The story breathed with sincerity and was fully consistent with reality. In the sixties, the population in Chernomorm (now Kuban region) was weak. The villages, not numerous in terms of the number of courtyards, were located 25-30 and even 40 ridges from one another. In the rest of the space, here and there along the rivers, lonely farmsteads of rich people settled, overlooking us space with your movable property. Kalmyks were the herdsmen, tavs and shepherds of the herds of the farmers, who at the same time were the sovereign masters of the steppe. As a rule, Kalmyks settled in tents two or three miles from their owner’s farmstead on elevated grounds. They were not allowed to live closer: firstly, because the Kalmys were unchrist and carrion, as their owners usually said about them, and secondly, because from the ridge, or “grave,” it was convenient for the Kalmyk to watch the cattle and walk around the field. While the herd is feeding, the Kalmyk from the hill looks out for prey: whether an ox from the herd or a horse has gotten lost, whether one traveler has strayed from the road, a peddler, or a “shabai” heavily loaded with goods is late - everything can serve as prey for him. True, they did not offend the residents of their village; they were afraid of the Cossacks. In the same way, they were afraid of anyone who carried a firearm. At the sight of the last day, the Kalmyk Ubfgal went to the steppe without looking back. But on the other hand, he views everything else in the steppe as his property. In this relationship there was little difference between the hungry wolf and the wild Kalmyks. One worked more at night, the other during the day. What one killed and did not kill, another picked up. There were numerous destructions of people killed along the roads and those who disappeared aimlessly along the way, especially in the northern-eastern part of the present Kuban region. On Sundays, the Kalmyks would show up in droves, in a crowd of four or five souls, to the villages, heading first to the shop to buy tobacco, and then to the cabbage. It is easier to describe the appearance of a Kalmyk in his own words. When one of them saw a portrait drawn from him in pencil, he covered his face with his hands and began to laugh unfuriously, saying: “0! 0! flat nose, narrow eyes, broad face, good fellow!” If such a “well done” is dressed in a robe and trousers, put on boots with thick heels set far forward, and above the “broad face”, put on a large wheel-shaped hat and place such a figure on a horse, giving it a thick whip in its hand and attaching a hair lasso to the saddle of large brim, then and the arrival of a Kalmyk in a festive costume. Women differed from men only in that the first had their hair braided in long braids, wrapped in oilcloth and dangling across their chests; the men had one thick tolaya - a braid; “Beaaanishayaya from behind. oh a + shadow-
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Often a family couple rode into the village riding on the same horse. Having arrived at the tavern, the Kalmyks rushed with a boom through the long streets of the village, heading mainly towards the festive crowd of “women and boys”, and the first, seeing the horsemen rushing at them, raised a squeal and squeak and quickly scattered to the sides or “flew” over fences into courtyards, and the latter, eager to grab stones and stakes, entered hand-to-hand combat with the drunken horde, for the amusement of the festive “street”.
Kalmyks lived in the Black Sea region and throughout the Stavropol province, leading a nomadic life, until the 70s. Then they were deported from here to the Astrichkhan province, and some were forced to be assigned to villages and stanitsas or to form independent yurts.