“Buryat culture has two main colours in our tradition,” said IBT’s Buryat translator Darima, whom I interviewed on the eve of the publication of the full Bible in the Buryat language. “These are turquoise-blue, the colour of the turquoise stone, and red, the colour of coral. This is true even about clothes: turquoise and coral-coloured clothes suit me best. When the Buryats adopted Buddhism, the orange/saffron colour also appeared in our culture. Red is the colour of internal revolution, the transformation of the mind. As for turquoise, this is the colour of the blue sky and our blue Lake Baikal...

The Dargi Bible translation team is based in Dagestan. One of the team members, who translated Song of Songs and edited several other Dargi Scripture portions, recently dropped by the IBT office during a visit to Moscow.