holiness to visit as his personal guest. I later learned that he wanted His Holiness to teach him meditation to help deal with the challenging responsibilities of his new position. 

I returned to Prague near the end of January 1990 to meet with President Havel’s secretary, Sasha Neumann, who had attended my secret talks there in 1987. We arranged the schedule for the visit and chose possible topics of mutual interest for discussion. I sent a report with our recommendations back to the Dharamsala for approval and to brief His Holiness before His arrival. 

This began my next extensive Eastern European and Soviet tour that took me to Hungary (Budapest), back to Czechoslovakia (Prague), Bulgaria (Sofia), Poland (Warsaw, Gdansk, and Kraków), the Soviet Union (Moscow, Vilnius and Kaunus Lithuania, Riga Latvia, Tartu Estonia, Leningrad, Ulan Ude Buryatia, Elista Kalmykia, and Kyzyl Tuva), Mongolia (Ulaan Baatar), back to Hungary (Budapest), Czechoslovakia (Prague), Hungary once more (Budapest), Bulgaria (Sofia), and Yugoslavia (Beograd Serbia and Zagreb Croatia). 

After finalizing the preparations for His Holiness’s visit to Prague, I went to Budapest for a few days to discuss with Dr. Terjék, the professor of Tibetan at ELTE University and advisor to the Foreign Ministry, preparations for a future visit of His Holiness to Hungary. Lodi Gyari Rinpoche, the Minister of the Department of Information and International Relations of the Tibetan Government in Exile, had recently visited Budapest to start the negotiations. Elections for the new Parliament were going to be held March 26, and there was much uncertainty as to the result. Therefore, Terjék advised that it would be better in this situation for Buddhist groups and a Tibetan Society of Scholars he was forming, plus perhaps his university, to co-sponsor the invitation and the visit. 

A new law had been passed a few weeks before, granting religious freedom, independent rights and financial support to religious organizations. Three Hungarian Buddhist groups had qualified. I met with the head of the Department of Religious Affairs at the Ministry of Culture, and he assured me of their full support for the visit. Several people I met were interested in starting a Tibet Support Group. Also, while in Budapest, I lectured at the Horticulture University.

I then returned to Prague, where I served as liaison and interpreter for His Holiness’s visit, February 2 to 6, 1990. The visit started with a private meeting with Cardinal Tomášek and a small group of religious leaders. They discussed the meaning of compassion in each of their traditions, which was the type of ecumenical meeting that His Holiness appreciated the most. At the meeting, His Holiness learned that the oldest Jewish synagogue in Europe was in Prague. Although it was not on the already full schedule, His Holiness wished to visit it. He had never been to a synagogue before, and so we went briefly the next morning. The Saturday morning services were in progress, and, at His Holiness’s request, I explained to Him what was happening. Before we left, the rabbi honored His Holiness by calling him to the ark. 

Later that day, after a visit to a Tibetan photo exhibit, lunch at the Indian ambassador’s residence and a talk on meditation at the Psycho-physical Regulations Institute, His Holiness and the entourage went to Lány Castle to meet with President Havel and members of his close staff. Although His Holiness, as a rule, never eats in the evening, but as a special show of respect and friendship with the President, He shared a formal dinner with him. President Havel was a heavy smoker, and at the table, His Holiness warned him that he needed to stop smoking – it would damage his health.

President Havel shared with His Holiness how challenging his new position and responsibilities were and requested that He teach him some meditation methods that could be of help. His Holiness agreed, and the next morning, with His Holiness seated on a cushion on the floor and President Havel and his staff seated before him in sweat suits. His Holiness taught him some basic meditation methods, and they practiced them together. After the session, His Holiness and the President held private talks while walking through the garden and then attended a private mass at the chapel. 

Back in Prague, the public talk in Wenceslas Square that afternoon was cancelled due to security concerns, and so His Holiness rested at the hotel. The following day had a very full schedule. There was a public talk, a TV interview, a candle prayer in Wenceslas Square, a Buddhist talk, and the mayor’s reception at the Civic Forum. His Holiness left Prague the following morning. 

From Prague, I went to Sofia, Bulgaria where I met with Dr. Fol and Dr. Blagovest Sendov, President of the Bulgarian Academy of Sciences, where I lectured. We discussed further plans for a proposed visit by His Holiness and clarified many points about an agreement we were negotiating between the Institute of Thracology and the LTWA in Dharamsala. The Leningrad Buddhist community had now received official government status within the Central Spiritual Board of Buddhists of the USSR. Terentyev had become the head of its Translation and Publication Division, and they too were interested in associating with the LTWA, and so Fol, Sendov and I discussed how we might all cooperate with publications and programs. 

Next, I went to Poland where, in Gdansk, I met the Director of the International Affairs Commission of Solidarity, who confirmed an invitation from Lech Wałęsa and Solidarity to invite His Holiness to Poland. Together, we drew up a tentative schedule for the proposed visit two months later, in April. In Warsaw, I also met with Archbishop Bronisław Dąbrowski, who was enthusiastic about His Holiness’s visit and offered the Church’s full co-operation in organizing it. While in Poland, I again gave talks at various Buddhist centers and delivered a lecture once more at Jagiellonian University in Kraków.

Poland at this time was undergoing great economic difficulties. Unlike under communism, inflation and unemployment were very high. Nevertheless, people were willing to endure these difficulties in order to bring success to the new democracy. There were noticeably far fewer cars on the roads than before. The telephone system was the most primitive in all of Eastern Europe, and this was a big block to development.

On March 6, 1990, I returned to Moscow on an official invitation from the Central Buddhist Board. By the time I arrived in Moscow, the Buddhist groups in Leningrad, Moscow, Buryatia, Chita, Kalmykia and Tuva were officially registered and had become members. I met with Tom Rabdonov and the Buryat Deputy Secretary General of the Asian Buddhist Conference for Peace (ABCP) to discuss their plans for the development of Buddhism in the Soviet Union and a possible next visit by His Holiness. 

Two days before I had arrived, Boris Yeltsin had been elected to the Congress of People’s Deputies of the Russian Federation. The Russian Federation was the largest of all the republics that made up the Soviet Union and, as with the USSR as a whole, the Congress of People’s Deputies in each republic chose the members of the Supreme Soviet (the Parliament) of each republic. Gorbachev, at this time, was the Chairman of the Supreme Soviet of the USSR. There was already tension between the Russian Federation and the central government. Thus, Yeltsin and Gorbachev now became rivals for power. The enmity between them became exacerbated when, ten days later, on March 14, Gorbachev was chosen to become President of the USSR.

In the interim between these two events, I made a tour of the three Baltic republics. My first stop was Lithuania, where I gave private talks in Vilnius to a small group of interested people. These were the first Buddhist talks they had received. I also went to Kaunus to meet the man translating Tsongkhapa’s Great Exposition of the Graded Stages of the Path (Lam-rim chen-mo) into Russian. On March 11, two days after I left Lithuania, the Lithuanian Supreme Council, led by its Speaker, Vytautas Landsbergis, declared independence from the Soviet Union, the first republic to do so. His Holiness sent him his greetings. The Lithuanians, having had a vast empire several centuries earlier, were the most self-confident and headstrong of the Baltic countries. They did not care about the consequences of their declaration. The Soviet central government did not recognize this declaration, and as was the custom for keeping people in the dark and under control, they made no public report of the event. 

