Salvete Omnes,
in the early 1910s to 1930s there was this Polish traveler, journalist, history and adventure writer: Antoni Ferdynand Ossendowski, internationally famous for his book on Lenin and his book on the Siberia and Mongolia during the Bolshevik Revolution, including his conversations with Baron von Ungern-Sternberg,
conqueror of Outer Mongolia and failed anti-Bolshevik crusader.
So in his book Man and Mystery in Asia pan Antoni tells a number of stories that originated in his voyage to Siberia in 1899, while still a university student. So while traveling with already famous geologist, prof. Stanislaw Zalewski (Polish scientists working for the Russian Empire were exploring Siberian mountains and vastness for more then a century at that time - the most famous being Stanislaw Czerski) described the lassoing and taming of the semi-wild horses by the Tatars in the Altai steppe.
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| Oriat tipi-like yurt |
The Altai Tatars aka the Oriats, being Buddhists, were native to these regions and were under the assault from the Russian bureaucracy and colonists (in this narrative they were Ukrainians from Russian Ukraine mostly), who would rob them of their horses and kill the Tatar owners...
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Nota bene, they say when Red Army liberated from the Nazi Germans the area around Warsaw, Poland, the NKVD (later KGB) came to the cemetery where Ossendowski was buried, and opened his grave in order to make sure that this famous anti-Bolshevik and anti-Communist was actually deceased.
There was another Polish witness to Baron Ungern's rule in Mongolia - Kamil Gizycki who wrote a book on his experiences there in 1920-21 and his subsequent route to Harbin, China, and Poland.
Valete
