During the social and political talk show "Most" on NTV channel, the President of FIDE, the former head of Kalmykia Kirsan Ilyumzhinov has presented an unexpected interpretation of the history, saying that Kalmyks are descendants of Chinese. The video of the show is available on the video-sharing website YouTube."There are Oirat tribes in China’s Inner Mongolia. 400 years ago, some of these tribes - Kalmyks, because of civil wars, broke away and went through Mongolia and Siberia from China to the land located between the Black Sea and the Volga River. The Kalmyk Khan signed the agreement with the Russian Tsar Vasily Shuisky on Kalmyks voluntary joining the Russian Empire in 1609," said the president of FIDE.
"The Kalmyks defended the southern borders of Russia for a long time. However, the Chinese leadership opposed the Kalmyks leaving China during all that time, so they regularly sent gifts to Kalmyk khans, asking them to return to their homeland," stressed Ilyumzhinov.
"Ubashi Khan led Kalmyks back to China in 1771. Kalmyks left Volga River region, but there were so many of them that it took them the whole winter to pass over the river and get to China through the Kazakh steppe. When Volga River ice melted, part of the Kalmyks was left in its lower reaches," said the head of FIDE.
"The majority of them were able to return to China and live in Xinjiang now".
According to Ilyumzhinov, Kalmyks living in China and Russia have the common language. There are about five to ten per cent of Chinese words in the Chinese Kalmyks language, same as in the Russian Kalmyks language.
"The first generation of Chinese living abroad is called Huaqiao and the fifth generation and older - Huai. They call us just Huai," stated Ilyumzhinov.