In Riga Latvia next, I also taught privately. The Latvians were in a weak position since Russians formed more than half the population. Being traditionally conservative and cautious, they were waiting to see the Soviet government’s response to the steps the other Baltic states were taking toward independence. The Russian settlers here and in the other Baltic republics supported the independence movements. The standard of living was higher than in the rest of the Soviet Union, and they saw the economic advantage of independence. The only major objection they had was the language issue.  

From Riga I went on to Tartu Estonia, where I lectured at the Tartu State University and the Estonian Oriental Society at the invitation of Dr. Linnart Mäll, whom I had met on my first visit to Estonia. The Congress of Estonia, a grassroots parliament, had been established at the end of last year, and Mäll was the head of its foreign affairs committee. On March 10, three days before my arrival, the committee had held its first meeting and, on their behalf, Mäll requested me to convey their greetings to His Holiness. He told me to inform His Holiness that the Estonians were very keen in the future to be the first government to recognize the Tibetan Government in Exile. 

After passing through Tallinn, where I held a radio interview, I arrived in Leningrad on March 14, the day Gorbachev became President of the USSR. In the shadow of the growing political instability, many prior restrictions were being disregarded. As a result, I was now officially invited to lecture at the Leningrad Medical School and at the Oriental Institute of the Leningrad Academy of Sciences. In addition, I held private talks with local Buddhists and visited the Leningrad Temple, which had recently been returned to the Buryats.

Meanwhile, the Central Buddhist Board in Ulan Ude, Buryatia, declared themselves independent of the KGB affiliated Council for Religious Affairs. They dismissed Erdem, the Deputy Khambo Lama from the Board, whom they accused of close ties with the KGB. The Khambo Lama was the religious head of Buddhism in Buryatia. The Buddhist Board sent him instead to become the abbot of the Leningrad Temple and to arrange for its restoration. There, he was chosen to be a member of the Congress of People’s Deputies of the USSR. I was informed that the Buddhist Board would like His Holiness’s advice on purification rituals to perform for the Temple and on the details for its restoration. They would also like to invite His Holiness to consecrate the Temple once the restoration is complete.

It was unclear how effective the Buddhist Board’s declaration of independence from the KGB would be, but upon my return to Moscow on March 18, Rabdonov tested it by inviting me to give an open lecture on Buddhism in their offices. Nothing adverse happened. This was the day that free elections were held in East Germany, where the people voted for reunification with West Germany. Things were changing quickly.

Natalia Lukyanova, the Director of the Center for Traditional Medicine of Soyuzmedinform under the Ministry of Health of the USSR came to meet me at the Buddhist Board. She explained that the Ministry of Health was interested in exploring Tibetan medicine for a possible treatment and cure of radiation sickness and thyroid cancer for the between 600,000 and 1 million victims of the Chernobyl nuclear disaster of April 26, 1986. Nothing they had tried before was of any help. They also wanted our help with a growing AIDS problem. The USSR government had already given her a large building in Moscow and permission to establish a Tibetan medical institute and to invite Tibetan doctors from Dharamsala to treat patients in the Soviet hospitals. The government would provide all the financing and facilities for not only this but also for manufacturing Tibetan medicine and for training doctors. She asked me to liaison with Dharamsala and the Tibetan Medical and Astro Institute (TMAI) there. 

Lukyanova arranged for me to give a series of five open lectures on Buddhist history and science and on Tibetan medicine and astrology at the Medical Library of the Soviet Ministry of Health, which I did in the next days. In conjunction with the Buddhist Board, she offered to publish 100,000 copies of the Russian translations of my lectures. With Rabdonov, I also met with Dr. Evgeny Velikhov, the Vice-President of the Academy of Science of the USSR, who was also supportive of the project. Immediately following the nuclear disaster, Velikhov, as a nuclear physicist, had played a crucial role in the cleanup efforts, providing scientific guidance and leadership during the crisis. 

Rabdonov then quickly arranged for Terentyev and me to go to Ulan Ude to discuss plans for this medical project with specialists there. The next day, March 23, we flew there, where we received a warm welcome. At the Buryat Institute of Social Studies of the Academy of Science of Ulan Ude, we met with the group of research scholars working on traditional Tibeto-Mongolian medicine. I was extremely impressed by their work. They had translated into Russian the major Tibetan medical texts and had developed computer-based educational programs to study these texts. They also had developed a computer program to diagnose disease based on information gathered from a special sensor to detect and digitize the six types of pulse on each wrist that are described in Tibetan medicine. An associate in Lithuania had compiled an encyclopedia in Russian, identifying all the plants used in preparing Tibetan medicine, including the Siberian and Mongolian variants used as substitutes for them. 

The Buryat research scholars and doctors were enthusiastic about our proposed medical project but insisted on having their own facilities separate from the European Russians in Moscow. Buryats are very proud people and, in general, do not want to be controlled by anybody else. Even among themselves, there were many factions that did get along with each other. To complicate matters, they had close connections with two Mongolian medical institutions in Inner Mongolia, and doctors from there also wanted to establish joint ventures with the Buryats.   

To complete my impression of the state of Buddhism in Buryatia, we visited Ivolginsky Datsan outside of Ulan Ude. We also flew out in a tiny military transport plane to Chita District to visit Aginsky Datsan as well as to Tsugulsky Datsan, which was currently being restored. Ivolginsky and Aginsky had been the only two datsans that had not been destroyed during the Stalinist period. They had been left open as token symbols for propaganda purposes. Now, however, in the light of perestroika, the Buryats were extremely keen on restoring their Buddhist institutions.

I then went by train to Ulaan Baatar, Mongolia, where His Holiness had visited in 1979. I arrived March 28, 1990. Unbeknownst to myself, the peaceful democratic revolution that had begun in December had just come to a successful end the week before. The Mongolian Politburo had been dissolved on March 15, and President Jambyn Batmönkh had resigned on March 21. Punsalmaagiin Ochirbat had been chosen to rule in the interim until the first multi-party elections to be held June 29. The Mongolian People’s Revolutionary Party, the former communist party, had adopted a socialist democratic agenda and went on to win the most seats. 

Mongolia was far more traditional than Buryatia, with much more of the culture preserved. The Russification process had not been so strong, and at that time, most people still lived in yurts or simple wooden shacks, even in Ulaan Baatar. Many women wore colorful traditional dress, and some people still rode through the streets of the capital on horseback. Although mutton was plentiful, other food was difficult to find, more so than in Buryatia. The shelves in the food stores were half empty, with only flour, one kind of boiled sweet, one kind of biscuit, one kind of jam and hardly any vegetables available. There was a great deal of air pollution due to the burning of soft coal for electricity. Many people in the capital left for the grasslands during the summers.

Mongolia had slightly more religious freedom than in the USSR, and several monasteries that had been converted into museums were being given back to the Buddhists. Only Gandan Monastery in Ulaan Baatar had been left open. It ran a five-year training program, which included political indoctrination, and monks from Buryatia came there to learn. At least half the so-called monks were married and just came to the temple and wore robes during the day. Dagpa Dorji had just recently been appointed as the new Khambo Lama. 

