Sannikov, Mikhail Vasilievich. The dog barks - the caravan moves on

60 years ago, on the outskirts of the Sverdlovsk region, around iron ore deposits, the city of Kachkanar and its mining and processing plant arose. In the mid-90s, in the mountain forests, just a few kilometers from the quarry, a graduate of the Buryat datsan founded a Buddhist monastery, the construction of which is still ongoing. Several years ago, the plant (owned by the Evraz Group of Companies, 31% of whose shares are owned by Roman Abramovich) announced a new development zone, the monastery falls within its boundaries. Thus, the interests of the Buddhist community and the metallurgical corporation intersected - and according to the law should not be resolved in favor of the monastery. In the meantime, Buddhists argue with the plant authorities and bailiffs, life continues on the top of the mountain.

Over the course of a year, The Village photographer Anna Marchenkova documented how Shad Tchup Ling lives and who finds refuge where the winter temperature drops to minus 40. We tell the stories of people who are building a Buddhist monastery on the outskirts of the Urals.

Dokshit and its top

In Russia, Buddhism is the traditional religion of three peoples - Buryats, Tuvans and Kalmyks. All of them profess Tibetan, or northern, Buddhism, and the main Buddhist center of the country is located in Ulan-Ude. There, at the Ivolginsky datsan, there is a Buddhist University and the residence of the main Buddhist of Russia. Every year, two dozen novices - huvaraks - are recruited to the university, and for five years they study Buddhist philosophy, oriental medicine, tantrism and meditation techniques, Buryat and Tibetan languages. As in a secular university, graduates receive diplomas of higher education, as well as religious ranks: men become lamas, women - khandamas.

Now in Russia there are just over half a million practicing Buddhists; monasteries and temples operate in Kalmykia, Buryatia, Tuva, Irkutsk, Trans-Baikal Territory, Moscow and St. Petersburg. The only monastery in the Urals, where the Buddhist religion has never been traditional, began to be built in the spring of 1995 by former military sniper Mikhail Sannikov.

In 1981, under a contract, he went to serve in Afghanistan, where he destroyed caravans with weapons from Pakistan. After the service, in the early 90s, Mikhail entered the tantric faculty of the institute at the Ivolginsky datsan, from where he left with a new name - now the lama’s name is Sanye Tenzin Dokshit. The teacher, Pema Jang, instructed Dokshit to build a monastery in the Urals - and he himself chose the place. In 1995, the lama climbed Mount Kachkanar and began building a Buddhist center in no man’s land, not far from the local mining and processing plant. Dokshit named the future monastery at an altitude of 887 meters in the Urals Shad Tchup Ling, or “Place of Practice and Realization.”

Stupas among the snow

At the top, the lama built the first house with his own hands: he burned meter-long boulders on fires, pounded them with a sledgehammer, installed electricity, and built a lift for heavy loads on a steep slope. Here he brought the first students - 22 years later they turned a wild mountain plateau into a Buddhist complex of several living rooms, a yoga room, a library, a workshop, warehouses and ritual premises.

There is no actual monastery on the territory of the complex yet, but there are already religious buildings - Buddhist stupas. On a patch between the rocks, members of the community built the large and small stupas of the Awakening, the Parinirvana Stupa, and laid the foundation of the Tushita Descent from Heaven Stupa. In total, in the tradition of Tibetan Buddhism there are eight types of stupas associated with different stages of the life of the Buddha. They differ in architectural details in the middle part: the Parinirvana stupa has the shape of a bell and symbolizes the perfect wisdom of the Buddha, the Convergence stupa has a large number of steps. It is the stupas that truly protect Shad Tchup Ling because they are cultural heritage sites.

Only Dokshit and a couple of his followers remain permanently at the top of Kachkanar. In summer, 13–15 people live in a small community, in winter - half that number. Faces change, as does the reason why people are here. Students on sabbatical and searching for themselves, former military personnel and aspiring Buddhists rise to the top. The path up begins at the western checkpoint of the plant - the parties maintain silent neutrality, and therefore the path leads several meters into the forest to the left of the checkpoint. In the summer you walk six kilometers on gravel, another two along the roots of mountain pines, moss and kurum; In winter, on a well-trodden path, you can walk even faster. Kachkanar, where 40 thousand miners live, remains far below. Almost 300 kilometers to the west is Yekaterinburg.

