How Buryat fashion designer Oksana Alkhunsaeva stitched her life back together in Russia

Oksana Alkhunsaeva, a Buryat designer born in the Irkutsk region settlement of Ust-Ordynsky, has built a growing costume business making traditional Buryat clothing ordered from across Russia, from Moscow to Kamchatka. Her path there ran through a childhood where classmates mocked her surname and appearance, a psychology degree taken partly to understand why, and a chance job at a Buryat cultural center that introduced her to the full scope of her own heritage at the Altargana festival.

The piece situates her story against the longer history of Russian colonization of Buryat lands beginning in the 1620s, Soviet-era Russification, and the removal of “Mongol” from the republic's name in 1958. It also notes that Buryatia has suffered disproportionately high military casualties since Russia's 2022 invasion of Ukraine, citing independent tallies of over 9,200 dead from Buryatia and the Irkutsk region. Alkhunsaeva began sewing seriously only after two maternity leaves, working late at night on a sewing machine she'd won in a competition, making her first pieces for family before expanding into a wider clientele.

The full dispatch is available from the source below.