Mongolia 2011 - Ulaanbaatar

ULAANBAATAR


The capital and by far the largest city in Mongolia, Ulaanbaatar has eclectic architecture.		Many people still live in old Soviet apartment blocks but many of them have been spruced up and retail space has been added to the front at street level.

There is a tremendous amount of new construction, but most of it is in office buildings and high-end condos, leaving many of the people who have flocked to the capital with no place to live.		Some of the buildings, like the Shark Fin (a landmark for us because it was near our hotel) show the influence of modern architecture.

Sukhbaatar Square is the main square in Ulaanbaatar; it was about two blocks from our hotel. This beautiful new stone and glass facade hides an ugly Soviert-era government building.

The centerpeice of the square is the huge statue of Chinggis Khan. Not Genghis, please--the Mongolians are fussy about that. Chinggis is their national hero and appears everywhere--on money, in statues, in the name of the airport, and on vodka and beer bottles.		The square is named for Damdin Sukhbaatar, who led the Mongolians to victory against the Chinese attempt to annex them in 1921.

The square is very large and on this day it was almost deserted except for workers beginning the get ready for Naadam, the big annual festival in Mongolia.		The old and the new: The pink-and-white Opera House (1963) and a modern office building.

On another day we saw many Mongolians enjoying the Square with their families. The radio-controlled kiddie cars were a popular concession in the square.

Workers were beginning to erect gers (traditional Mongolian tents--also called yurts, but not in Mongolia) in the square; we assumed they were for the Naadam Festival but when we saw the square during the festival, the gers weren't there!		A statue of Lenin still looms over the park at the front of our hotel.

We visited the Gandan Monastery, one of the few remaining Buddhist temples that survived the Soviet era.		It is still an active teaching and prayer center and welcomes the public.

Just outside the main gate are three prayer wheels that the faithful can turn--three times clockwise.

Inside the monastery we saw pigeons that rivaled St. Mark's Square in Venice in density. You can buy birdseed to feed them.		There are more prayer wheels inside and we saw people walk by and carefully spin each one. Each is different--a gift from someone to commemorate a loved one or an achievement.

There were many people there in traditional Mongolian dress--for men, the deel (coat) and sash. It was close to the Naadam Festival, so perhaps there were more than the usual number of people in traditional dress.		The temple complex also has a building that houses an 87-foot gilded statue of Janraisig (the Bodhisattva of Compassion) .

This post holds special significance for the Mongolians. After the Soviet soldiers had destroyed much of the monastery for wood, this post started to weep milk. "Freaked out," [as Ider termed it], they left the rest of the monastery standing. People now come to it as a kind of pilgrimage site.

We also visited many museums, including the Museum of Mongolian history.		This monument commemorates those who died under Soviet rule. In the Museum, our guide Ider told us a lot about Chinggis Khan and about the 1990 revolution, but skipped lightly over the 70 years of Communist rule.