Community members keep a logbook on LiveJournal and page“VKontakte”, they answer a common mobile phone. The log records the work done during the day, the names of those who live here permanently, and the number of tourists who have come in recent days. They also leave notes there for those who are going up and want to help the monastery - they ask to buy carrots and cereals, salt, matches, light building materials like self-adhesive film. Occasionally, donations for something large, like solar panels, are announced on social networks.

Danil

Seven years ago, Danil rode 500 kilometers on a bicycle to get to Kachkanar. He is the lama's eldest disciple and never interacts with tourists. A lot has changed here since he came to the top.

“Even in my youth, I wanted to get rich and started playing on the stock exchange and doing online trading. He loved analyzing financial processes and loved adrenaline. I dreamed of earning a lot of money, going somewhere by the sea, sitting at my laptop, drinking juice, and in the evening going to the teacher and talking about the meaning of life.

One day I was sitting at the computer and realized that I was getting dumber. God, I’m 30 years old, I’ll sit in front of the monitor for another 10–20 years - and nothing will change. I started looking online for someone to inspire me and came across the biography of Lama Dokshita. I got on my bike and rode off.

Seven years ago I knew nothing about Buddhism. It was difficult for me to accept this worldview; I did not want to agree that the essence of life is suffering. He said that he was happy - he was afraid that if I took it, I would really suffer.

Over the years I have become a different person, I have probably become sad. Previously, I was so happy about going to clubs, alcohol, girls and purchases that spoke of high status - but now I realized that there was no point in chasing after this, because there would always be not enough. I destroyed everything that made me happy before, but I didn’t find anything that made me happy now. And I’m going to go further: take a monastic vow and go to Mongolia or India to continue my search.”

Shad Tchup Ling without monks

For 20 years, Lama Dokshit has been building a monastery with his own hands and accepting new followers, whom he teaches Buddhist practice and diligent work. But while construction continues on the mountain top, the community remains secular - Buddhist monks are prohibited from engaging in physical labor. If each of those who chop stones or grow vegetables in the garden between the rocks becomes a monk, life in Shad Tchup Ling will stop. And while there are no monks at the top, the “Place of Practice and Realization” cannot be called a monastery.

There is almost an army routine in the community. Life glimmers in a narrow room with a stove and linoleum. During the day, those on duty in the kitchen prepare a simple soup from cereals and carrots, and in the evening, in the room heated for the night, the lama’s students lay out tourist foams and sleeping bags in order to get up promptly at six and start the everyday whirlwind of meditation and work. To stay in the monastery, you just need to ask permission from Dokshit and be prepared for hard physical labor. During the construction season, work on the summit continues until eight in the evening - with breaks for Buddhist practice, lunch and dinner. Twice a week a bathhouse is heated here, and on weekends they meet groups of tourists who sleep interspersed with novices or in tents away from the monastic housing.

A typical morning in August, when it’s already freezing at the top: after two hours of practice, the girls break the ice on a small pond and scoop up water to make breakfast and tea. In the yoga house, novices grind the moss, being careful not to damage the spores. They are needed to sprinkle them on a five-meter sculpture of a dragon, assembled from moss and polymer mesh. In spring the dragon will turn green. Over the summer, the novices built a gym, installed solar panels and erected a Buddha statue above the reliquary where the monastery’s shrines are kept. In the last days of August, men cover the statue with white paint.

By November, the construction season ends, and the students who decided to spend the winter on the mountain melt snow and ice to get water, care for chickens and cows, prepare food for the dogs guarding the approaches to the monastery, chop wood and collect brushwood. The girls are busy sewing and preparing tea: each Buddhist community has its own secret recipe - in Shad Tchup Ling, for example, they love fireweed tea. There are fewer tourists; In winter, novices devote themselves to practice and prayer.

Travelers come and go - some stay for a week, others for six months. Satima lived here the longest; for several years at the top, she sewed thousands of colored flags, patchwork quilts and light fleece suits for students. Satima is currently undergoing training in India to become the first nun from the top of Kachkanar in the spring.

