Short answers, pulled from the story.
Kalmykia is a republic of Russia located in the Volga region of European Russia, bordering the Caspian Sea to the east. It is the only polity in Europe where Buddhism is the majority religion, with a 2012 survey showing 47.6 percent of its roughly 275,000 residents identifying as Buddhist.
The Kalmyks are a people of Oirat Mongolian origin who migrated from the steppes of southern Siberia, along the banks of the Irtysh River, reaching the Lower Volga region by around 1630. They are predominantly Vajrayana Tibetan Buddhists of the Gelug and Kagyu lineages.
On the 27th of December 1943, Soviet authorities deported the entire Kalmyk population to Central Asia and Siberia, accusing them of collaboration with German forces. Between 71,000 and 72,000 Kalmyks had already died in a 1922 famine, and 20,000 were deported to Siberia and Karelia in March 1927. The deportees were not permitted to return until 1957 under Khrushchev.
Kirsan Ilyumzhinov served as Head of the Republic of Kalmykia from 1993 to 2010 and was simultaneously president of the world chess organization FIDE until 2018. He made chess compulsory in all Kalmyk primary schools and brought the 2006 World Chess Championship between Veselin Topalov and Vladimir Kramnik to Elista.
The majority of Kalmyk people practice Vajrayana Tibetan Buddhism, specifically following the Gelug and Kagyu lineages. They recognize Tenzin Gyatso, the 14th Dalai Lama, as their spiritual leader, and Erdne Ombadykow, a Kalmyk American, as the supreme lama of the Kalmyk people.
Significant Kalmyk communities exist in the United States, primarily in Monmouth County, New Jersey, where several Kalmyk Buddhist temples are located. Many American Kalmyks descend from those who fled Russia in 1920, passing through France, Yugoslavia, Bulgaria, and Germany before emigrating to the United States.