As in Buryatia, there was great interest in restoring the destroyed monasteries. In about 25 places, the old, disrobed monks were putting up yurts and reviving the performance of rituals. Laypeople knew almost nothing about Buddhism, though they identified with it. Their main spiritual interest was in astrology. There was an Institute of Traditional Mongolian Medicine, but I was unable to visit it this time. While in Mongolia, however, I was able to visit the old monastery at Erdene Zuu, which was re-opened for rituals a few days after I left. There was no road to get there, I just rode in a jeep over the steppe. While there, I became stranded for a few days in a blizzard. Also stranded was Choiji Jamtso, who later became the head lama of Ganden Monastery in Ulaan Baatar. He spoke Tibetan, so I had good company.  

I had meetings in Ulaan Baatar with Dr. G. Lubsantseren, Secretary General of the Asian Buddhist Conference for Peace (ABCP), and other officials of the organization to discuss the revival of Buddhism in Mongolia. They were all clearly associated with the Mongolian secret services. I also had similar discussions with Bakula Rinpoche, who had become the Indian ambassador to Mongolia a few months earlier, in January. Bakula Rinpoche had been the first Buddhist monk to visit the USSR, back in 1968 as the head of a religious delegation from India to discuss the creation of the ABCP, which he helped found the next year in Ulaan Baatar. Many believed that the ABCP had been established as a rival, within the Soviet sphere, to the World Federation of Buddhists (WFB), founded in Colombo Sri Lanka in 1950 and headquartered in Bangkok Thailand. 

During that 1968 visit to the USSR, Bakula Rinpoche had visited not only Ulan Ude but also Leningrad. He had subsequently returned to both and to Mongolia several times to give Buddhist teachings and initiations. In 1989, he was the first Buddhist teacher to visit Kalmykia in fifty years.

Bakula Rinpoche explained to me that the Mongols are very proud, and because there are so many old monks who still remember their traditions, they are less receptive to outside advice and help than in the USSR. They wanted to try doing things their own way first. 

I flew back from Ulaan Baatar to Moscow, April 3, 1990, for more discussions with Rabdonov at the Central Buddhist Board. Once there, I signed a contract giving the Board the rights for publishing the Russian translations of my lectures at the Ministry of Health. The next day, Terentyev and I flew to Elista, Kalmykia, again arranged by Rabdonov. Unlike in Buryatia and Mongolia, there was no tradition of Buddhism left in Kalmykia. The entire population had been sent to Siberia by Stalin and only had returned to Kalmykia under Khrushchev. Having lost all their traditions, the people were extremely enthusiastic about reviving Buddhism and their culture. 

As the first Buddhist scholar to visit Kalmykia, I lectured on the present situation of Buddhism at the Kalmyk Institute of Social Studies of the USSR Academy of Science. 120 people attended, starved for information about their culture and about the outside world. I met with the director of the Institute and with several scholars there. There appeared to be closer cooperation between the scholars and the Buddhists than in Buryatia in plans for reviving their traditions, undoubtedly due to Buddhism not being established there at all.

Returning to Moscow, I met Lodi Gyari Rinpoche and his Russian-speaking assistant Ngawang Rabgyal on their arrival from Dharamsala. Together, we went to Leningrad to visit the Temple regarding the help they wanted in its restoration and then on the following day to Tallinn. There, Linnart Mäll had arranged for Lodi Gyari Rinpoche to address the Congress of Estonia regarding their wish to invite His Holiness. Landsbergis, having been greatly moved by His Holiness’s greeting, wanted to invite us to Vilnius, since he too was keen to invite His Holiness, but there was no time to go to Lithuania. We immediately returned to Moscow on April 10. 

In Moscow, we held meetings with Rabdonov at the Buddhist Board. There, we discussed proposals for Dharamsala’s cooperation with the restoration of the Leningrad Temple and met with Lukyanova to discuss the medical project. After writing the letters of intention for both projects, I gave a further lecture at the Medical Library of the Ministry of Health. 

After meeting with Velikhov at the Academy of Sciences, who had now become the science advisor to President Gorbachev, we met with the president of the People’s Academy of Culture and Common Human Values, with whom we signed a preliminary agreement for their publishing my Moscow lectures and other materials on Buddhism. I also met with the head of the Central Department of Oriental Literature of Nauka Publishers to discuss possibilities for them to publish Russian translations to be prepared by the Institute of Thracology in Bulgaria as part of their agreement with the LTWA in Dharamsala.

Lubsantseren from the ABCP and his associates arrived from Mongolia, and, with Rabdonov, we discussed possible areas of cooperation concerning the restoration of Buddhism in Mongolia. Lodi Gyari Rinpoche and Ngawang Rabgyal left for Buryatia and Mongolia the next day, April 15, and Terentyev and I left by train to Kyzyl, Tuva. In many ways, Tuva was years behind the rest of the Soviet Union. Glasnost and perestroika were just beginning to reach them. This was the only place where Terentyev and I had our visit arranged by the KGB Council for Religious Affairs and where we were constantly accompanied by one of their representatives. Buddhism had also completely disappeared from Tuva, but although in the presence of our KGB handler, they all claimed to be atheists, we could see that they were extremely interested to revive Buddhism and their traditions. 

We drove to the countryside to visit one of the last surviving monks from the pre-Soviet period to learn about Chadansky, the old main Tuvan monastery, which was now in ruins. The way of life in the countryside was still very traditional. The old monk’s family brought out a whole sheep carcass for lunch and gave us big knives to feast on it. When we left, they accompanied us up to the mountain pass and we shared yoghurt before going further. In Kyzyl, we also met with a doctor from the Tuvan shamanistic tradition of medicine, who explained some of their diagnostic methods such as examining the pattern left in the snow when a patient urinates on it.

In February, the Buddhist Society of Tuva had been officially registered, but they had no idea what they could actually do or how to organize. They were not allowed by the local newspaper to publicize their society and few Tuvans even knew about their existence. They needed help from the very start in reviving Buddhism and their culture, but the Buryats have not cooperated, and the Buddhist Board lacked the resources. We were told that people in the villages were too afraid to even talk about rebuilding the monasteries and temples. I lectured on the history and basic principles of Buddhism at the Tuva Research Institute of Language, Literature and History to a group of about 40 people. No Buddhist teacher had visited Tuva before modern times, and this was the first time they received any Buddhist teachings.

We returned to Moscow and, after another meeting at the Buddhist Board, I flew to Budapest, Hungary, on April 20, the day when the Soviet government began a 74-day economic blockade of Lithuania. Since my last visit to Hungary at the end of January, free elections for the Hungarian Parliament had been held two weeks before my arrival, with the Hungarian Democratic Forum emerging as the largest party. I was unaware of that. In Budapest, I lectured at the Karl Marx Economics University. The next day, Lodi Gyari Rinpoche and Ngawang Rabgyal arrived, and we made all the final arrangements for His Holiness’s upcoming visit.