The lama teaches those who want to study Buddhism under the “Discovery of Buddhism” program. The student writes a statement and remains under the watchful eye of the lama for three months, strictly observing the rules of the community. Afterwards, it is customary to ask Dokshit for refuge and perform 111 thousand prostrations - a Buddhist practice that should help the student cleanse himself of vices and develop virtues. In Shad Tchup Ling, prostration is performed on special boards, wearing gloves: the one who performs the ritual lies down on the board, and then rises and stands with his feet where his face was just located. A hundred thousand prostrations take weeks and months, followed by a conversation with the lama. And if Dokshit believes that the student has not completely cleared his mind, he continues to work on himself in a special retreat house, reading mantras alone for days and receiving food from other members of the community. Afterwards the conversation is repeated.

Maksim

The big, bearded and smiling guy at first does not want to tell why he is in the monastery. “You see, I had problems. But it is not important. The main thing is that everything is fine now,” he says and leaves to clear the snow. The next time he decides to talk in the workshop where he worked all day.

“Life went topsy-turvy after the army. I served the required two years and agreed to serve under a contract and signed a report. It was September 2004. The next day I was taken to liberate a school in Beslan.

Those who went through a terrorist attack while protecting hostages are not provided with any psychological help. But something had to be done with these memories. I needed to calm down. I started with heroin and tried every drug available. After three years of service, he returned to his native Kachkanar as a drug addict.

Addiction made me violent. This is understandable in war: if you don’t kill, they will kill you. But even after returning I didn’t consider people as people. I perceived my parents as a source of money, and silently beat strangers who said rude things to me half to death. They were taken to intensive care, and a statement was written against me. Then everything repeated again.

One day I left the house and realized that there was nowhere to fall further. Here, in Kachkanar, everyone knows about the monastery, and out of desperation I went up the mountain. When I told Lama Dokshit about everything, he replied that he would think about what could be done. And he silently gave a job, like everyone else who decides to stay. So, while I was working, it was as if I was turned 180 degrees. I couldn’t get drugs, I got rid of my addiction, and suddenly I started communicating with people. It’s still strange to me that my mother speaks to me again in a loving voice - as if I was a child, and she was putting me to bed.

Valya doesn’t answer the lama, she’s lost in thought. Valya is 31, born in Perm, worked as an accountant in Moscow. She has been tormented by psoriasis almost her entire adult life.

“Before, there were rashes all over my face. I was embarrassed to go out to people: it’s ugly, unaesthetic, and everyone always pesters me with questions. Psoriasis appeared when I had a fight with my parents and left home. They say genetic predisposition is to blame, but no one in my family was sick. I'm the only one unlucky.

In Moscow I worked an awful lot. I was so tired of the routine that I moved out of the rented apartment, gave away all my things and went traveling - I wanted to find a cure for psoriasis. I lived in India for two years. Salt water and the sun gave a cosmetic effect, the disease went inside, but did not disappear. When I returned to Russia, exacerbations began again. Here, on the mountain, I want to cure my head, because any disease is psychosomatic. Once I’m cured myself, I’ll start helping others.

I came here in deep depression, and now no worms can get into my head. It’s too beautiful here for heavy thoughts: I go out into the yard, look around, and happiness goes off scale.”

The dog barks - the caravan moves on

For the last two years, the monastery has been under threat of demolition. In the depths of the mountain on which it is located there are deposits of titanomagnetite ore. Eight kilometers below, explosions thunder every day: after a ten-minute siren, two short signals sound, and clouds of crushed rock rise into the air. When the resource of the Western Quarry is exhausted, Evraz will need a new deposit - the same one next to which the Buddhist stupas of the Shad Tchup Ling monastery stand. The complex falls within the sanitary protection zone of the new quarry, where any construction is prohibited.

Mikhail Sannikov started construction illegally, and therefore the enterprise has the right to expel uninvited guests from its territory. Lama Dokshit tried more than once to legalize his buildings, negotiated with the administration of the city and the plant, but in February 2017, the Bailiff Service issued a decree on the demolition of the monastery. Then the authorities and social activists, including musician Boris Grebenshchikov, stood up for the Buddhists, and the bailiffs, because of the washed out road, were unable to hand over the decree to the lama for a long time. Along the way, it turned out that the construction equipment needed for demolition was unlikely to climb up the steep slope to the top. The question hangs in the air, and life on the mountain continues.

From time to time, a new turn occurs in the conflict. For example, a month ago, State Duma deputy Andrei Alshevskikh submitted a request to the administration of the governor of the Sverdlovsk region about how the group to preserve the monastery is working. In response, the administration sent a letter with the results of an examination conducted by the St. Petersburg State Museum of Religion. They said that the religious organization on top of Kachkanar was illegitimate because it did not have a charter, and could not yet be considered a monastery because it did not have the required number of monks.

