Now you guys know I'm half Korean.
If you don't know much about East Asia,
Basically: Putting aside all the political differences, at the end of the day,
the nearly two billion of East Asians like Koreans, Japanese and Chinese are distant cousins.
Then little Mongolia comes in with less than 3 million people and they step on the scene and it's like
"Oh, hey, hey grandpa."
It's time to learn Geography... NOW!!!
Hey everyone, I'm your host Barbs.
You may have heard a little bit about this guy, mostly through the massive empire from Genghis Khan
or /Chinggis Khan/
But Mongolia is unique in that it's kind of like the kindred route that billions of people stem from all over the world.
And it all starts on some grassy hills that we will locate in:
(Political Geography)
Mongolia is known as the "Land of the eternal blue sky" as they get over 250 sunny days a year.
They really are kind of like the "Center of Asia"
Even though technically the actual geographic center of Asia is claimed by three spots -
2 in Russia, 1 in China.
But Mongolia is really close to all three of them.
Anyway!
Mongolia is a landlocked country - the 18th largest in the world located in centre East Asia bordered by Russia and China.
If it wasn't for this very narrow 23 mile long corridor, they would also touch Kazakhstan
but they don't.
The country is divided into 21 provinces or Aimags,
with the capital Ulaanbaatar meaning "Red hero" in the Northeast acting as its own municipality with provincial status.
Literally all roads in the country eventually lead up to this one city one way or another.
Oh and it has this really cool-looking curved sky tower building.
Fun fact: Ulaanbaatar (spelled a variety of different ways depending on how you look at it) is the world's coldest capital
and it was actually a nomadic city that moved 28 times before settling in its current location.
The city in itself holds about 45% of the entire country's population and holds the only International Airport,
Chinggis Khaan International
and a new airport is being built on the other side of the mountain so far just called New Ulaanbaator International.
It has almost, nothing around it. So, good luck?
Otherwise the second and third largest cities are Erdenet and Darkhan located relatively close to Ulaanbaatar.
Now Mongolia is kind of interesting because although they don't have territorial disputes, they do have some interesting border demarcations.
Such as the narrow western slot of Lake Buir shared with China.
Russia gets a small slice of Uvs Lake.
On the east you can find the tripoint monument for China, Russia and Mongolia at Tarbagan-Dakh
and plans for a possible western tripoint marker on the peak of Mount Tavan Bogdo Ula are on the way.
The country has a main railway that transects the north to south entering both Russia and China.
This also connects to the larger well-known Trans-Siberian railway in Russia.
More lines are planned to be built in the future
but for now, almost the entire western part of Mongolia is only accessible by crude roads and paths
or you know horse trail. Yeah
We'll get into the horse thing later.
Anyway, now when I say "Mongolia", obviously
I'm referring to what constitutes the boundaries of "modern-day State Mongolia".
Keep in mind though, historically,
the regions of what are now Inner Mongolia that belonged to China or the "People's Republic of China" were part of the larger Mongolia region
and today has more ethnic Mongols than actual Mongolia.
Coming to Mongolia,
You'll probably hit with a lot of interesting sights, especially with Genghis Khan, you know him.
He's everywhere; Statues, buildings, carvings on hillsides. The airport is actually named after him.
He's even on their money.
Some notable sites of interest might include places like
All these museums
The Bogd palace
Ikh Berkhant Complex
The Taikhar stone
The Shambala Stupa structure
The locals kind of consider it like the "center of energy for the universe".
Of course, there are so many hundreds of different monasteries like these
Including the oldest one, Erdene Zuu.
And of course, there's the pride and glory statue, the Tsonjin Boldog Genghis Khan statue
But the thing Mongolia is probably known most for is not the hand made landmarks
but rather the vast open expanses of grass land where all the power began.
Which brings us to:
(Physical Geography)
Remember that Universal wallpaper for all Windows monitors back in like 1997?
It has that serene rolling green hill. That's kind of what comes to mind when I think of Mongolia's landscape.
Fun fact: It got converted into a vineyard.
Anyway!
Mongolia lies on the center of Asia sandwiched between the Gobi Desert in the south
and there are three main small mountain chains:
The Altai in the west where you can find the tallest peak, Khütien on the border with China.
The Khangal mountains in the north where you can find the deepest freshwater lake, Khövsgöl.
However the hyper saline lake Uvs has more surface area.
In between these two mountain chains lies the Valley of Lakes where most of Mongolia's natural lakes lie,
and finally the Khentil in the north
which is where the longest river, the Orkhon flows, sourced by lake Baikal in the Buryat Republic of Russia.
Basically, if you want the overall summary: the south is a dry cold desert,
the north is greener and hillier with grassy hills and water
and the entire country is subjugated to the massive atmospheric pressure zone known as the Siberian Anticyclone.
This is a huge cold dry air mass with massive pressure that accumulates between September and April usually centered around Lake Baikal
and it grows, as far as Italy in the West, and Malaysia to the south.
