Don’t worry if you can’t pinpoint Ulaanbaatar (oo-lan-BAH-ter) off the top of your head. Located in the north-central part of Mongolia, a country with a landmass on par with Alaska, this capital city has moved 28 times since it was founded in 1639 as a nomadic Buddhist monastery. Even today, half of the population of Mongolia lives in portable gers (yurts) because they herd goats, sheep, and yaks for a living. When the grass is gone in one spot, a family moves to greener pastures, two to four times per year.

What’s more, Ulaanbaatar has not always served as the capital of Mongolia. During the early 1200s when Chinggis (Genghis) Khan first established the Mongol Empire, he founded the city of Karakorum at a key location along the Silk Road. Karakorum became the official capital under his son Ogedie Khan. Later, under his grandson Kublai Khan, the capital moved to Dadu, what’s known today as Beijing, China.

Nevertheless, I found myself in Ulaanbaatar twice during a recent trip to Mongolia, when I arrived in the country and then again when departing for home. The main purpose of my trip was to trek in the Altai Mountains in western Mongolia. Seeing the capital was an unexpected delight.

Sukhbaatar Square

After checking into the Blue Sky Hotel, one of the landmarks in downtown Ulaanbaatar due to its height and its curving shape, I met my two travel companions in the lobby. Though we felt foggy after flying halfway around the world, we wanted to stretch our legs. By chance, we crossed Peace Avenue along one side of the hotel and entered Peace Park, where a large statue of the famous Venetian explorer Marco Polo greeted us. During the 13th century, Polo traversed the Silk Road from Europe to China on several occasions, becoming one of Kublai Khan’s most trusted diplomats. Polo, who became fluent in Mongolian, received permission to travel freely throughout the empire and was thus able to introduce Europeans and Mongolians to each other’s customs and goods.

The statue of Marco Polo was well-maintained, but the rest of the park looked scruffy around the hedges and paved footpaths. The grass needed mowing, and the central fountain sprayed more water over a sidewalk next to the park than into the pool at its base.

From the Peace Park, we made our way to Sukhbaatar Square, Ulaanbaatar’s enormous central square. A statue of the Mongolian leader Damdin Sukhbaatar presided over the middle of the square. Sukhbaatar, a founder of the Mongolian People’s Party, died in 1923, two years after the country’s communist revolution.

Mongolia was a Russian satellite until 1990, when the square was the site of demonstrations and hunger strikes that ultimately led to the country’s change to a democracy. Sukhbaatar still looks in command from his horse, but now Chinggis Kahn watches over him and all who visit from his throne at the northern end of square. The enormous monument of the khan reminded me of a Mongolian version of the Lincoln Memorial in Washington, DC. Like Abraham Lincoln, Chinggis Khan is seated, feet flat on the ground with his hands curved over the ends of his chair.

Gandan monastery

The next morning, our guide Amraa insisted that he pick us up at 7:30am to arrive at the Gandan monastery in time to hear the daily call to prayer. As we entered the monastery grounds, two teenage monks trumpeted their silver-trimmed animal horns from atop a small tower. Soon monks in red robes, many with tall yellow hats, filed into one of the temples on the monastery grounds.

The monks at Gandan monastery are part of the Gelugpa sect of Tibetan Buddhism. They follow the Dalai Lama and are known appropriately as the “yellow hats” in Mongolia. The color symbolizes humility, lack of want for material things, and daylight. Before entering the small temple, some of the monks walked three times, clockwise, around a small chorten (shrine) while ringing the bells hanging from its miniature eaves, a custom meant to inform the deity of their arrival. Visitors, myself included, who wished to enter the temple to watch the service did, too.

Inside, the monks settled cross-legged on padded, low platforms and began to chant in a throaty tone that hardly waivered higher or lower. The chanting continued for two hours as monks and visitors came and went. At one point, a group of Koreans lined up against a wall outside the temple to conduct their own religious recitations.

After the service, we walked farther onto the monastery grounds, passing what looked like an exceptionally tall, thick telephone pole with a gold cap on top. “It’s the only remaining part of the original temple that was destroyed by the Russians,” explained Amraa. The Russians tried to eradicate Buddhism in Mongolia. They killed 14,000 monks and destroyed 700 monasteries, including most of Gandan monastery, but they kept some of it, mostly for show, or maybe to hide the purge. The temples that were not torn down were used as barns for livestock or for parties hosted by Russian officials.

