Kalmyks in the context of "Displaced persons camps in post–World War II Europe"

Kalmykia, officially the Republic of Kalmykia, is a republic of Russia, located in the Volga region of European Russia. The republic is part of the Southern Federal District, and borders Dagestan to the south and Stavropol Krai to the southwest; Volgograd Oblast to the northwest and north and Astrakhan Oblast to the north and east; Rostov Oblast to the west and the Caspian Sea to the east. Through the Caspian Depression, the Kuma river forms Kalmykia's natural border with Dagestan. Kalmykia is the only polity within Europe where the Dharmic religion of Buddhism is the predominant religion; the majority of Kalmyk people are Vajrayana Tibetan Buddhists of the Gelug and Kagyu lineages.

The Kalmykia republic covers an area of 76,100 square kilometres (29,400 square miles), with a small population of about 275,000 residents. The republic of Kalmykia is home of the Kalmyks, a people of Oirat Mongolian origin who are mainly of Tibetan Buddhist faith. The capital of the republic is the city of Elista.

The Nogai Horde was a confederation founded by the Nogais that occupied the Pontic–Caspian steppe from about 1500 until they were pushed west by the Kalmyks and south by the Russians in the 17th century. The Mongol tribe called the Manghuds constituted a core of the Nogai Horde.

From the 1250s to about 1300, the Golden Horde's kingmaker Nogai Khan (a direct descendant of Genghis Khan through Jochi) formed an army of the Manghits joined by numerous Turkic tribes. Around a century later in the 1390s, the Nogays were led by Edigu, a commander of Manghit paternal origin and Jochid maternal origin, who founded the Nogai dynasty.

The history of the Kyrgyz people and the land now called Kyrgyzstan goes back more than 3,000 years. Although geographically isolated by its mountainous location, it had an important role as part of the historical Silk Road trade route. Turkic nomads, who trace their ancestry to many Turkic states such as the First and Second Turkic Khaganates, have inhabited the country throughout its history. In the 13th century, Kyrgyzstan was conquered by the Mongols; subsequently it regained independence but was invaded by Kalmyks, Manchus, and Uzbeks. In 1876, it became part of the Russian Empire, remaining in the USSR as the Kirghiz Soviet Socialist Republic after the Russian Revolution. Following Mikhail Gorbachev's democratic reforms in the USSR, in 1990 pro-independence candidate Askar Akayev was elected president of the SSR. On 31 August 1991, Kyrgyzstan declared independence from Moscow, and a democratic government was subsequently established.

Kumis (/ˈkuːmɪs/ KOO-mis, rarely /ˈkʌmɪs/ KUM-is), alternatively spelled coumis or kumyz, also known as airag (/ˈaɪræɡ/ EYE-rag), is a traditional fermented dairy product made from mare milk. The drink is important to the peoples of the Central and East Asian steppes, of Turkic and Mongolic origin: Kazakhs, Bashkirs, Kalmyks, Kyrgyz, Mongols, and Yakuts. Kumis was historically consumed by the Khitans, Jurchens, Magyars, and Han Chinese of North China as well.

Kumis is a dairy product similar to kefir, but is produced from a liquid starter culture, in contrast to the solid kefir "grains". Because mare's milk contains more sugars than cow's or goat's milk, when fermented, kumis has a higher, though still mild, alcohol content compared to kefir.

A khurul (Kalmyk: хурул, romanized: khurul; Mongolian: хурэ / хүрээ, romanized: khure / khüree or hure or küriye) is a Buddhist monastery (temple, abode) in Kalmyk (Mongol-Oirat) Lamaism. Some of the most famous Kalmyk khuruls are the Burkhan Bakshin Altan Sume (contemporary) in Elista, Republic of Kalmykia, Russia, and the Khosheutovsky khurul (which was originally in the Kalmyk AO / Kalmyk ASSR, but is now located in Astrakhan Oblast, Russia).

Kalmyk Oirat (Хальмг Өөрдин келн, IPA: [xalʲmə́k ɵːrd̥íɴ kʰelə́ɴ]), also known as the Kalmyk language (Хальмг келн) and formerly anglicized as Calmuck, is a variety of the Oirat language, natively spoken by the Kalmyk people of Kalmykia, a federal subject of Russia. In Russia, it is the standard form of the Oirat Mongolian (based on the Torgut dialect), which belongs to the Mongolic language family. The Kalmyk people of the Northwest Caspian Sea of Russia claim descent from the Oirats from Eurasia, who have also historically settled in Mongolia and Northwest China. According to UNESCO, the language is "definitely endangered". According to the Russian census of 2021, there are 110,000 speakers out of an ethnic population consisting of 178,000 people.

The Dzungar people (also written as Zunghar or Junggar; from the Mongolian words züün gar, meaning 'left hand') are the many Mongol Oirat tribes who formed and maintained the Dzungar Khanate in the 17th and 18th centuries. Historically, they were one of the major tribes of the Four Oirat confederation. They were also known as the Eleuths or Ööled, from the Qing dynasty euphemism for the hated word "Dzungar", and as the "Kalmyks". In 2010, 15,520 people claimed "Ööled" ancestry in Mongolia. An unknown number also live in China, Russia and Kazakhstan.