The religious situation and the religious communities in Buryatia

The paper is devoted to the description of the religious situation in Republic of Buryatia. The development of religion in such multi-national and polyconfessional region as Buryatia is the one of the most interesting themes. The aim of this paper is to describe the religious situation in the Republic of Buryatia through the changes of religious organizations and communities. In this case, the religious situation is a system of interaction of religious associations, political and non-governmental institutions, and social groups referring to the objects of worship, religious ideas and feelings. Religious situation in Buryatia may be characterized trough the effects of a few main factors. The first is the process of religious revival as the very important ideological construction connected with the confessional and ethnic discourse. The other one is the religious governmental policy, non-governmental political institutions and pressure groups activity. Actually, many authors noted that during post-Soviet period Russian religious policy changed from the liberal to rather conservative. However some religious ideas, especially the Orthodoxy, were infiltrated to the public sphere, even at the legal level.