The three of us then went to Prague for a day, where I lectured at Charles University. We then returned to Budapest for His Holiness’s visit, April 27 to 29, 1990, for which I served as His interpreter. His Holiness met with the Vice-President of the Hungarian Democratic Forum, Sándor Keresztes, and then a group of religious leaders at the Budapest Basilica. The next day, His Holiness gave a talk at the Academy of Sciences in the morning, followed by lunch at the Indian Embassy. Then after a TV interview and a press conference, He gave a public talk at the Karl Marx University of Economics and then a talk to the local Buddhist groups. He left the next morning. A month later, on May 23, 1990, the first post-communist coalition government of Hungary was formed. Similarly, on June 4 and 18, the first partially free elections in Poland took place and on June 8 and 9 the first free parliamentary elections in Czechoslovakia were held.

After His Holiness left Hungary, I flew to Sofia Bulgaria. The next day, at the Institute of Thracology, I signed the contract of cooperation on behalf of the LTWA and delivered a lecture. After various media interviews and discussions about His Holiness’s proposed visit, I stopped briefly in Beograd Serbia, where I gave a talk to a private group, and then on to Zagreb Croatia. I held talks with Bishop Đuro Kokša about His Holiness and then lectured at the Academy of Sciences before returning to India the next day, May 4, 1990. That was the day that Latvia declared its independence, although the Soviet Union did not recognize it. 

After that, changes started to happen quickly in the Soviet Union. On May 29, Yeltsin became Chairman of the Supreme Soviet of Russia, with his associate, Ruslan Khasbulatov as First Deputy Chairman. There were now two clashing political groups. As leader of the liberal faction, Yeltsin wanted further and faster changes, in contrast with the policies of the central Soviet government headed by President Gorbachev. Yeltsin prevailed and, on June 12, 1990, at his direction, the Declaration of State Sovereignty of the Russian Federation was adopted. This was followed by Yeltsin’s resignation from the Communist Party on July 12.

According to this Declaration, Russia would now be getting a democratic government under Yeltsin’s leadership and would have the right to secede from the Soviet Union. At this point, it was unclear as to whether a similar type of restructuring would satisfy the desires of the Baltics for independence. It was hard to imagine they would turn back from this course, but President Gorbachev and Landsbergis were at least talking now and the embargo on Lithuania was being lifted. 

The question was whether the other republics would also secede. The future problem, people felt, would be with the various regions within the Russian Federation wanting their independence as well. It was expected that Russia itself would undoubtedly at least undergo restructuring. In any case, all these changes were making President Gorbachev more and more irrelevant. 

In general, tempers were a bit short. Since everyone could criticize openly, people were finally expressing their anger and frustration. But still this brought about little change. Food was scarce in the shops. When President Gorbachev announced that the food prices would double on January 1, 1991, the people panicked and started to hoard. After the Supreme Soviet of the USSR voted against this price increase, the Central Government’s position became even weaker. 

Throughout the Soviet Union, collectivization had been disbanded. People had the choice to be collective farmers or independent. Land could be returned either to their original owners, their descendants, or those peasants living on it who up until now have had nothing. But it was not yet decided whether they would have to buy or to rent the land, or how it will be done. There were free markets for vegetables, fruit, clothing, and so on, but the prices were

much higher than in the shops. There was the danger of fighting between national groups, and some people feared a military takeover. Still, there was a large group of those committed to democratic forces who were patient with the difficulties and who supported President Gorbachev. But there was criticism of him for having doubled the salaries of party officials. There was also fear that if the various Islamic republics, especially in the Caucasus, sought independence, there would be violence.

Meanwhile, Rabdonov was dismissed from his position as Moscow representative of the Buddhist Board due to the influence of a newly formed Buryat Young Lamas Group. He was accused of not consulting with the members of the Board in Ulan Ude in making decisions. The Buryat Young Lamas Group, headed by Sherab Jamtso, was very Buryat nationalistic, anti-European and against our project. Lodi Gyari Rinpoche decided that our medical project would no longer be a joint venture that included the Central Buddhist Board. Our Tibetan Medical and Astro Institute would be associated exclusively with the Center for Traditional Medicine under the Ministry of Health of the USSR. 

Although Lukyanova’s position was with the Ministry of Health of the USSR, the project had the full backing and support of Yeltsin. Lukyanova had been a classmate of Yeltsin’s personal assistant, and Yeltsin’s daughter, a nurse, was very interested in Tibetan medicine. Lukyanova warned that the only possible interference to our project could be the result of the jealousy between the Soviet and the Russian governments. The trend was for more and more Russian autonomy and weaker and weaker Soviet Central Government and KGB control. 

Lukyanova had a second position, as President of the Collaboration Foundation, under which was the Buddhist Medical Center. Although not a government agency, the orientation of this Foundation was more Russian than Soviet. After being dismissed from the Buddhist Board, Rabdonov had now been appointed as its Executive Director. 

Everything was being restructured in the country, with most organizations becoming oriented more toward Russia rather than toward the USSR and becoming more private rather than governmental. In the future, it was planned that the Center for Traditional Medicine, together with our project, would become a part of the Collaboration Foundation. Its Board of Directors included, among others, the mayor of Moscow, the director of the Russian Cultural Foundation, from whom we would obtain all the buildings for our project, and the head of one of the branches of the Roerich Foundation, who was a personal friend of President Gorbachev’s wife Raisa. Things were changing, however, almost every day and, in Soviet style, the situation was never exactly clear. No one gave us any information.

With this background, I returned to Moscow, August 7, 1990, with His Holiness’s personal physician Dr. Tenzin Choedrak and his assistant, Dr. Namgyal Qusar. As part of our luggage, we brought with us two large suitcases filled with a pharmacopeia of Tibetan medicines. Our visa clearance had been personally approved by Yeltsin himself, indicating how seriously our project was being taken.

Lukyanova and Rabdonov had a very full and intense schedule planned for us. We started the next day with a meeting at the All-Union Scientific Research Institute of Medicinal Plants to discuss what plant-based ingredients for manufacturing Tibetan medicine might be available that grew in the Soviet Union and Mongolia. This was Dr. Choedrak’s main concern – these plants needed to grow at specific altitudes with specific weather conditions. They could not be cultivated in greenhouses in Moscow, and we would never have enough such ingredients that grew in India since the Indian Ayurvedic doctors had first pick. We then went to the Polytechnic Institute of Moscow District to discuss the plans. We met with a group of Buryat doctors to discuss the Buryat adaptation of Tibetan medicine, followed by a dinner at the home of Yeltsin’s economic advisor, Igor Nit, whom Dr. Choedrak later treated. Nit offered his full support for the project.

The next day, after a meeting with the head of radiology from the Central Management of Union Resorts that provided rehabilitation for Chernobyl radiation victims, we went to one of the major Moscow hospitals. There, Dr. Choedrak examined 23 patients, who exhibited a variety of severe symptoms due to radiation exposure. 

That afternoon, we had a formal meeting with Ruslan Khasbulatov, the First Deputy Chairman of the Supreme Soviet of Russia and Yeltsin’s second in command. Khasbulatov assured us that our project had Yeltsin’s full backing and support. He informed us that Yeltsin and the members of the Russian Supreme Soviet were under extreme pressure, and he requested medical treatment from our doctors to help all of them cope with the challenges of the situation. We agreed and, later in that visit, Dr. Choedrak personally attended to their needs. After our return to Dharamsala, we sent Dr. Dawa Dolma to fulfill his request. 