In response to the results of the examination, the residents of Shad Tchup Ling shrug their shoulders. After the news about the examination, they contacted the main specialist of the museum, and it turned out that the specialist did not know about the study. In the spring, the first nun of the monastery, Satima, will return from India, and then others will study. The dog will bark, and the caravan will move on.

Plan:

Introduction

• 1 Biography
  • 1.1 Early years and education
  • 1.2 Service in the KGB
  • 1.3 Admission to study at the Ivolginsky datsan
  • 1.4 Studying in Buryatia and Mongolia
  • 1.5 Construction of a temple on Mount Kachkanar
• 2 Relations with Russian Buddhist organizations
  • 2.1 Relationship with the Gelug school after graduation
  • 2.2 Relations with the Karma Kagyu school
Literature

• 4 Materials in the media
Notes

Introduction

Mikhail Vasilievich Sannikov(Tingdzin Dokshit; November 30, 1961, Votkinsk, Udmurt Autonomous Soviet Socialist Republic, RSFSR, USSR) - religious figure, head of the Shadchupling community.

1. Biography

1.1. Early years and education

Mikhail Vasilyevich Sannikov was born on November 30, 1961 in the city of Votkinsk, Udmurt Autonomous Soviet Socialist Republic, into a family of hereditary military men. After finishing the 8th grade of secondary school, he entered the Orthodox Moscow Theological Academy (Zagorsk), however, after studying there for less than a month, he passed the documents and returned home. Having passed exams for the 10th grade of a general education school as an external student in the winter of 1979, he spent the rest of the year at school as a laboratory assistant in the physics and chemistry classrooms. In 1979, he was admitted to the Perm Agricultural Institute without exams; Having passed the exams as an external student and defended his thesis project, he graduated in January 1980. Along the way, he completed civil aviation courses.

1.2. Service in the KGB

In May 1980, he was drafted into the ranks of the USSR Armed Forces and underwent training for 8 months at the Yaroslavl training ground of the GB troops. Having completed his training with the rank of junior lieutenant, in February 1981 he was first sent under a contract to Afghanistan, where for several years he was the commander of a sabotage and reconnaissance group. He also participated in special KGB operations to check the combat readiness of units stationed directly in the USSR. One of the constant main tasks of his group in Afghanistan was the destruction of caravans with weapons going to the Mujahideen from Pakistan.

One day, during another operation, he saw through the scope of a sniper rifle that a horse, carrying bales with dushman weapons, was crying while climbing up the mountain. He refused to shoot at her, for which he ended up in the mountain rescue service in the Pamirs, and later in Altai. In 1987, he retired due to disability with the rank of captain; for several months he worked in the morgue of the Leninsky district of Perm as an orderly and as an assistant to a pathologist. He studied externally at the Nizhny Tagil Art School and worked briefly as a cook in the Kama River Fleet.

1.3. Admission to study at the Ivolginsky datsan

From my former mentor in Japanese sword fighting (Kendo), I learned about the existence of a living tradition of Buddhism in the USSR, in Buryatia, and that it was possible to receive a Buddhist education there. In 1988, I went for the first time to study at the Ivolginsky Datsan, but due to the fact that at the time of arrival all the course groups were already completed, I entered it only the next year. Based on the results of the introductory interview, he was assigned to a group specializing in Buddhist Tantra, which was selected by Lama D. A. Zhalsaraev, and took monastic vows under the name Tingdzin Dokshit. In total, 12 people were recruited into the group, mostly Russians.

1.4. Studying in Buryatia and Mongolia

During 1989-1991, Mikhail Sannikov studied at the Ivolginsky datsan, although officially the Buddhist Institute “Dashi Choynhorling” at the Ivolginsky datsan was opened only in 1991, and at first there were only two faculties: philosophical and medical, and the tantric one was opened later. At this time, Mikhail Sannikov met D.B. Ayusheev, who later headed the Buddhist Traditional Sangha of Russia in the status of Pandito Khambo Lama and was also at the datsan at that time.