In a nutshell, this is what keeps Mongolia generally windier and chillier,
even though they get lots of sunshine with little snow.
Basically, it's a very dry land mass and the rainiest spot only get about 14 inches of rain a year at best.
Weird, right? Dry but cold.
In fact, the only natural disaster thing they faced would be the Dzud or
a harsh climactic condition that causes massive amounts of livestock to die off due to freezing conditions and starvation.
Also keep in mind,
the Gobi Desert is the source of the eastern winds that causes all the dust storms that fly all the way across Eastern Asia.
In the Korea episode, I explained, it's called Hwang Sa.
All right. This is my triple shot of espresso break.
Usually Noah comes in but his car broke down so he can't make it here.
Ken, just take, just take over, just take over.
I'm out
Okay.
Mongolia is known for being very big and empty which makes it perfect for animals to graze
In terms of wildlife, Mongolia is a horse haven.
They're often seen as the national animal.
There's even a wind horse in their emblem.
And just like we discuss in other Central Asian country videos,
the horses play such a huge role in Mongolian history from transport, riding, food, milk and sport.
It is estimated that about 13 times more horses and 30 times more sheep live in the country than actual people.
In fact, Mongolia is the home of the last truly wild horses in the world known as Takhi.
The horses have 66 chromosomes, 2 more than your average horse.
Otherwise, the famous two-hump Bactrian camel are also national treasures.
They even have a festival devoted to them.
Other species like the Saiga antelope and their wierd noses roam around the grassland.
And about ⅓ of the world snow leopard population lives in Mongolia.
But Ken, what about their economy?
Don't they have like a bunch of minerals or something?
Yes, they do.
Mongolia focuses on two main industry: Herding and mining.
Minerals make up about 80% of their exports, mostly in gold and copper.
However, both sectors have been in decline for the past decades in favor of service jobs.
Mongolia is also the second largest producer of Cashmere goat wool in the world after China.
They have the second largest population of yaks.
Again after China, which they use for milk and dairy.
Speaking of which, Food.
First of all, no, Mongolian beef BBQ is a Chinese invention. It is not authentic Mongolian food.
You have authentic dishes like:
Aarul, which is dehydrated curdled milk cheese.
You have the national drink Airag, which is a fermented milk often from horses.
Baked sheep meat called Khorkhog,
Boodog, which is this inside-out cooked meat thing
and finally, Buuz dumplings.
Yeah, a lot of meat and dairy. It's just part of their culture
And speaking of culture:
(Demographics)
Thank you Ken. You sound really enthusiastic when you do these things. You like doing this, don't you?
I am enthusiastic!
Yeah, whatever, you know, get back to the camera.
Okay.
Now growing up with Korean culture,
I was always kind of under the influence that Mongolians are kind of like the mystical ancestors of all East Asians
and there's kind of a tincture of truth to that.
First of all
Country has about 3.1 million people and is the most sparsely populated sovereign state in the world with only about 2 people per square kilometer.
The vast majority of the country at about 95 percent identified as Mongolian or one of the main Mongolian people groups
like the Buryats, the Dorvod or Bayad and so on
whereas the remaining 5% come from a variety of minorities mostly Cossacks and Russians.
They use the Mongolian tögrög as their currency.
They use the type C and E plug outlets
and they drive on the right side of the road.
Now, what does it mean to be "Mongolian" in the 21st century?
Well for one, the language.
Mongolian is a unique tongue spoken with some interesting gallardo stop sounds
strangely enough kind of similar to the ones that you find in the Inuit areas of the Arctic.
Here's a clip from Easy Languages.
I love these guys. They do such great Street interviews. Check them out.
And keep in mind,
there isn't just one type of Mongolian but rather a few distinct cousin groups
like the Altai, the Buryats, the Kalmyks
mostly found in modern day Russia or the Inner Mongolian regions of China.
Each has a distinct dialect and tradition,
some speak completely unintelligible Turkic based languages.
But overall they're all cousins.
Geography Öngör said: If you locked a Mongolian, Buryat, a Kalmyk, Inner Mongolia and a Tuvan in a room,
It would look kind of like this:
(Noisy Mongolians)
Mongolia: What are your hobbies, Kalmykia? (with an Mongolian accent)
Kalmykia: I like to drawing pictures. (with an Mongolian accent)
Buryatia: What about you, Tuva? (with an Mongolian accent)
Tuva: Me like having this for...... (with an Mongolian accent)
Yeah, Tuva would probably have a little more trouble communicating but they're all definitely family.
Now the interesting thing is that although Mongolia has always kind of been like a lightly populated nation,
it's always been the genetic source for billions of people. How did this happen?
Well in a nutshell, the Mongolian Empire, you may have heard of it.
Although Anthropologists have been able to trace East Asian ancestry originally through the human migration patterns that pass through India and the Middle East,
the Mongolian invasions of the 13th century greatly shifted the genetic structure for what would become billions of people.
