Buryatia as one of the beautiful regions of the East Siberia strikes everyone with amazing diversity of nature organically combining grandeur and might of Baikal, boundless taiga space, deep rivers and snow-covered tops of the Sayan mountain ridges. From the ancient times different tribes and peoples inhabited the territory of the present-day Buryatia.

    During the Stone Age they were occupied with hunting and fishing. The Bronze Age saw the appearance of the "slab grave" culture with ancient tombstones, the so-called "reindeer stones" in steppes and numerous rock and cave paintings. People living in the distant past could process copper and bronze, manufacture beautiful decorations and household articles made of gold and bronze showing a high level of workmanship.

    One of the most interesting pages in the history of Buryatia is related with the Hunnish people having replaced the "slab grave" hearers during the last centuries B.C. Only a few settlements and some gigantic burial-vaults were left after the centuries-long supremacy of the conglomerate of these tribes who had created the first state to appear in Central Asia. At the northern boundaries of their estate the Hunnish tribes built fortification outpost, that is now called as Nizhniy-Ivolginsk Gorodische. A large number of burials is known to be discovered in the south of Buryatia. One of them was found within the region of Ust-Kyakhta, in Ilmovaya Pad.

    After the disintegration of the Hunnish state the tribes once living in the territory of present-day Buryatia were drawn into vortex of different ethnic formations. The Syanyabies, Kurykans, Mongolian-speaking Kidanies, early medieval Mongolian tribes and ancestors of the Tungus people lived there.

    In such a complicated historical situation there was taking place the formation of the Buryat and Evenk ethnos. The Buryats belong to the Central-Asian type of the North-Asian race of the large Mongoloide race. They speak the Buryat language of the north subgroup of Mongolian group of the Altai family. There are distinguished western and eastern groups of dialects. Up to 1930 large group of the Buryats (Transbaikalian) made use of the Old Mongolian written language and since 1931 they used the written language on the base of Latin graph, and beginning from 1939 — on the base of the Russian (Cyrillic) alphabet. Most of the western Buryats were considered to be orthodox retaining shamanism, but the faithful Buryats in Transbaikalia are the adherents of Buddhism. At datsans (Buddhist monasteries) there existed ecclesiastical schools, workshops for manufacture of icons and sculptures, printing shops. The Buryat lamas (Buddhist monks) were famed for their erudition, there were rather famous theologians, physicians and astrologists among them. And the datsan architecture was peculiar attracting attention with its originality and vividity.

    By the time of Buryatia's joining to Russia (mid. XVII century) the process of formation of the Buryat ethnos out of separate tribal groups had been taken place, the Bulagates, Ekhirites, Khorintses, Khongodores being the largest ones among them. The Russians settled in Transbaikalia in three main stages. The Cossacs came in first in the XVII century, and in the XVIII-XIX centuries the old-believers (semeiskye) were exiled to this place and from the end of the XIX till beginning of the XX centuries the territory was occupied by peasant-migrants. All these three tides were characterized with original culture the most striking of which is the old-believered one.

    After the Great October Revolution there were formed the Buryat-Mongolian Autonomous Region as a part of the Far-East Republic (1921) and the Mongol-Buryat Autonomous Region as a part of the Russian Soviet Federative Socialist Republic (RSFSR). In 1923 they united into the Buryat-Mongolian Autonomous Soviet Socialist Republic (BM ASSR) as a part of the RSFSR. In 1937 there were detached and emerged the Aginsk Buryat National Area as a part of the Chita Region, Ust-Ordynsk Buryat National Area as a part of the Irkutsk Region and also there was formed the Olkhon district as a part of the Irkutsk Region. In July 1958, according to the Decree of the Presidium of the Supreme Soviet of the USSR, the Buryat-Mongolian ASSR was renamed as the Buryat ASSR.

    In October 1990 the Supreme Soviet of the Buryat ASSR declared the state sovereignty of the Buryat SSR. In February 1992 it was stated by the legislative acts to proclaim the Buryat SSR as the Republic of Buryatia.