Pictures from Mongolia

[Rinchinlhumbe]

Sundown at Khoton Nuur


Tolbo Nuur, which translates to "frog lake"

[Rinchinlhumbe]

and some more mountain lakes





(kulichki.com)

[Rinchinlhumbe]

lower slopes of Tavan Bodg mountain







(all panoramio)

[Rinchinlhumbe]

some people:

reindeer breeding in Khovsgol aimag near the Russian border


playing basketball above the treeline

[Rinchinlhumbe]

and finally because this board is mainly about cities some pictures from the capital Ulaanbaatar






population was starkly increasing within the last decades

1918 30 000 (pop)
1955 118 000
1960 164 000
1970 282 000
1980 435 000
1990 562 000
2000 726 000
2008 1 044 000
www.geu.de

[Rinchinlhumbe]

as you can see it became a city of contrasts since the country embraced market reforms in 1990







(flickr, panoramio)

[Rinchinlhumbe]

some more modern buildings from panoramio and flickr

[Rinchinlhumbe]

actually the city afrchitecture consists of three types of buildings: traditional jurts wit some log cabins for the poorer people.


And some monasteries. Mongolians are of tibetan-lamaist beleif although some Christian missionaries tried to change this in the recent past. Nearly all monasteries were destroyed and monks killed under the Stalinist cleansing in the 1930s.

[Rinchinlhumbe]

In relationship to the population, no country in this world suffered more under Stalinism.
Stalinist architecture and some soviet appartment blocks from the era thereafter comprise the 2nd type of architecture.




Construction boom started in about 2000-02 when economic growth picked up. Typical housing complex erected in 2005

[Rinchinlhumbe]

Pictures from Outskirts surrounding Ulaanbaatar.

This is Bogd uul (2290 meters), the mountain located just a few kilometers south of Ulaanbaatar.



Ulaanbaatar ("UB") has no agglomeration or metro areas. Behind the last house, nature starts and does not end until reaching China. Rolling steppe some 30 km south of the town.



Gun Galuut nature reserve east of UB

[Rinchinlhumbe]

A "ger camp" for tourists on the road to Mongolia's (and Genghis Khan's) ancient capital Kharkhorin. Gers are noamdic tents which serve well as a cheap tourist accomodation.



North of UB. We are still within the city limits.


Hustai Nuruu mountains. This is where the Przewalski horses got resettled, which were already extincted in nature. Only in some Zoos few managed to survive.



(everything except 3rd pic from 1st post panoramio)

[Rinchinlhumbe]

some more updates for this classic notorious none-reacter

[Rinchinlhumbe]

today's pics are from Uvurkhanghai aimag. It is about double the size of Belgium but like with all other Mongolian aimags, its population is very humble: 110.000 people, mainly "real" Khalkh Mongol. As far as I know in Belgium it's about 10 million people.

(wiki)

The aimag is in the middle of the country and can also be regarded to be Mongolia's heartland.

(flickr)

The province is home of Mongolia's ancient capital Karakorum which once ruled the world for some decades. At a pinch, it had the same function as Rome and Athens had and London and New York had later in the 19th and 20th century. It is proven that beside Buddhist temples and Islam mosques even a church had existed within the city walls.

(pano)
Chinese warriors destroyed the capital in the 17th century until the Stalinist stooges did the rest in the 1930s. At least some temples survived.

(pano)

[Rinchinlhumbe]

Excavations starting in the 1990s only showed disappointing results


Today Karakorum is a laid back provincial town with perhaps 15.000 inhabitants. There was the strange idea of an obscure nationalist party to make Karakorum become the capital of Mongolia (instead of Ulaanbaatar), quite pointless imo.
Nowaday, Karakroum isn't even the proince's capüitla which Arvaikheer, about 100 km south is

[yerfdog]

pretty amazing landscapes

[SimsPlanet2]

Great pictures!

I would like to see some more pictures of the capital, contrasts from old and new, poor and rich.

[Rinchinlhumbe]

R-E-A-C-T-S!

Thanks to simsplanet and yerfdog

Originally Posted by SimsPlanet2

Great pictures!

I would like to see some more pictures of the capital, contrasts from old and new, poor and rich.

What about this photo?


This is also a common sight in UB

[Rinchinlhumbe]

The last picture shows the poor parts of town. After the communist's demise the city's population grew from 400.000 to over 1 million in about 20 years.
The people arriving from the countryside live in nomad's tents, later they erect homes of wood. Most of them start a private business, a small shop ("delguur") or simple repair services. If they succeed the log cabins are later replaced by solid wooden houses



Anyway, the government currently intends to replace the ger suburbs by modern appartment blocks with central heating and hot water.



These building don't look verz nice or innovative, anyway they serve their function.

(flickr and panoramio)

[Rinchinlhumbe]

If you have problems with uploading the pictures please press the "refresh" button one or two times, this works much quicker, at leat at my pc.

[Rinchinlhumbe]

seom additional pics from Uvurkhangai aimag which also features some major sights of Mongolia besides Karakorum.

The picturesque Orkhon waterfall inside the Orkhon valley which is now UNESCO world cultural heritage.



The Orkhon valley has been home for several nationalities starting with Skyths in the 6 century AD. Later the Turkmens, Uighurs, Kazakhs, Mongols, Chinese and finally the Russians arrived and left some traces. The waterfall itself is about 20 meters high