As people passed the holy pole, they paused to bow their forehead to it, rub their hands on it, and circle it slowly. The spirituality of the pole drew me. I had to touch it, but then got distracted by a large, white, Tibetan-looking building. Amraa motioned for us to follow him inside.

What I saw next was truly astounding! Before us stood an 87-foot golden statue of Avalokitesvara, the Buddha of compassion, which is the form of Buddha most revered in Mongolia. The stunning statue was adorned with 2,100 precious stones. “It’s a remake,” said Amraa. “The original was solid gold. The Soviets took it to Russia. This one was dedicated in 1996 as a symbol of Mongolian independence. It’s made of copper but gold-plated. We couldn’t afford another one entirely of gold. They say it’s the world’s tallest indoor statue.”

More Sites in the City

From Gandan monastery, we returned to our hotel and then strolled over to the Choijin Temple, a more compact campus of historic religious buildings. Choijin Temple is now a museum where you can see artifacts of Mongolian Buddhism, including a collection of symbolic masks and the decorative but worn chair still used by the Dalai Lama to receive guests. The last time he came to Mongolia was in 2016.

We also visited the Natural History Museum. In the mineral room, we learned about the country’s tremendous mining resources and saw a gigantic, three-foot quartz crystal. From there, we stopped by the dinosaur room, which housed the complete skeleton and a life-sized rendition of Taubosaurus baatar, the smaller but equally fierce cousin of Tyrannosaurus rex. Taubosaurus terrorized southern Mongolia and China during the Late Cretaceous Period, 68 million years ago, but it looked like it could walk out the door today. 

We ended the afternoon in the museum’s sizeable wildlife room, where a complete collection of Mongolia’s native animals and birds were on display. The taxidermy was tattered and dusty, but still fun to peruse. I especially appreciated seeing the gobi bear and snow leopard, both considered critically endangered species.

The oddest beast in the wildlife room was a saber-toothed deer (musk deer). A deer only by name, this high-elevation animal is more closely related to antelope and goats. They don’t have antlers, but they do have exceptionally long canine teeth.

Grand Finale

The next morning we left for the trek, then returned to Ulaanbaatar nine days later. On the outskirts of the city, we stopped at the Chingghis Khan Equestrian Statue, an enormous stainless-steel monument, 130 feet tall. Like our Statue of Liberty, we were able to climb a long, narrow stairwell to its crown, but the crown was on the head of the khan’s horse rather than Lady Liberty.

From the crown, the face of the legendary emperor overshadowed the expansive view of the surrounding gers and steppe, or dry, vast grasslands. His commanding expression and powerful pose instilled us with the same awe that he likely evoked among his subjects a millennium ago.

To better understand this legendary ruler, the base of the statue housed artwork and artifacts from Chinggis Khan’s era. We saw the khan’s royal seal and his queen’s fur robes, along with examples of chopsticks, a helmet, chain mail, swords, and arrowheads used by his soldiers. It was a fascinating peek into the life of the khans and their hordes when the Mongol Empire encompassed most of Asia and half of Europe.

The grand finale of our visit to Ulaanbaatar was an evening at one of the state theaters. The show opened with a concert showcasing a traditional Mongolian throat singer accompanied by an ensemble of Mongolian instruments. The soloist created a haunting harmony by vocalizing simultaneously deep in his throat and with his vocal cords, like a ventriloquist who could hum and talk normally at the same time.

The most interesting of the dozen different instruments on the stage was a horsehead fiddle, so named due to the delicately carved horsehead gracing the end of the fiddle’s long neck. It had only two strings made from a horse’s tail, but its sound was as varied and beautiful as a violin.

The show included a mask dance followed by two female contortionists who bent and twisted into unimaginable human knots. Contortionism is another treasured Mongolian art form. At the end, one of the women did a backbend while the other balanced on her hands atop the first, then shot an arrow into a bull’s eye with her feet!

The appeal of traveling to far-flung cities like Ulaanbaatar is the chance to understand cultures different from our own. Visiting the capital of Mongolia opened my eyes to aspects of Asian customs and history that we don’t learn about. There’s nothing like a firsthand look to appreciate a foreign place. 

FOR MORE INFO

Official tourism website: visitulaanbaatar.net/#video-carousel-post-158

US Department of State information: travel.state.gov/content/travel/en/international-travel/International-Travel-Country-Information-Pages/Mongolia.html

To plan your trip: steppestravel.com/us