Siranjab (Siranjav)
Baldano

Biography (from a daughter)

Siranjab Baldano was born on November 8, 1930 in the village of Hoyto-Aga, this is the data on the birth certificate, although the date and place of birth may not be accurate.
His mother was dispossessed and exiled to the settlements; he did not remember his father at all. It was only in the 1960s that he met his mother, who returned from the settlements.
He lived with his foster sister, babysat her children, she treated him harshly, although he remembered her warmly, thought he had received a good school of life. He ran away to boarding school on his own.
When my father grew up, he left to find his place in life. After the army, he went to Moscow to study. He enrolled at Moscow State University in the Faculty of Journalism. He took part in the construction of the University on the Lenin Hills, worked as a laboratory assistant, unloaded wagons. In 1956 he worked as a senior fellow at the Frunze Art Gallery, in 1957 he moved to the Shevchenko Gallery in Alma-Ata, then worked as a secretary of the Artists Union of Kazakhstan. In 1962 he moved with his family to Ulan-Ude.
He was a very active and inquisitive person. In 1963 he became the chairman of the Buryat Union of Artists. He made a lot of efforts to restore national traditions in the fine arts of Buryatia, for which he was persecuted by the government structures. Buryat museum archives were very rich, but at that time traditional, Buddhist art was considered taboo. Even samples of folk art were not recognized as art. My father used to visit datsans, befriended lamas, traveled around the ulus, looking for folk artists, and introduced them to images of the best examples of traditional Buryat art. Baldano was labeled a bourgeois nationalist. He was harassed and deprived of his membership in the Union of Artists, but was later restored by Moscow. He was principled and didn't compromise. In general, he knew how to make enemies. At that time, he himself began to carry on the traditions of Buryat art.
In Buryatia, his father was friends with prominent members of the Buryat intelligentsia - the poet Dondok Ulzytuyev (later he corresponded with him, Dondok was going to visit his father in Alma-Ata), Buddhologist Bidya Dandaron, writer Dashirabdan Batozhabai, singer Lhasaran Linhovoyin.
He had to leave everything in 1968 and go back to Alma-Ata. In Alma-Ata, Baldano gave himself completely to creativity.
In 1995 he moved to Moscow.
In Moscow, he continued his creative work and created many interesting works.
Personal exhibitions: 1977, Moscow, Union of Artists of the USSR; 1990, Moscow, Museum of Decorative and Applied Arts; 2003, Almaty; 2019 Moscow, Museum of the East.
on July 28, 2014, he passed away suddenly at home.
Siranjab Baldano lived a difficult and very fruitful life.