The famous doctor Badmaev Petr Alexandrovich was a Buryat by origin (his family led a nomadic lifestyle). Since the boy was brought up in the Trans-Baikal wilderness, almost nothing is known about his early years. Moreover, historians still cannot determine the exact date of his birth. According to various estimates, this is either 1849 or 1851.
Education
The first documentary evidence that Petr Aleksandrovich Badmaev left behind is connected with his studies at the Irkutsk gymnasium. Then a native of Siberia moved to the capital of the empire and entered St. Petersburg University.
No wonder the young man chose the Oriental Faculty. He was not just a Buryat, he studied in detail the life, culture and traditions of his native land. It was this deep knowledge that made him famous throughout the country.
Officer and doctor
Study at St. Petersburg University ended in 1875. After that Badmaev Petr Aleksandrovich began to work in the Asian Department of the Ministry of Foreign Affairs. But the young man was not just an official. After the early death of his older brother, he inheritedgot a popular St. Petersburg pharmacy. It sold Tibetan medicines, which were in great demand in the capital. The secular public was in awe of all sorts of mysterious means delivered from a distant Asian region.
Becoming a pharmacist, Badmaev Petr Alexandrovich delved into the study of the culture of Tibet. Very quickly he became a prominent specialist in the field of medicine. Moreover, the enterprising Badmaev did not stop at theoretical knowledge. He began to engage in a healing practice that made his name known throughout the city. Pyotr Badmaev used herbs and powders of his own production as medicines.
Grey cardinal
As a St. Petersburg celebrity, Badmaev became close to the high society of the capital and the royal court. He became a public figure of the first magnitude during the reign of Alexander III. The autocrat was even the godfather of a Buryat who converted to Orthodoxy already in adulthood. Pyotr Badmaev not only became a Christian, he maintained contacts with the main persons in the Church. This is how the extensive correspondence of the doctor with the famous preacher of his time, John of Kronstadt, has been preserved.
The religiosity and mysticism of Badmaev's figure helped him become even closer to power after the accession to the throne of the deeply superstitious Nicholas II. Another person with a similar influence was the much more famous Grigory Rasputin. It was with the help of the “Tobolsk elder” that Badmaev contacted the tsar and his wife Alexandra Feodorovna for a long time. Rasputin, on the other hand, often visited a popular healer. At his apartment periodicallymeetings of the bureaucratic and bureaucratic elite were organized.
Rasputin, who had a huge influence on Nicholas II, often himself considered candidates for ministerial posts on their professional suitability. Pyotr Alexandrovich Badmaev was also important in this connection. Zhamsaran (the real name of the Buryat) brought Elder Gregory together with his numerous clients. For example, it was he who had the idea to appoint Alexander Protopopov as Minister of the Interior. In 1915 - 1916. the official treated Badmaev for his psychotic seizures (he could suddenly lose control of himself). The former minister spoke about his connections with the healer and his role in the behind-the-scenes decisions of the tsarist government during one of the interrogations of the Cheka after the October Revolution.
Eastern Question
To put it in modern terms, Pyotr Badmaev was a lobbyist. But he not only helped the authorities make personnel decisions. Pyotr Aleksandrovich Badmaev, whose biography still has many blank spots, tried to influence the policy of the Russian Empire in the Far East. This region attracted a doctor, because he himself was from Transbaikalia, and all his fame turned out to be built on the methods of Tibetan medicine.
Just under Alexander III and Nicholas II, the construction of the Trans-Siberian Railway was underway. This project was extremely important from all points of view: economic, military, colonial. For the first time, Badmaev shared with Alexander III his thoughts on the Far East in February 1893, when he sent him a detailed and detailedexplanatory note with ideas about public policy objectives in Asia.
Notes to Alexander III
On what basis did Badmaev Petr Alexandrovich base his proposals regarding the Far East? The books that he left behind him say that the medicine man traveled several times in China, Mongolia and Tibet. The Manchurian dynasty, which then ruled in the Celestial Empire, was going through a long crisis. All signs indicated that power in China would soon be in agony. This trend was caught by Badmaev Petr Alexandrovich. The medical prescriptions that he compiled were far from the only topic of interest to the doctor. He acted and wrote reports to the emperor as a diplomat and politician.
In his note, Badmaev offered Alexander III to occupy a weakened China. This thought alone seemed fantastic, but the sorcerer insisted: if the Russians did not come to the Celestial Empire, this country would be in the hands of Great Britain and other colonial European powers. Alexander treated his godson's note as an unrealizable utopia, but for the work done he made him a real state adviser.
Tibet Expansion Plan
Badmaev did not just write about the need for expansion in China. He proposed specific methods to achieve this goal. In particular, he advised Alexander III to build another railway. If the Trans-Siberian was oriented to the Far East, then the new route was supposed to open the way to Tibet. The key point on this route was the Chinese city of Lanzhou. It was there that Badmaev Petr Aleksandrovich proposed to build the railway line.
Ivan-tea, which grew in Siberia, was not the only reason for the interest of the Buryat physician. Of course, when speaking about public interests, he spoke first of all as a politician, and only then thought about the herbs that made him famous. The railroad in the region, the State Councilor believed, was needed in order to gain trade influence. Thanks to him, Russia would become a monopoly in almost all of Asia. And economic power, in turn, can easily be converted into political power. The prospects described by Pyotr Badmaev attracted the close attention of Finance Minister Sergei Witte. He supported the advisor's projects in every possible way.
Healer and Nicholas II
Badmaev's lobbying on the Eastern question continued even after the untimely death of Alexander III. The new autocrat Nicholas II also received notes from the famous healer. Badmaev rarely saw the king, but despite this, he had some influence on him. And there were reasons for that. First, Nikolai tried to focus on people who were respected by his own father. Secondly, the last Russian tsar had a sick son Alexei. Badmaev, known for his medical talents, tried to help the heir to the throne. But Grigory Rasputin overtook him on this path.
When the aggravation of relations with Japan began, the State Councilor tried to convince the monarch thathe needs to focus on expansion in Tibet and forget about the annoying Japanese. Nicholas even sent a delegation to the mountains. However, in 1904, the Russo-Japanese War began, and the Tibetan project was finally closed.
The main book of the famous doctor
Pyotr Badmaev left a written heritage as a doctor. In 1903, his guide to the medical science of Tibet was published, based on the translation of the ancient treatise "Chzhud-Shi". This book was very popular. In Soviet times, they forgot about it. Interest in the works of Peter Badmaev revived again in Perestroika. The manual of the Buryat healer was republished in 1991 for the first time in many years.
The work is a collection of tips on how to maintain he alth and beauty. These recommendations were collected and rechecked by Petr Aleksandrovich Badmaev for many years. Ivan-chai, the book, including about which stirred up the St. Petersburg reading public, especially attracted the attention of the researcher. For many years, the doctor sold powders based on this herb in his pharmacy. Many readers at the beginning of the 20th century appreciated the work published by Pyotr Aleksandrovich Badmaev. Ivan-tea recipes for welding and powders - all this extremely occupied the we althy residents of the capital of the Russian Empire.
Imprisonment and death
In the last pre-revolutionary years, Badmaev in the eyes of public opinion became the same unpleasant and mysterious figure,like Rasputin. When the Provisional Government came to power, it sent the elder to Helsinki. Badmaev personified the old era, he was not destined to take root in the new order.
If the Provisional Government tried to get rid of its opponents by fairly peaceful means, then the Bolsheviks who replaced it did not stand on ceremony with the "charlatans of the tsarist regime". In 1919, Pyotr Badmaev went to prison. He died in custody in July 1920 (exact date unknown).
