This talk will examine the transnational milieu of the approximately forty thousand Buriats who migrated from the Transbaikalia region of the collapsed Russian empire to northern Mongolia and Manchuria during the Russian civil wars (1918-1922). In addition to describing the events that precipitated this migration, I will explore efforts by rival political factions in Transbaikalia to manage and repatriate their would-be Buriat citizens residing in Mongolia and Manchuria. The presence of these tens of thousands of Buriat migrants outside of Russia’s borders, I will argue, drew the attention of all forces engaged in state-building in the Transbaikalia region. Their absence, and efforts to manage and repatriate them, shaped the contours of the emerging state order in the greater Baikal area.