The next day, we flew to Ulan Ude. At the Buryat Institute of Social Studies of the Academy of Science of Ulan Ude, we met with their team of specialists on traditional Buryat medicine and learned about the traditional medicines that were being prepared here. We then went on a short expedition with them to the Siberian countryside to examine the medicinal plants that grew wild there. The next day, Dr. Choedrak treated many patients in the local hospitals, and we examined the work at the Institute clinic. 

The following day, we took the train to Ulaan Baatar. While there, we met with several doctors and research scholars at the Center for Traditional Mongolian Medicine to discuss the medicinal plants that were available there. A small party took us to the countryside to examine some of what grew there ourselves. We then were invited to join the President of Mongolia, Ochirbat, on his plane to go to the traditional Mongol games being held in the grasslands to celebrate the 750th anniversary of the Secret History of the Mongols. Chinggis Khan had become a cultural hero and was even made into a Dharma Protector. While there, we had informal discussions with the President and his Prime Minister, Gambolt. After our return to Ulaan Baatar, we flew back to Moscow.

The next week and a half, Dr. Choedrak continued treating the patients in the pilot group, as well as a group of patients affected by chemical pollution. The Tibetan medicinal system is holistic, and so in addition to medicine against radiation sickness, Dr. Choedrak prescribed different medications for each person in accord with their full scope of medical issues. The improvements that the patients experienced in just this short period were dramatic. This confirmed that we could not use just one medication that would fit everyone’s needs, but we would need the entire Tibetan pharmacopeia, a factory to produce it and a vast source of ingredients. We would also need to train a large team of doctors. Therefore, during this next week and a half, Lukyanova arranged a full schedule of meetings with a wide assortment of institutes.

At the Ministry of Buildings of the Eastern Sector of the USSR, we learned that the Moscow City Council and the Russian Cultural Foundation would be giving us four buildings for staff housing, offices and language training, an old palace for a medical school and research center, and land to build a clinic, a rehabilitation center and a factory to produce the medicines. They also offered land for a Buddhist temple and Dharma center in Moscow. The USSR was one of the last places where the government could just give as many buildings and as much land in its capital to us as it wanted to. The financing, however, although promised, was still in the process of being arranged. 

Following this news, we started to mobilize the support and resources for our project. At the Institute of Problems Information Transmission, we arranged for computer equipment and programs; at the All-Union Research Institute of Medicinal Plants for maps indicating where medicinal plants grew wild;  at the Roerich Foundation for financing; at the Scientific and Production Company Altai Pharmatsiya for helicopters for planned expeditions to the Altai Mountains in Siberia for collecting plants; at the Moscow Institute of Management for more computer cooperation; at the Lumbini University of Friendship between Peoples for an analytical laboratory; at the Research Center of Molecular Diagnostics for diagnostic support; at the Institute of Roentgenology and Radiology for their support; at the Health Commission of the Moscow City Council for their support; and at the Union of Managers for export licenses and bank transfers.  

The project was going to be enormous and would be coordinated by Lukyanova, Rabdonov and myself. Lukyanova and Rabdonov wanted everything to be arranged by us, and for them to be the main patrons of Buddhism in Russia. They refused to cooperate with the Central Buddhist Board, the scientists and scholars in Ulan Ude, Velikhov (the Vice-President of the Academy of Science of the USSR and science advisor of Gorbachev) and the Foundation for the Promotion of Buddhist Culture under the People’s Academy of Culture and Values (publishers of the Russian Koran). As was typical of the time, people and organizations did not trust each other, and none wanted to cooperate with the others. We left all this intrigue behind and returned to India August 28, 1990, after missing our flight the day before due our hosts’ insistence on following strict official protocol in seeing us off.  

I did not return to the USSR or Eastern Europe during the rest of 1990, but several major events occurred later that year. On September 11 in the Hague, Netherlands, Lodi Gyari Rinpoche, Michale van Walt and Linnart Mäll were among the founding members of the Unrepresented Nations and Peoples Organization, the so-called “Alternative United Nations.” On October 3, East Germany was dissolved, and German reunification took place. In voting on November 25 and December 9, Lech Wałęsa was elected President of Poland. 

Terentyev spent the autumn and winter of 1990 in Dharamsala. While there, he founded Narthang Publications to publish Buddhist works especially by His Holiness in Russian. No one in the Soviet Union would dare publish a book on Buddhism at this time. Linnart Mäll, a delegation of abbots from Buryatia, including Sherab Jamtso, and a large delegation from Mongolia came to India to attend the Kalachakra initiation His Holiness conferred in Sarnath the last week of December. I met informally with all of them, as I was the translator for the initiation. While in India, Mäll held talks with His Holiness and his office to plan for His Holiness’s visit to Estonia in July 1991. Mäll also met with many other Tibetan officials to discuss further ties between Estonia and the Tibetan Government in Exile.

As for the Buryat abbots and Sherab Jamtso, we learned about all the power conflicts and intrigues among them and within the Central Buddhist Board. Despite the chaos and internal fighting, the Council of Ministers of Buryatia invited His Holiness to Buryatia in July 1991. This was just for visa purposes. There was still the danger that every Buryat datsang and temple would vie and pressure for His Holiness to visit them, as happened with Denmo Locho Rinpoche and Kamtrul Rinpoche in September 1990, and the datsangs will not co-operate with each other. There was much chaos as well regarding who was in charge of the Leningrad Temple. There were two rival factions who disagreed about the restoration procedures. The proposed visit by His Holiness to Leningrad to consecrate the Temple once it would be restored would have to be postponed.  

We also learned that there was much infighting among the various Buddhist factions in Mongolia as well. Although there were plans for His Holiness to confer the Kalachakra initiation in Ulaan Baatar as part of his visit to Buryatia in July, this too had to be postponed. It did not take place until August 1995. 

I participated in detailed talks about plans to restore the medical monastery, the Menba Datsang, in Ulaan Baatar, under the leadership of Dr. Natsodorji, where future doctors would be trained. It was decided to approach UNESCO to take the restoration of Tibeto-Mongolian medicine under their umbrella, which could then include our project with Lukyanova. His Holiness recommended that in our project proposal, we emphasize that Mongolia had a much more credible claim than the Russians for preserving Mongolian/Tibetan culture. Dr. Choedrak pointed out, however, that once a UNESCO connection could be established, Tibetan medicine would gain worldwide credibility not from their future general use in Mongolia but from its more immediate use in successfully treating Chernobyl patients at the huge Soviet government hospitals.

Giani Borasi, a well-connected Italian businessman, offered to approach the Italian Embassy to try to gain their financial support for this project. His Holiness asked Dr. Natsodorji and me to coordinate the entire Mongolian project, and I wrote a report and proposal for Borasi to present to the Embassy. Nothing, however, came from the plan to garner either UNESCO or Italian support. 

Lukyanova and Rabdonov visited Dharamsala in February 1991 for extensive meetings at the Tibetan Medical and Astro Institute with Shewo Lobsang Dhargye, the Director, and for the signing of the contracts that I drafted. I also had several meetings with Tenzin Tethong, the Prime Minister of the Tibetan Government-in-Exile, regarding further plans for our projects in the USSR and Mongolia. Very little, however, materialized as conditions were becoming increasingly unstable throughout the former and current communist world.

