Ulaanbaatar

Capital of Mongolia

After a not-so-long train ride, comparatively, but with extra long border stops for getting papers and luggage and compartments checked (“Do you have any drugs?”), we started seeing yurts along the tracks, mixed in with the small wood houses and sheds we had been seeing.

The capital city is somewhat in the middle of the country, so we still had a ways to go. The capital used to move from place to place, like the Nomads that populate the country, but in the 1920’s it settled in Ulaanbaatar. The country’s last king and queen reigned to that time.

Then in the 1930’s, some alliances were made with Soviet Russia to get their help to get out from under the rule of the Chinese. No love lost between those two peoples (Mongolians and Chinese). The Mongolians also helped the Russians in their war against the Japanese. So, for a time, until the early 1990’s, Mongolia was communist, but they remember it as an improvement. Under the Chinese, their people had been reduced to only 100,000 souls, mostly elderly, women, children and monks. The Soviets improved their health, their fertility, their wages, their standard of living, building up the infrastructure, reducing crime and trash and hopelessness. So, the first thing we were taken to see was a huge monument to the Russian-Mongolian alliance and war dead of that time.

The center ring represents the sacred fireplace in the middle of the yurt. The mosaics are of native rocks.

Below shows the Mongolian astronaut who accompanied the first Russian astronaut into space. They are very proud of him.

The country has three million inhabitants, of which half are in this city. The majority of the rest still live as nomadic herdsmen, with their horses, cattle, yaks, Bactrian camels and sheep. 

Though they use motorcycles to do some of their herding now, most is as traditional as it was, with the addition of plastic thermoses for their tea, trucks for transport instead of oxen on carts, usually, and the same mall clothes as you wear. 

Above is taking milk tea at the yurt (called a ger = home) of a native family. This is always drunk from a bowl. It is served with dried curds, in the silver footed bowl, and various kinds of breads, usually fried, which you see below. That is breakfast, the beginning, after which came bone broth soup with seaweed and tofu, then eggs, sausage and tomatoes. Soup is with every meal.

The blog site is being annoying again so this will have to do. Train to China tomorrow.