History

The history of the Mongolians, as they have been known for over 1,200 years, is well recorded. The outside world knows little of Mongolia's history now apart from the dinosaurs of the Gobi and Ghengis Khan, but archaeologists believe the first humans lived in the area 500,000 years ago, and that nomadic life is relatively modern. The Mongolians are believed to have grown cereal crops for many centuries before taming the camels and yaks.

All the tribes of Mongolia lived separately, often at war with each other. This changed with the rise of the most famous Mongolian, Ghengis Khan. Born in 1162 and named Temujin, his story was recorded in the contemporary Secret History. By the age of 26 he had united many of the warring tribes and in 1189 he was given the title of Ghengis Khan, or "Universal Ruler". He built a city, Karakorum, to be the capital of his empire, a few parts of which can still be seen today. After his death the city was developed further - the great monastery of Erdene Zuu was built here after Ghengis Khan's death, but was later abandoned as the capital in favour of Beijing. Ghengis Khan founded the greatest Land Empire the world has ever seen, conquering much of China as well as land to the west of Mongolia. In the generations after his death the empire slowly collapsed, and the tribes began to war with each other again.

In the 1730s, the Chinese were invited in by on of the warring tribes, and stayed as conquerors until 1911. They ran a hated empire, corrupt, oppressive, and tyrannical. In 1911 a theocracy was established, under the leadership of the Bogd Khan. (This was in many ways similar to the Tibetan government under the Dalai Lama).

After the Russian Revolution in 1917, the Chinese reinvaded Mongolia and occupied it until they were expelled by the White Russians in 1921. Disliking the Imperial Russian occupation as much as they despised the Chinese, the Mongolian government invited the Bolsheviks to Mongolia. On 11^th July 1921, the People's Government of Mongolia was established, maintaining the Bogd Khan as a token head of state.

Mongolia became the world's second Communist country. In 1924 the Mongolian People's Republic came into being, governed by the only political party, the Mongolian People's Revolutionary Party.

During the 1920s, the Party collectivised the lands and forced agricultural and industrial workers to join collective enterprises. It also organised a purge of the monks, up to 17,000 of them are thought to have been killed. Animals taken away from the monasteries and given to collectivised and secular nomads often died because the nomads were unhappy about assuming ownership over monastery property; as in Russia many died in the famines that followed collectivisation. Most of the monasteries, which had been the country's only schools and hospitals, were burnt to the ground.

The Japanese invaded China, and had ambitions to take over Mongolia as well. In 1939 they attempted to do just that - but were defeated by a Mongolian-Russian army by 1941. A temporary friendliness between China and Russia meant that Mongolia's situation improved during the 1950s, but when the Sino-Soviet split occurred 100,000 Soviet troops took up residence on Mongolian soil. Mongolia became more Russian; students went to Russian universities, vodka drinking became entrenched as a social activity and most Mongolians learnt to speak Russian fluently. Ever larger amounts of money were poured into the Mongolian economy by the Soviet government, and Eastern European experts in every field were sent to help Mongolia "develop". Mongolia was in some ways more staunchly Communist than the Soviet Union; a statue of Stalin stood in the centre of Ulan Baatar until the late 1980s, and there are still many statues of Lenin all around the country.

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The country is divided into 21 aimags, or provinces, with additional autonomous city regions. The aimags are further subdivided into sums, or counties. The sums provide the basic life support for the nomads - most sums have a petrol station, a school, a shop, and a few have a doctor. Each sum is also responsible for organising the local Naadam festival, which takes place in July each year. The sums are a relatively new idea. Until the Communist revolution there were few permanent buildings in Mongolia except monasteries. The present system was established to enable a steady flow of goods to the USSR. A nomad in the Gobi, for example, would rear his camels, and take the wool to the nearest sum. The sum would then collect the wool and forward it to the aimag capital, then to Ulan Baatar and Moscow. Many of the sums are in environmentally unsustainable areas, as they were placed to suit the flow of goods to the USSR, not the population, the local conditions or a market economy.

The country has faced, over the last decade, the world's biggest ever peacetime economic collapse. In the two months after the Russians withdrew financial support, the economy is estimated to have shrunk by up to 60%.

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Mongolia covers 1.5 million square kilometres, which makes it over three times larger than France or about the size of Queensland, Australia. As the population is only 2.38 million, the country is one of the most sparsely inhabited areas of the world, with a population density of only 1.5 people per square kilometre. The vast areas of open space have made a huge impression on the culture and mind-set of the Mongolian people; this is a land where you can drive for a day and see only 5 other people, 100 horses and 500 sheep or goats.

 The climate is tough - with temperatures ranging from 40 degrees Celsius in the summer to minus 40 degrees in the winter.

The environment is incredibly varied. The south of the country is the arid Gobi desert, hot and dry in the summer, cold and dry in the winter. This desert and desert steppe covers about a quarter of the country, and is mostly uninhabited. In much of the Gobi, the only sights are vast sand dunes, flaming red cliffs, and nothingness that stretches as far as the eye can see. Some people and animals do live here, sustained by the few salty lakes and wells, and herds of camels can be seen from miles away, but the over-whelming impression is one of isolation. The east of the country is a well-watered expanse of green rolling hills, steppes which go on forever. This is the home of birds, gazelles and other animals, including domesticated horses and cows, and is fairly sparsely populated. The north is mountainous, with cold, deep lakes and large taiga forests. These forests stretch over the border into Siberia and are wet and cold. Khovsgol Nuur lake in the far north of the country contains about 2% of the world's fresh water and is frozen much of the year. The water is pure enough to drink and is protected by a national park. Most of the population lives in the centre and west of the country, in an area of the country which is well watered and a mixture of mountain, forest and grasslands. This is the area where Ghengis Khan built his capital, Karakorum, and where the giant Mongolian empire was centred.

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Today many of the monasteries have been rebuilt and are attracting new adherents. The Dalai Lama has visited Mongolia several times since 1990 and has been welcomed and celebrated by up to half a million Mongolians.. Mongolia has never been purely Buddhist however, for centuries Shamanism has co-existed with Buddhism without conflict. The two religions have become entwined, so that Buddhism in Mongolia is now a hybrid of the two faiths. Scattered throughout the countryside of Mongolia are ovoos, or offerings. Ovoos are sacred piles of stones of wood, decorated with animal skulls, blue ribbons, coins, engravings, empty bottles and broken glass. If an ovoo is near a road, it has a jeep track encircling it, for those drivers who drive round it three times in preference to walking.

In addition to Buddhists and, Mongolia has a notable number of Sunni Muslims, approximately 5% of the population. Most of these are ethnically Kazaks, and live in the far west of the country.

In Ulaan Baatar, an estimated 30% of young people aged 15 - 25 have converted to Christianity. The Mongolian government is rumoured to be unhappy about the methods of some of the missionaries, who sometimes set up English schools to attract young Mongolians.

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© Amanda Jones and Adam Ohringer