In this interview Oleg Mandzhiev talks about his parents, grandfather, himself and his work. Oleg was born in 1949 in Novosibirsk. His father, Lidzhi Ismailovich, a Hero of the Soviet Union, was not deported as were the rest of the Kalmyk population. When his wife was sent to Siberia, Lidzhi followed her, despite being warned that he would lose his title. In Siberia, Oleg recalls, his mother went to work in a factory under military escort. One day she had her boots stolen. She tore a sleeve off her coat, wrapped her legs with it, and walked to her work station. Oleg reminisces that when he went to the first grade in secondary school he sobbed, to which his teacher snapped, ‘What are you sobbing for? When you will betray your motherland as your parents did, then you will sob for real. Now it is too early for this’. Oleg’s grandfather Ismail, who was a lama educated in Tibet, was deported to the Kuril Islands (before the mass exile of the Kalmyks in 1943). According to a legend, the commandant of the labour camp where Ismail was imprisoned had a sickly daughter. The commandant took his daughter to all doctors that he could find, but no one could cure her. Upon hearing that a Buddhist healer had arrived at his camp, the commandant called Ismail to his office and said, ‘If you cure my daughter I will give you whatever is possible in this camp. But if you fail, you will regret it’. Ismail cured the girl. Oleg recalls how his grandfather sent from the labour camp food parcels and on one occasion even a pair of American boots for Oleg. One day Ismail wrote a letter to his son, Lidzhi, foretelling him the date of his own death. At that time Lidzhi worked in a military factory in Novosibirsk, and whenever the factory received special orders the workers would be locked until they delivered the order. Having thus been locked in the factory for two weeks, Lidzhi returned home to find a letter from his father. The date of the prophesized death coincided with the day when Lidzhi opened the letter. Oleg recalls that he saw his father cry for the first time. Oleg’s father Lidzhi had two brothers both of whom fought in the Red Army and returned home alive, just as it was prophesized by their father Ismail. In 1957 it was the first time, as Oleg recalls, when Kalmyk songs were broadcast on the radio. The Kalmyks were returning home en mass, and many trains carrying them passed through Novosibirsk. Oleg’s father took a week off his job, bought new jackets for his sons and...