Belgrade pagoda

Kalmyk Buddhist Temple, also known as Kalmyk Home, was a Buddhist temple in Belgrade, capital of Serbia. It was built in 1929 as one of the first Buddhist temples in Europe, served for the religious purposes until 1944, and completely demolished in the mid-1960s.

Pagoda was located in the neighboordhood known today as Učiteljsko Naselje, in Zvezdara municipality. Učiteljsko Naselje is a section of the larger Konjarnik neighborhood. The street in which it was based was named Budistička (Buddhist) after the temple was built, and today is named Budvanska (Budva street).

After the October Revolution in 1917, a huge number of people from Russia, supporters of the White movement, emigrated to Yugoslavia, including Pyotr Wrangel, general of the White Army. Among them were hundreds of Kalmyks, Western Mongolian people of Buddhist faith, who inhabited the shores of the Caspian Sea. From April 1920 to late 1923, some 500 Kalmyks entered Serbia, and 400 of them settled in Belgrade, thus creating the largest Kalmyk colony in Europe.

They settled on the western outskirts of Belgrade: Karaburma, Bulbulder, Cvetkova Pijaca, Crveni Krst. However, the majority of them settled in Mali Mokri Lug, the suburban village of Belgrade at the time. Having several priests in their community, already in 1923 they rented rooms in the still existing house in the Vojislava Ilića street No 47 for religious service. In 1925 they moved it to Metohijska street No 51 and started an action for building a proper temple. The Kalmyks were headed by the former colonel of the Russian Imperial Army, Abusha Alekseyev (1886–1938) and the Buddhist elder Manchuda Borinov (1872-1928).

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