IN May 1904 an Altai Turk' named Chet or Chot Chelpan (Russianized as Chelpanov) received a vision in which there appeared to him a white horse carrying a rider dressed in white. This rider announced the imminent return to earth of Oirot Khan, who would lead the Altai Turks to freedom from the Russians and re-establish the ancient Oirot khanate. The natives along the Chuya River in the Altai were deeply stirred by news of this vision. They believed that a living god had appeared among them; this belief quickly associated itself with the already existent local legend that there still remained in distant places a few principalities of the fallen empire of Chingis Khan, and that in one of them lived Oirot Khan, the last descendant of the great Khan Chingis. It was also connected with a second legend, that in the 18th century a prince of the Altai, Shunni, had led his people into Russian domination and promised to return and free them if they were not happy in their new state. He had returned twice, the first time in the 1870's. His return was associated with a change in the shape of the high peaks of the Altai. In 1900 such a change had taken place, possibly as a result of an avalanche, and a Mongol lama had announced himself as the returning Oirot Khan. Nothing came of this, however, because the Russian regime acted swiftly and expelled him from the Altai.