On March 21, 1991, under Gorbachev’s initiative, a national referendum was held on preserving the Soviet Union as a Union of Sovereign States. Although six republics boycotted the vote, hardliners in the other republics voted for its adaption. The plan, however, was never implemented due to the attempted coup that occurred in August, two days before the official signing of the treaty to create this union.

Before that, on April 9, 1991, Georgia declared independence from the USSR, the second to do so after Lithuania. On June 25, 1991, Slovenia and Croatia declared separation from Yugoslavia. A succession of wars started immediately afterwards in Yugoslavia as more states separated as well. On July 10, Yeltsin became President of the Russian Federation and Khasbulatov became Chairman of the Supreme Soviet of Russia. 

On that same day, July 10, His Holiness began a 20-day visit to the USSR, accompanied by Dr. Choedrak. He started in Ulan Ude at the celebration of the 250th anniversary of czarist Russia’s official acceptance of Buddhism in Buryatia and included a visit to Ivolginsky Datsan. In Chita District, He visited the sacred Mount Alkhanai and Aginsky Datsan. In Moscow, His Holiness gave a public talk at the Palace of Culture. The largest audience, however, was in Elista, Kalmykia where His Holiness gave extensive teachings. 

From August 18 to 22, hardliners of the Communist Party staged a coup in protest at President Gorbachev’s reforms. They detained Gorbachev but failed to detain President Yeltsin. Although a critic of Gorbachev, Yeltsin overthrew the coup and, on August 23, he suspended the Communist Party in Russia. Gorbachev resumed his position as President of the USSR, but now Yeltsin became the dominant leader as the Soviet Union continued to fall apart. 

In the middle of this brief, failed coup, Estonia declared independence on August 20. The next day, Latvia declared its independence as well, followed by Ukraine on August 24 and Belarus on August 25. 

Also falling during the midst of this coup, I started my next East European tour on August 21, 1991, which included Czechoslovakia (Prague), Poland (Gdansk, Kraków and Kuhary), Hungary (Budapest and Miskolc), Romania (Oradea and Cluj), and Bulgaria (Sofia). 

Stopping first in Prague right in the midst of the Moscow coup, I found the tension to be high with people quite frightened that this might be signaling the return of communism. There was a feeling of great relief in the city when news arrived the next day of the failure of the coup in Moscow. 

In the six months since I had been there, Prague had undergone quite a noticeable change. There was now much trade with China and many Chinese goods could be found in the stores. Western advertising was now visible in the city, much of which was in German, which some people found uncomfortable. The Slovakia separatist movement was not yet very popular, though some politicians in Bratislava were promoting it. President Havel had said that if Slovakia wanted independence, he could not force it to stay with the Czech half of the country.

The connection between President Havel and the Tibetans had continued to grow. Earlier that year, Dr. Dorjee Wangyal from the Tibetan Medical and Astro Institute in Dharamsala had visited Prague to treat President Havel, and Lodi Gyari Rinpoche had visited twice. Also, earlier that year, a Friends of Tibet was founded. This time in Prague I gave a series of lectures at Charles University and at the School of Young Technicians. 

I then went on to Poland, where I learned of the political complications leading up to December’s election. Lech Wałęsa was excellent as a trade union leader, but now as President it was difficult to solve all the problems the country was facing. There was much economic unrest and uncertainty, and the welfare programs for pensioners were under threat. The budget for education and science had been reduced by 30%, and the schools had to eliminate four hours a week of classes, although they had added two hours a week of compulsory Catholic education. 

The election for the new Parliament would be held October 27. I met with Jacek Kuron, considered the “godfather of the Polish opposition,” who would be running for MP. Although he was keen for a visit to Poland by His Holiness, he advised that it would be best to wait until after the election to discuss further plans. Nevertheless, there was popular interest for such a visit. In the previous months a Polish Tibetan Friendship Association had been founded. While there, I lectured at Dharma centers in Gdansk, Kraków and Kuhary.

I then went on to Hungary. The economy was better here than in any other former communist country I visited. Many people had started businesses and already there were many wealthy persons. The pensioners, however, and the poor were having difficulties. In addition, there were about 40,000 Hungarian refugees from Romania. The Chinese did not need visas to come to Hungary and there were about 40,000 Chinese in Hungary doing business. There was, however, interest in starting a Hungarian Tibetan Support Group. 

There were now several Buddhist groups in Hungary and one, with Korean backing, was planning to build a large stupa. They hoped to invite His Holiness to consecrate it when finished. Hetenye had been kicked out of the Buddhist Mission due to his communist ties and the center was renamed as the Arya Maitreya Mandala. I gave a series of talks there as well as to students at a high school in Miskolc.

While in Hungary, I made a side trip to the Transylvanian region of Romania. Transylvania had been an autonomous region of Hungary for 1000 years, but had been made part of Romania after World War I. Since World Wat II, there had been a large influx of Romanian colonists, who now outnumbered the Hungarians. Before the overthrow of President Nicolae Ceaușescu, everyone was against the communists. Now, the Romanians and Hungarians were against each other. There was much ethnic hatred and violence, sometimes very brutal. The Securitate secret police had merely changed their name and were now part of the army. Although they continued to exist, they did not do anything to stop this violence. People had more freedom than before, even if it was freedom to fight each other.

I gave public talks to mixed Hungarian and Romanian groups in Oradea and Cluj. Oradea was one of the most polluted cities I had ever been in. The government had built a large chemical factory right in the city, which spewed yellow toxic fumes day and night. The infrastructure was extremely poor. While I was there, the house I stayed in, for instance, had no water. The people I met, however, were very welcoming and extremely grateful for my visit and talks.

After returning to Budapest, I flew to Sofia, Bulgaria, on September 15, where I had meetings over the next three days with General Stoyan Andreev (National Security advisor to President Zhelyu Zhelev) and Solomon Passy (MP and President of the Atlantic Club of Bulgaria, which was making the formal invitation to His Holiness as a religious leader) and Dr. Svechnikov (now President of the Bulgarian-Tibetan Friendship Society) to discuss the plans and schedule for His Holiness’s upcoming visit. General Andreev explained that people had been distrustful of the new reforms, especially since the main party in the Parliament (the Socialists) had not condemned the Russian coup in August, although President Zhelev and his government (the Green Party) had condemned it. After the coup failed, however, the people were a bit more convinced that Bulgaria would not revert to communism. 

His Holiness’s visit was being widely publicized, and General Andreev hoped it would be able to help calm the nation and show that there was real reform and respect once more for human rights and religion. Bulgaria had a history of respecting human rights before the communist period. For example, Bulgaria did not send its Jews to concentration camps although it had been an ally of Nazi Germany. 

Traditionally, Bulgaria was the Eastern European country that had been the closest to Russia, since Russia had liberated them from the Ottoman Turks in 1878. Nevertheless, Bulgaria, he informed me, was the first country to recognize the three Baltic states. While I was in Bulgaria, the three had been admitted to the United Nations on Sept 17. He added that Bulgaria would like to be a leader in helping countries become fully independent of their old communist regimes. 