In 1991-1993 he lived mainly in Gusinoozersk, then in the Tamchinsky datsan of Dashi Gandan Darzhaling (village of Gusinoe Lake), where he practiced performing rituals. In the summer of 1993, I made my first trip to Mongolia, where received initiation into Yamantaka tantra from Lama Sanzhe-la in a retreat near the city of Orkhontuul (Selenge) [source not specified 109 days] . In October-November of the same year, in the same retreat, he practiced phowa given to him by Lama Ngedub [source not specified 109 days] .

From the end of January to mid-August 1994, near Kharkhorin, under the leadership of Lama Tsyren, a retreat was held on the Six Yogas of Niguma [source not specified 109 days] . He also gave him initiations into the Hevajra and Chakrasamvara tantras [source not specified 109 days] . After a short return to the Ivolginsky datsan, he returned to Kharkhorin, to Erdene-Dzu and remained there until November of the same year, participating in the restoration of the monastery enclosure of stupas under the leadership of Pabo Lama.

1.5. Construction of a temple on Mount Kachkanar

One of the stupas on Mount Kachkanar under construction

After completing his studies at the Ivolginsky datsan, Mikhail Sannikov was planning to finally emigrate to Mongolia. However, in the winter of 1995, his Root Teacher, D. A. Zhalsaraev, gave him the order to build a Buddhist datsan in Russia. He motivated this by the fact that in the west of Russia there is already one Buddhist temple - the St. Petersburg datsan "Gunzechoiney", in the east - temples of Buddhist Buryatia, but in the middle, in the Urals, there is nothing. Zhalsaraev indicated the place where such a temple was to be erected - the top of Mount Kachkanar (Sverdlovsk region).

It was decided to call the temple "Shadtchupling" - "Place of Practice and Realization." On May 16, 1995, on the day of the Buddhist holiday Donshod Khural, Mikhail Sannikov began work on the construction of a monastery at the indicated location. He spent almost the entire remaining, as well as the next, years in stone work on the mountain, periodically going down to the nearby city of Kachkanar to earn money for food.

A fire that occurred in 1998 completely destroyed all the wooden buildings of the temple complex that had been erected at that time, and construction had to be started almost all over again.

The Shadtchupling temple is being built by Mikhail Sannikov himself and a small community of people who took initial monastic vows from him. Materially, the construction is provided by the community of his lay disciples living in the Middle Urals. Construction is extremely complicated by the inaccessibility and remoteness of the temple’s location from the transport infrastructure, as well as by the policy of the management of the Kachkanar mining and processing plant, which claims to develop ore deposits located near the construction site of the temple. In the fall of 2006, the next director of the Kachkanarsky mining and processing plant (owned by Abramovich) climbed the mountain and offered 5 million rubles and help in moving the monastery to another location. Sannikov grinned and replied: we will ask exactly twice as much as you can pay. He laughed, left the gingerbread and left.

2. Relations with Russian Buddhist organizations

The changes that occurred in the life of the country in the first half of the 1990s and influenced the process of formation of Buddhist religious organizations in the new Russia, including the growth of nationalist sentiments in the ethnic republics of the Russian Federation, as well as the growing popularity of Buddhism among the urban population in regions non-traditional for Buddhism, predetermined complex relations between Mikhail Sannikov and modern Buddhist associations in Russia.

2.1. Relationship with the Gelug school after graduation

In December 1996, Mikhail Sannikov visited the Ivolginsky datsan in order to obtain a document certifying the completion of his studies, which both he and the rest of his fellow students were denied by Zhalsaraev under the pretext that the affairs of Russian graduates were transferred to the jurisdiction of the St. Petersburg datsan “Gunzechoiney”. As a result, at the beginning of 1997, Mikhail Sannikov made a trip to St. Petersburg, where he met with several more students of Zhalsaraev’s group, who were awaiting a decision on the issue of issuing a diploma. The abbot of the datsan, Danzan-Khaibzun (Samaev) was in Tunka at that time, and his deputy, Donyod Lama, could not help in this problem.

In 1998, in the second half of June, the lama again visited the Gunzeichoyney datsan with the intention of meeting on the same issue with Yeshe Loda Rinpoche, who was supposed to visit the datsan to grant Yamantaka initiation to the monastic sangha. Although this initiation did take place, the organization of the ceremony - the presence of a large number of lay people, contrary to the announcement, as well as the limitation of the time of Yelo Rinpoche's stay only to the initiation procedure itself on the part of his accompanying persons - did not allow either him or even the Donyed Lama to have a long meeting with Rinpoche, although such Lama Donyod carried out the agreement in advance.

