Geden Sheddup Choikorling Monastery was opened on October 5, 1996 in the presence of more than 30,000 people and is the first Tibetan Buddhist monastery to be built in the Republic of Kalmykia, since its beginning as an autonomous oblast in 1920. The monastery also is the Republic's first Buddhist place of worship since Joseph Stalin

Joseph Stalin

Joseph Vissarionovich Stalin was the Premier of the Soviet Union from 6 May 1941 to 5 March 1953. He was among the Bolshevik revolutionaries who brought about the October Revolution and had held the position of first General Secretary of the Communist Party of the Soviet Union's Central Committee...

 ordered the destruction of all Buddhist temples and monasteries during the Collectivization era and the Great Purge

Great Purge

The Great Purge was a series of campaigns of political repression and persecution in the Soviet Union orchestrated by Joseph Stalin from 1936 to 1938...

 in the 1930s.

Geden Sheddup Choikorling is a Tibetan name, translated as "A Holy Abode for Theory and Practice of the School of Gelugpa." This name was given to the monastery by His Holiness the 14th Dalai Lama who also chose its location – on the steppes just outside the Republic's capital city, Elista

Elista

-Twin towns/sister cities:Elista is twinned with the following sister cities. Howell, New Jersey, United States Lhasa, Tibet, China. Ulan-Ude, Buryat Republic, Russia-See also:*Geden Sheddup Choikorling Monastery*Burkhan Bakshin Altan Sume-External links:...

, during his first visit to the Republic in the summer of 1991.