KHURUL MONASTERY - RUSSIA
Khurul Monastery is located about 6 kilometers (4 miles) northeast of the Kalmyk capital Elista, Kalmykia, a region where about half the 300,000 residents are Buddhists. Khushud Khurul, the main monastery of Kalmykia, was influenced by the architecture of the Kazan Cathedral in Leningrad. Like its model in Leningrad, this Kalmyk temple had a large courtyard encircled by a porch with a colonnade, in the style of St. Peter's Cathedral in Rome. Khushud Khurul was built by a Kalmyk cavalry officer, Tumen, in celebration of the Russian defeat of Napolean in the early nineteenth century.