In 2002, a group of Mikhail Sannikov’s students sent a request to the Ivolginsky datsan for documents certifying his education. According to the answer, there were no such documents in the datsan archive, and the question itself was forwarded to Yeshe Loda Rinpoche. However, as a result of Mikhail Sannikov’s next trip to Yeshe Loda Rinpoche, this time to the “Rinpoche-bagsha” center (Buryatia) he founded in the winter of 2006, it was not possible to meet with him again. The absence of a formal document certifying the fact of Mikhail Sannikov’s Buddhist education serves as a reason for criticism of his personality, activities and views by some leaders of lay Buddhist communities in the Urals.

2.2. Relations with the Karma Kagyu school

The main initiations received by Mikhail Sannikov came from the schools of the Kagyu lineage [source not specified 109 days], and this led to his attempts to establish relations with the largest organization representing it in Russia - the “Russian Association of the Diamond Way of the Karma Kagyu school.”

At the end of May 2000, at the invitation of the President of the Elista Karma Kagyu Dharma Center, Mikhail Sannikov visited the construction of a stupa in Elista (Kalmykia), where he received from Lama Norbu fragments of the bookmarks used in the construction, which, upon returning to Kachkanar, were used among the rest for the construction at grief of the stupa.

In 2001, in Kachkanar, the students of Mikhail Sannikov registered a local religious organization as part of the “Russian Association of the Diamond Way of the Karma Kagyu School”. As a result of several personal meetings and correspondence between Mikhail Sannikov and the founder of the Association, Ole Nydahl, during 2002-2003. An agreement in principle was reached to assist the Ural organizations of the Association in the construction of the Shadchupling monastery. The issue of direct registration of the monastery as a retreat (recluse) center of the “Association” was also considered. However, due to the Association’s orientation towards predominantly secular, non-monastic Buddhism, as well as the requirement to exclude materials from the educational program that do not belong to the Karma Kagyu school, real relations have reached a dead end.

Literature

Poresh V. Tibetan Buddhism in Russia // “Modern Religious Life in Russia”, Vol.3, / Rep. ed. M. Burdo, S. B. Filatov. - M., “Logos”, 2005, ISBN 5-98704-004-2

4. Materials in the media

• Arkhipov A. Monk // “Arguments and Facts - Ural”, No. 39, 2003
• Bessarabova A. Our correspondent tried to become a Buddhist monk // “World of News”, 12/20/2005
• Zhukovskaya A. The fate of a scout in the Ural style. The resident became a Buddhist monk // “Arguments and Facts - Ural”, No. 34, 2006
• Samodelova S. Sannikov Land // “Moskovsky Komsomolets”, 01/12/2006
• Khazov A., Suvorova T. Ural Buddhism. //"Ural Pathfinder", No. 7, 2002
• Shorin A. Buddhist monastery under threat of demolition // “Regional newspaper”, 09/14/2006.

Mikhail Vasilievich Sannikov religious figure, head of the Shadchupling community.

Biography

Early years and education

Mikhail Vasilyevich Sannikov was born on November 30, 1961 in the city of Votkinsk, Udmurt Autonomous Soviet Socialist Republic, into a family of hereditary military men. After finishing the 8th grade of secondary school, he entered the Orthodox Moscow Theological Academy, however, after studying there for less than a month, he passed the documents and returned home. Having passed exams for the 10th grade of a general education school as an external student in the winter of 1979, he spent the rest of the year at school as a laboratory assistant in the physics and chemistry classrooms. In 1979, he was admitted to the Perm Agricultural Institute without exams; Having passed the exams as an external student and defended his thesis project, he graduated in January 1980. Along the way, he completed civil aviation courses.

Service in the KGB

In May 1980, he was drafted into the ranks of the USSR Armed Forces and underwent training for 8 months at the Yaroslavl training ground of the GB troops. Having completed his training with the rank of junior lieutenant, in February 1981 he was first sent under a contract to Afghanistan, where for several years he was the commander of a sabotage and reconnaissance group. He also participated in special KGB operations to check the combat readiness of units stationed directly in the USSR. One of the constant main tasks of his group in Afghanistan was the destruction of caravans with weapons going to the Mujahideen from Pakistan.