Geneticists have been able to trace the Y-chromosome calm and proto-genre in at least 17 million people alone that are directly descended from Genghis Khan.
And that's just one Mongolia. Pretty interesting?
Otherwise, in terms of faith, a little over half the population adheres to Buddhism
introduced shortly after the Mongolian Empire collapsed during the Yuan Dynasty in China in the late 13th century.
About a third are either traditional shaman or Non-religious
and the remainder are mostly Christian or Muslim, especially the Kazakh people being Muslim
Mongolia today writes mostly in the Cyrillic alphabet. They adopted it in the 1940s during Soviet times.
However, prior to that, they actually had their own writing system known as Hudum Mongol bichig.
It was written vertically left-to-right inspired off the old Uyghur writing system.
It almost went out of use but today it has been reintroduced in schools and is trying to revive itself.
Today, you can see it on road signs, and even in Inner Mongolia, they use it as a script as well.
Culture wise, there are too many things to list
but one thing you need to understand is that to this day,
like many other Central Asian peoples, about a third of the entire country is still nomadic or semi-nomadic choosing to live in yurt communities.
Housing made up of traditional circular living structures that can easily be broken apart and transported.
They are huge on wrestling or Bökh.
They even have the world's largest wrestling event in the July game event known as Naadam, with over 6,000 competitors.
No weight class and it gets intense.
The traditional style comes in many different forms
but essentially, the men wear briefs, boots and a zodog or bare chested jacket.
As the legend goes, there was one occasion in which a woman beat all the wrestlers ripping her jacket in the process exposing her breasts
and since then all the jackets were made to expose the chest of the wrestler
to make sure none of them were women.
Otherwise, horse riding and archery are huge
Traditional Mongolian dance comes in a variety of styles many inspired by the movements of animals
like the falcon dance or the prancing lion dance.
Another huge deal would be the traditional throat singing
I have been waiting so long to cover this because it is so cool!
Basically if you've never heard it,
it's essentially a singing style called overtone singing,
which is done with two tones at once with the mouth.
The regular voice and the second one with an almost eerie sounding whistle.
For example:
How do they do that? It's like (eerie sounding whistle)
Otherwise, Mongolia is huge on festivals.
They have them throughout the entire year
Things like:
Tsagaan sar, Mongolian new year with lots of fatty meat served.
They have the ice festival
The golden eagle festival and so on.
Okay time to move on,
History. In the quickest way I can put it:
Proto-Mongolic Khanates
Mongolian tribes unify under Genghis Khan and the Mongolian Empire
Mongolian Empire split up into four separate Khanates
China starts coming in
Mongolians convert to Buddhism, some to Islam
Also during this period, the Kalmyks move to Kalmykia, which is now part of western Russia.
Nearly two centuries of rule under the Qing Dynasty
A lot of political marriages between Mongols and Manchus
Late 19th century, Han Chinese immigrants move into Inner and Outer Mongolia
1911 Mongolia declares independence
Shortly after WWI, Mongolia decides to side with Russia and remove Chinese occupation
1932 Monk rebellion
Stalin's purge
They act as like a buffer for Russia and China during Sino-Soviet split
1991 Mongolia becomes a democratic country
New buildings and pop culture comes in
and here we are today.
Some notable people of Mongolian descent or from mongolia might include:
Obviously, in the various Khans that followed after him
This poet guy
Cosmonaut, this guy.
Yeah. A Mongolian person went up to space.
And speaking of the grand scope of the world:
(Friend Zone)
Now Mongolia did have the second-largest Empire throughout all of history, right after the British.
So they've always kind of had a way of dealing with a lot of people across the world
I guess you could say.
Outside of Asia, Germany and the USA have close ties.
They're one of the few countries that had consulates in the early 20th century. They have the largest communities of Mongolians abroad in diaspora.
They are also countries where Mongolians prefer to work and travel to
and about 2% of the population can speak German today
and many are learning English as well.
Mongolia kind of has a little bit of a crush on South Korea and Japan.
Pop culture and dramas are super popular.
Tons of Koreans and Japanese restaurants are everywhere
and the two are super comfortable when they meet each other.
Many Mongolians also have taken part in sumo wrestling, including this guy who became Yokozuna.
Kazakhstan and Turkey are kind of like the newer but technically old friends
as they see Mongolia as kind of like an ancestor to their people.
Both have great interest and respect whenever the word "Mongolia" is brought up.
In terms of their best friends, however,
many Mongolians might say, Russia, because they didn't want China to overtake them.
Although Mongolia never became a Soviet republic,
they did kind of act as like a buffer zone between the two countries especially during the Sino-Soviet split.
To this day, many Mongolians even speak Russian. Russians come in all the time
and the two nations have just been generally very close especially during the turn of the 20th century.
In conclusion: With Mongolia, you have a very vast open space inhabited by few people
but these people hold a very important secret that Asia could not live without.
Stay tuned, Montenegro is coming up next.