Elista - the pearl of steppe

Elista – the pearl of  steppe.

Elista was founded in 1865 as a small settlement. The name is from Kalmyk elsen “sandy”. In November 1920 Elista became the administrative center of Kalmyk Autonomous Oblast. By the early 1930s, Elista was transformed into a small city as a collectivization policies of Joseph Stalin forced many Kalmyks to abandon their traditional pastoral nomadic lifestyle in exchange for a modern, sedentary and urban lifestyle.  In October 1935 Elista was recognized as the capital of the Kalmyk ASSR.

There are a lot of places of interest in Elista.  Pagoda  “Seven Days ” is located on the main square of  Elista. The name was given to this construction  on the number of storeys, equal to the number of  days in the week.

Memorial “Exodus and Return” is  the monument to victims of the deportation of the Kalmyks in December 1943 by Ernest Neizvestny.  

During his visit in 1998 His Holiness the 14th Dalai Lama chose  a location west of the town  center to build a new Buddhist  temple for city residents. It is called “Golden abode of Buddha Shakyamuni”. It was opened in December 2005.

Some western tourists started to visit Elista from the mid-1990s and more after  City Chess  received publicity as the host city of the 1998 Chess Olympiad.

Monument to Ostap Bender in Elista is the first monument to the hero I. Ilf and Petrov in Russia. It was installed in 1999 on the avenue named Ostap Bender far from the Chess City.

In the park of “Friendship” you can find a monument to Kalmyk folk storyteller Eelyan Ovla, who sang songs from the works of folklore “Dzhangar”. It is the most famous Kalmyk epic well known around the world.

Manu of the world have cities-

Wonderful, wonderful, like a dream

But for me – repeated willingness

The most beautiful – my Elista.

In the early years I was floating in the sky

As a child, I always believed in a miracle

Joy gave me wings

Magic City- my Elista.