One day, during another operation, he saw through the scope of a sniper rifle that a horse, carrying bales with dushman weapons, was crying while climbing up the mountain. He refused to shoot at her, for which he ended up in the mountain rescue service in the Pamirs, and later in Altai. In 1987, he retired due to disability with the rank of captain; for several months he worked in the morgue of the Leninsky district of Perm as an orderly and as an assistant to a pathologist. He studied externally at the Nizhny Tagil Art School and worked briefly as a cook in the Kama River Fleet.

Admission to study at the Ivolginsky datsan

From my former mentor in Japanese sword fighting, I learned about the existence in the USSR, in Buryatia, of a living tradition of Buddhism and that it was possible to receive a Buddhist education there. In 1988, I went for the first time to study at the Ivolginsky Datsan, but due to the fact that at the time of arrival all the course groups were already completed, I entered it only the next year. Based on the results of the introductory interview, he was assigned to a group specializing in Buddhist Tantra, which was selected by Lama D. A. Zhalsaraev, and took monastic vows under the name Tingdzin Dokshit. In total, 12 people were recruited into the group, mostly Russians.

Studying in Buryatia and Mongolia

During 1989-1991, Mikhail Sannikov studied at the Ivolginsky datsan, although officially the Buddhist Institute “Dashi Choynhorling” at the Ivolginsky datsan was opened only in 1991, and at first there were only two faculties: philosophical and medical, and the tantric one was opened later. At this time, Mikhail Sannikov met D.B. Ayusheev, who later headed the Buddhist Traditional Sangha of Russia in the status of Pandito Khambo Lama and was also at the datsan at that time.

In 1991-1993 he lived mainly in Gusinoozersk, then in the Tamchinsky datsan Dashi Gandan Darzhaling, where he practiced performing rituals. In the summer of 1993, I made my first trip to Mongolia, where I received initiation into Yamantaka tantra from Lama Sanzhe-la at a retreat near the city of Orkhontuul. In October-November of the same year, in the same retreat, he practiced Phowa, transmitted to him by Lama Ngedub.

From the end of January to mid-August 1994, near Kharkhorin, under the leadership of Lama Tsyren, a retreat on the Six Yogas of Niguma took place. He also gave him initiation into the Hevajra and Chakrasamvara tantras. After a short return to the Ivolginsky datsan, he returned to Kharkhorin, to Erdene-Dzu and remained there until November of the same year, participating in the restoration of the monastery enclosure of stupas under the leadership of Pabo Lama.

Construction of a temple on Mount Kachkanar

One of the stupas on Mount Kachkanar under construction

After completing his studies at the Ivolginsky datsan, Mikhail Sannikov was planning to finally emigrate to Mongolia. However, in the winter of 1995, his Root Teacher, D. A. Zhalsaraev, gave him the order to build a Buddhist datsan in Russia. He motivated this by the fact that in the west of Russia there is already one Buddhist temple - the St. Petersburg datsan "Gunzechoiney", in the east - temples of Buddhist Buryatia, but in the middle, in the Urals, there is nothing. Zhalsaraev indicated the place where such a temple was to be erected - the top of Mount Kachkanar.

It was decided to call the temple "Shadtchupling" - "Place of Practice and Realization." On May 16, 1995, on the day of the Buddhist holiday Donshod Khural, Mikhail Sannikov began work on the construction of a monastery at the indicated location. He spent almost the entire remaining, as well as the next, years in stone work on the mountain, periodically going down to the nearby city of Kachkanar to earn money for food.

A fire that occurred in 1998 completely destroyed all the wooden buildings of the temple complex that had been erected at that time, and construction had to be started almost all over again.

The Shadtchupling temple is being built by Mikhail Sannikov himself and a small community of people who took initial monastic vows from him. Materially, the construction is provided by the community of his lay disciples living in the Middle Urals. Construction is extremely complicated by the inaccessibility and remoteness of the temple’s location from the transport infrastructure, as well as by the policy of the management of the Kachkanar mining and processing plant, which claims to develop ore deposits located near the construction site of the temple. In the fall of 2006, another director of the Kachkanarsky mining and processing plant climbed the mountain and offered 5 million rubles and help in moving the monastery to another location. Sannikov grinned and replied: we will ask exactly twice as much as you can pay. He laughed, left the gingerbread and left.