Bulgaria was very poor. It never had an industrial revolution. Since the fall of communism the previous year, the price of bread and most food had increased tenfold as there were food and fuel shortages, but salaries had only gone up two- or threefold. As in Romania, the collective farms had owned the tractors and other agricultural equipment. Now that the land was privately owned, common farmers had no machinery. Many relied on donkeys and horses to do the field work as in the premodern days.

I met with Professor Fol of the Institute of Thracology, which had an agreement of cooperation with the LTWA. But the institute had no money and there was danger that it would be closed down by the Bulgarian Academy of Sciences. For this reason, they had been unable to implement any of the programs they had negotiated with LTWA. While in Sofia, I gave private teachings in people’s homes.

During the two weeks before His Holiness’s visit to Bulgaria, while I lectured in Switzerland, Italy and Spain, Armenia declared independence on September 21. Between September 29 and October 2. His Holiness paid a state visit to Lithuania, where he met with Vytauts Landsbergis (Speaker of the Supreme Council), Gediminas Vagnorius (Prime Minister of Lithuania) and Anatolijs Gorbunovs (Acting President of Latvia). While in Estonia, October 3 to 4, His Holiness met with Ülo Nugis (Chairman of the Supreme Council) and delivered public lectures to large crowds in Tartu and Tallinn and a private seminar to students at the Mahayana Institute at Tartu University, hosted by Linnart Mäll.  

I returned to Sofia October 1 and checked the final preparations for His Holiness’s short visit, October 4 to 5. His Holiness arrived with a large team, and we all stayed at the official residence for visiting heads of states. It was an enormous modern building and totally empty except for our party. During the visit, His Holiness had a formal, but very warm meeting with President Zhelev and his ministers, addressed the Atlantic Club and the Bulgarian-Tibetan Friendship Society, held a press conference and delivered a lecture at Sofia University “St. Kliment Ohridski.” After His Holiness’s visit, I left for the United States and a tour around South America.

Many dramatic events unfolded in the Soviet Union during the rest of the year. Starting at the end of August and continuing until the end of the year, the remaining republics, one by one, declared independence from the USSR. On December 8, 1991, the Commonwealth of Independent States (CIS) was founded as a free trade zone between the Russian Federation, Ukraine and Belarus. On December 21, the rest of the republics joined the CIS, except for the Baltics and Georgia. President Gorbachev then dissolved the Soviet Union on December 26. Yeltsin continued as President of the Russian Federation.

I returned to Eastern Europe March 6, 1992, having toured and lectured throughout the United States, South America and Western Europe non-stop since leaving Bulgaria. This time, the visit included Germany (Berlin), Poland (Warsaw), the Russian Federation (Leningrad), Latvia (Riga), Estonia (Tartu, Tallinn), again the Russian Federation (Moscow), Ukraine (Donetsk and Kiev), Belarus (Minsk), and Lithuania (Vilnius).   

I started in Berlin, where East Berliners could now join my lectures at a Buddhist Society in the West. Although reunification was now almost a year and a half old, there was still a huge difference between the West and the East. The Soviets had done hardy any reconstruction while they had controlled East Germany and much work was needed. The West Germans had to pay an extra “solidarity” tax to pay for the reconstruction and resented that bitterly. The East Germans were treated as second-class citizens and, after the initial euphoria, were disappointed at the way they were treated. When there was duplication of offices and jobs in West and East Berlin, for instance the office for water treatment, one of the offices had been closed and many of its employees dismissed.  

I went on to Poland. Elections had been held for Parliament in October 1991. Before the election, Wałęsa had said that all communists should be persecuted for their crimes. This caused all the former communists to vote for the Socialist Democratic Party (the former Communist Party) to defend themselves. Wałęsa’s party came in fourth. The real power seemed to be held by the Christian National Union, which was trying to turn Poland into a fundamentalist Catholic state. Parliament would not accept the latest budget. People were disgusted with the government, and the coalition was constantly changing.

While there, I lectured at Warsaw University and at a Buddhist center. I met with Prof. Bronislaw Geremek, the Chairman of the Parliamentary Committee on Foreign Affairs, who had spoken out on Tibetan human rights while in Beijing the previous year. He and a few of the MP’s were very interested in arranging for a visit of His Holiness to Poland. They suggested that the Polish branch of the Helsinki Committee, the most prestigious human rights group in Eastern Europe, give the invitation. That visit materialized the next year, in May 1993, when His Holiness finally met with Lech Wałęsa.

I then went to Leningrad, now returned to its old name, St. Petersburg. Sherab Jamtso, now called Gelong Samayev, had completely broken himself off from the Buddhist Board and, although still subject to many scandals, was still the self-appointed abbot of the Leningrad Temple. Its renovation was still incomplete and, although His Holiness had agreed to offer the materials for filling the main Buddha statue and to send monks to fill it, they were not ready for this. Nevertheless, I gave a series of lectures at the Temple, as well as at the Buddhist Home Center.

There were numerous Buddhist and other spiritual centers in St. Petersburg. The whole problem there and throughout the former Soviet Union was that many false and sometimes crazy teachers – for instance, one claiming to be the King of Shambhala – were starting centers, and people did not have the background to differentiate false from qualified teachers.

From St. Petersburg, I went to Riga, Latvia. The Latvian government was being run at this time by old communists who had merely changed the name of their party. These old communists held all the economic power, and corruption was at an all-time high. I met with Guido Trepsha, who was publishing His Holiness’s books with Terentyev at Narthang Publications. He wished to start a Latvian-Tibetan Support Group. While in Riga, I lectured at the Latvian Academy of Arts.

I then went on to Estonia, where I learned that the Prime Minister and most of the Cabinet at the time of His Holiness’s visit had been overthrown, and now most of the political leaders were former communists and pro-China. In general, though, the government was in chaos as a constitution had still not been adopted. Plans for Tibetan Cultural Centers both in Tallinn and Riga were discouraged. While in Estonia, I lectured at the Mahayana Institute at Tartu University and at the Estonian Buddhist Society in Tallinn. 

I then went on to Moscow on March 26. It looked at that time like the Russian Federation would break into many further parts. Already, Chechnia, Tatarstan, and Kabarino-Balkaria had claimed independence, and soon Dagestan and Bashkirstan were expected to follow. They were all Muslim areas. The Don Cossack Republic wanted to join with Kalmykia. There were even demonstrations in Buryatia. The economic situation in the Russian Federation was worse than in any of the other CIS countries. Although there was more food in the stores than in the past, it was too expensive for most people to afford. The average salary was US$ 10 a month (1000 roubles) and a kilo of butter, for instance, cost 170 roubles. There were very few cars on the streets since gasoline was too expensive.

When His Holiness had been in Moscow in July of 1991, He had agreed to a proposal to open a Tibetan Cultural Center in Moscow. In October, while in Moscow, Ngawang Rabgyal, who would head the center, and Terentyev had written a draft constitution for the Center. The International Foundation for the Survival of Humanity that was to partner with it in a joint venture had now fallen out of favor due to its association with Gorbachev. A new law had dropped the requirement for joint ventures, and Lukyanova had offered office space in her All-Russia Institute of Traditional Medicine. The draft constitution, however, still needed finalization in Dharamsala.

