Heritage of Mongols: The Story of a Russian Orthodox Church in Transbaikalia
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Heritage of Mongols: The Story of a Russian Orthodox Church in Transbaikalia Nikolay N. Kradin 1,2 & Nikolay P. Kradin 3 # The Author(s) 2018
Abstract The Kondui Palace is the world-famous archaeological site of the Mongolian Empire’s period. However, few people know that the ruins of the palace were used for the construction of the Orthodox Virgin church in the Kondui village in the early nineteenth century. This paper describes the construction of the church with regard to studies of the Mongolian palace. Keywords Mongols . Kondui palace . Orthodox architecture . Siberia . Transbaikalia .
Chinggis khan
Introduction In the vicinity of the Kondui village in Transbaikalia, some 750 km to the east of Lake Baikal, lies an important archaeological site known as Konduisky gorodok (the town of Kondui). Even though the name became common both in the archaeological literature and among the locals, this place is, of course, no town at all, but an entire palace complex complete with various auxiliary buildings. The number of nomads’ tents around it is unknown. It is, perhaps, the number of inhabitants that allows calling Kondui a town. The site itself dates * Nikolay N. Kradin [email protected] Nikolay P. Kradin [email protected]
1
Laboratory of Archaeology, Ethnology, and Anthropology, Institute of Mongolian, Buddhist, and Tibetan Studies, Siberian Branch of the Russian Academy of Sciences, 6 Sakhyanovoy St, Ulan-Ude 670042, Russia
2
Department of Archaeology, Institute of History, Archaeology and Ethnology, Far East Branch of the Russian Academy of Sciences, 89 Pushkinskaya St, Vladivostok 690001, Russia
3
Department of Architecture and Urban Studies, Pacific State University, 136 Tikhookeanskaya St, Khabarovsk 680035, Russia
International Journal of Historical Archaeology
back to the Mongolian Empire. It has been thoroughly investigated and described by archaeologists (Kiselev 1958, 1965; Kradin et al. 2016; Kuznetsov 1925; Steinhardt 1988). The village of Kondui lies 7 km to the north of the palace. This article focuses not only on the palace but also on an Orthodox church in the village. The church was named after the Nativity of the Most Holy Mother of God and Holy Martyrs Cyricus and Julietta. The palace and the church are approximately one-hour walk from each other, but the historical periods in which they existed are more than four centuries apart. One might ask what these two objects share in common? Surprisingly, a close mutual relationship characterizes them. As it turns out, the church was literally built from the ruins of the palace. First, we consider how the church was erected and provide its description. After that, we elaborate on the archaeological discovery of the palace and its study by scholars. In conclusion, we briefly discuss the importance of this church in the history of architecture and archaeology.
The Idol Temple of the Devil East Transbaikalia is a territory on the Russian-Mongolian and Russian-Chinese borders. In the eighteenth and nineteenth centuries, it was populated by the Russian
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