Lukyanova was now receiving full financial support for our medical project from President Yeltsin and the Russian Ministry of Health. They had given her a six-room office and three and a half hectares of land to build on. The more extensive properties and buildings offered to us during the Soviet period were no longer available. Lukyanova and the Russian government were restricting the program to the Russian Federation and treating only Russian patients alone, despite the needs of innumerable Chernobyl patients in Ukraine and Belarus. The Ukrainians and Belarusians felt similarly and wanted completely separate, full programs of their own. 

Although not all the medicinal plants needed for making the medicines in Moscow were found in Siberia during Dr. Choedrak’s July 1991 visit, Lukyanova was determined to go ahead. At present, she had only a Buryat doctor treating patients, but some people questioned his abilities. Dr. Dawa Dolma, who had been sent from the Tibetan Medical and Astro Institute in late 1990 to treat the high government officials who had asked for our help [names withheld to protect their confidentiality], would be coming again in May 1992 for a six-month stay. 

The project continued on a much lower scale until Lukyanova died in a plane crash, March 23, 1994. The outcomes had been very successful for the patients who had been treated, but since the affected three countries would not cooperate with each other, since no one was left to coordinate in Moscow and since no one in Russia was paying the plane fares of the Tibetan doctors coming from Dharamsala, the project was sadly abandoned.

At the time of my March 1992 visit, Lukyanova had fired Rabdonov. He was now the executive director of the Buddhist Institute that had been established the previous year by Junsei Tarasawa, a weathy Nichiren Buddhist priest from Japan. It was primarily an educational institute and used rooms at the Moscow Technical University, where it held Tibetan language courses taught by Rabdonov.     

Meanwhile, the Buddhist Board would have to vacate its Moscow building on May 1, 1992. If the government did not give them another building, they would have to stop having a representative in Moscow. The Buddhist Board was still unclear about its role in the new Russia. They still liked to think of themselves in terms of a communist-style centralized bureaucracy in which they were the sole representatives of Buddhism in Russia. In reality, they represented only the Buryats and perhaps also the Tuvans since they were still too weak to organize themselves. The Kalmyks were completely separate.

On March 29, I flew to Donetsk Ukraine on Ukrainian Airlines. There was no infrastructure yet at the airports for this airline. We passengers on the flight had to carry our luggage to the plane and load it ourselves in the baggage hold. The flight was overbooked, and several passengers stood in the aisle the whole way. Once in Donetsk, passport control was done on the plane, and then we had to unload our luggage ourselves. 

Donetsk, where the largest coal mines in the former USSR were located, had an international population of many Russians but also other ethnic groups. In Ukraine, people identified themselves not so much by the language they spoke, but rather by the church they belonged to – mostly the Greek Catholic Church in the West of Ukraine and either the Russian or Ukrainian Orthodox Church in the rest of the country. Since the breakup of the Soviet Union, interest in religion had re-emerged, which included an interest in Buddhism. As in Moscow, however, this saw the emergence of several charlatan teachers claiming to represent Tibetan Buddhism. I met with the head of the Religious Council of the Donetsk Region, who shared his concern about this with me.  

In Donetsk, I taught at Donetsk Open University, where six faculty members were teaching about Buddhism and other Asian religions with only a minimal background in the subject matter but with the wish to learn more. The dean, whom I met, had sent a request to Dharamsala to include his university for a lecture tour of Geshes they would be sending to Russia in the future.

I also went to Kiev, where I lectured at the House of Scholars and met with Professor Nikolai Kulinich, the Deputy Director of the Ukrainian Institute of International Relations and Consultant for the Ukrainian Parliamentary Committee on Foreign Relations. He explained that President Leonid Kravchuk had been the head of the Ideology Department of the Central Committee of the Ukrainian Communist Party. Most people were unforgiving of his communist past, but there were no strong opposition parties. President Kulinich predicted that the CIS would fall apart by the end of the year. All its members hated Russia and hated any attempt at central authority from Moscow. Although I did not bring up the issue of needing to work together with Moscow on our medical project, it was clear that Ukraine would not agree to any form of cooperation with people involved with our project in Moscow.

From Kiev, I went to Minsk, Belarus, perhaps the greyest city I had ever been to in the former Soviet Union. Having been almost totally destroyed in World War II, it had been rebuilt almost exclusively with Soviet-style apartment blocks of identical, colorless buildings. The Parliament and, within it, the Supreme Council of Belarus, had been elected from among the old Communist Party officials. The President, Stanislav Shushkevich, had been a professor of nuclear physics, and was the only alternative to the communists but was considered weak and ineffective and people were dissatisfied. There was great need for reform, but change was happening much too slowly. In addition, the people of Minsk resented the economic burden of having their city be the capital of the CIS, and most wanted to see the CIS be dissolved.

I met with the Foreign Minister, Piotr Krafchenko, who explained that although the foreign policy of Belarus had not yet been fully formulated, the priority was to have good economic relations with China. The main problem in Belarus, he said, was Chernobyl, but when I mentioned our medical project based in Moscow, he indicated that Belarus would never cooperate with something officially supported by Russia. If we wished to have any association with the Belarus government, we should make concrete proposals for a separate program with them. This was, of course, not possible. While in Minsk, I gave a public lecture to a large audience at the Institute of Culture.

I then took the train to Vilnius Lithuania on April 5, my last stop on this tour. While I had been in Minsk, a resolution had been passed in the Congress of People’s Deputies of Russia to strip Yeltsin of the executive powers they had granted him in late 1991 to manage the economy. He was able to convince them to drop the resolution and be patient with the reforms. But it indicated the level of instability and uncertainty that dominated at the time.

In Lithuania, I was the official guest of the Parliamentary Tibetan Support Group, and I had a meeting with ten of its prominent members. This meeting was the first item on that evening’s TV news. Lithuania at that time had no president and Landsbergis, as Head of Parliament and a long-time supporter of His Holiness and the Tibet issue, was the most powerful person in the country.

The Parliamentary Group, with the backing of Landsbergis, proposed the opening of an Office of His Holiness in Vilnius. It could have jurisdiction over not only the Baltics, but also Ukraine, Belarus, Poland, Czechoslovakia and Hungary, since they would never agree to be under a Moscow office. We also discussed possible preliminary steps for a Lithuanian recognition of the Tibetan Government in Exile in Dharamsala. While in Vilnius, I lectured at the University of Vilnius, sponsored by the Lithuanian Institute of Buddhist Studies. This ended my tour on April 8, 1992. 

The offer to establish an office for His Holiness in Vilnius never worked out. In September 1992, an Office of Tibet was established in Budapest to represent His Holiness throughout Eastern Europe. The Baltics would be under the jurisdiction of the Office of Tibet in London, together with the Scandinavian countries. On April 24, 1993, an Office of Tibet was established in Moscow to represent His Holiness in Russia, the rest of the CIS and Mongolia.

Also in September 1992, His Holiness visited Tuva and Kalmykia, where he consecrated the land on which the new monasteries would be built. While in Kalmykia, His Holiness appointed the young Kalmyk-American teenager, Telo Rinpoche, as the Shadjin Lama, the spiritual head of the Kalmyk Buddhists. 

Later that year, on December 9, 1992, Yeltsin survived a no-confidence vote in the Russian Congress of People’s Deputies. In contrast with the political turmoil in most of the former Soviet Union, Czechoslovakia peacefully split into the Czech Republic and Slovakia on December 31, 1992.