good morning everyone hello how are you
doing today this is doug and i am here
in ulambatar mongolia i'm actually in
sukhbatar square again
where i was at the beginning of the
first video from mongolia if you haven't
seen that yet click at the top of the
screen i'll link it up there and uh
definitely watch that to get caught up i
think behind me right now there might be
part two of the event that i saw
yesterday where they were honoring all
the people who had contributions to the
arts and poetry etc because it looks
pretty much the same like a bunch of
families waiting and people coming out
of the government building one by one
and being honored not exactly sure but
we're not gonna stick around today to
find out because we're going off to a
different part of ulambatar to see some
more of the cultural sites around this
capital city of mongolia so first place
we are going is called gandan monastery
apparently it is one of the best
preserved buddhist monasteries in the
city of ulambatar the real name is
actually a bit longer and i need to read
it because it's kind of hard it's
monastery okay so we're gonna head over
there and at the end of the video i'm
hopefully going to go up a mountain to
this communist memorial site and get an
amazing view of the city and it's just a
really really cool city and i think
having that viewpoint of the city is
going to be incredible so stick around
but right now let's head over to gandan
monastery
to uh sorry gundam monastery
okay so that taxi ride was easily like
at least 25 minutes long because of all
the traffic and it came out to
1.78 cents u.s which is just crazy it's
kind of interesting we were driving
through some of the back roads literally
right in the center of the capitol but
the the buildings change a lot like it
feels like you're in a small town all of
a sudden but then you come out here and
you're back in like modern city
architecture okay anyway here we go
this must be gandani
monastery
let's head inside and see if we're in
the right place
take it off this beautiful gate by the
entrance
okay so with the ticket you get actually
a really nice
map with a bunch of information about
all the different
locations here and uh some rules about
you know what you should and should not
do in an active monastery including not
touching the altars no flash photography
no food and beverage silence your cell
phones don't feed animals and things
like that so it's just about respecting
the sight man i'm telling you guys
mongolian is so hard the accent like the
way they pronounce the words is so
complicated like if i was reading the
name of this monastery i would say
gandan teg chen ling but when you hear a
mongolian person say it it sounds kind
of like
it's like very
throat pronounced it's like a lot of
consonant sounds and it's just it's very
difficult to understand it took me a
while to tell my cab driver where i
wanted to go it's unlike any language
i've heard before so apparently this
monastery was built in 1727
the name in tibetan actually means great
place of complete joy
great name i love that and apparently
there are 150 monks in residence here at
any one given time so you can see a few
monks walking around both young and old
you know they stay here to learn about
buddhism and and live that lifestyle
let's go explore it a little bit it's
very very beautiful very peaceful
okay so i'm seeing a lot of people come
and spin
these
wheels
like this
so these are called prayer wheels and
written on them are prayers and
apparently in buddhism when you spin it
it's supposed to have the same effect as
reciting a prayer so people will walk
down and spin them and it has the same
effect as reciting a prayer
so mongolia has a really rich history of
buddhism but unfortunately during the
communist years starting in like the
1920s buddhists were heavily heavily
repressed and a lot of the history and
culture of buddhism in mongolia was
destroyed and you can definitely still
see the effects of that repression in
mongolia today because while about 50 of
the country identifies as buddhist
another 40 identifies as atheist you
know as in the soviet union and a lot of
other communist countries religion was
looked down on and repressed because you
know you're only supposed to worship
the state or the party so it was the
same here and it wasn't until the 90s
the early 90s when communism fell in a
lot of the world including mongolia that
buddhism was finally able to kind of
re-emerge but unfortunately a lot of the
sites have been destroyed thankfully
there are still some of them like this
gundam monastery that have been
preserved or restored since the 90s
there are several like wedding parties
happening right now with photos and
stuff
it's very cool to see everyone's dressed
up nicely
and yeah like i said there's more than
one here at the moment okay guys so i
just went inside the main temple here at
the monastery and i didn't want to speak
while i was recording in there because
it's a pretty special kind of sacred
place so i'm just going to do a voice
over right now so inside this main
temple of the monastery is a statue of
avalo kitte vara so this statue was
actually dismantled by the russian
troops in 1938 you know relating back to
what i said before about the repression
of religion and buddhism here in
mongolia during the communist years but
it was rebuilt in 1996 funded by
donations by mongolian people and it is
actually the tallest
indoor statue in the world so mongolia
has a lot of statue world records more
on that
coming up but this statue is 26.5 meters
or 87 feet tall it's absolutely
incredible very very beautiful
and surrounded by prayer wheels and
other buddhist symbols very unique place
highly recommend you come and visit here
if you're in
willambatar i've never seen anything
like it before alright guys so i am
going to head out of the monastery now
and hopefully grab a bite to eat and
then we're going to continue on
to an amazing viewpoint of the city and
also apparently a pretty cool communist
site it's going to be incredible here we
go all right guys it's a little bit
later but i've come to another part of
the city called the zaisan monument
currently climbing up the steps we're at
the top of a hill on the outskirts of
the city so let's get up there and i'll
show you so this is my friend inc
he's mongolian tour guide thanks for
showing me around man
this was built this monument it was
built
to remember the soviet soldiers that
died in world war ii right yes not the
mongol so
the russians came here and they built a
monument for themselves essentially in
mongolia and wow yeah it looks very
soviet oh my gosh wow you've literally
got lenin right there
there he is there's lennon
i wonder if stalin is on here
the other side
oh that's sukapater okay he defeated the
chinese right
okay
and then here oh my gosh
this is so cool soviet mosaics
i feel like bald and bankrupt right now
this is cool
oh my goodness
i'll show you guys the full thing here
[Music]
wow
look at this this is the uh soviet
soldiers taking down
the nazis
so they're pulling down that flag and
they're putting up
the cccp flag
imperial japan as well
there's imperial japanese flag and here
you've got all the military and
you can see on the helmet
cccp
that's ussr in russian and on the
outside you've got the very soviet stone
massive soldier holding you know the
soviet union flag to be honest i'm
surprised that this is still
like
here standing because in a lot of the
post
communist countries they remove this
kind of stuff but
this is like as soviet as it gets you
can see here
on the flag
there it is hammer and sickle wow
lenin we're just missing stalin like
where's stalin let's check this side
sss
ussr
right there prolitary proletariat wow
it's so communist all right so i'm just
on the outside of it it's interesting
like mongolia hasn't
i mean they're not communist at all
anymore but they haven't like fully cast
off that
history like you know they have in
ukraine or
uh other other
post-communist countries i think it's
partially because you know there was
this power struggle over mongolia
between the russians and the chinese and
they're two different models of
communism at the time and basically the
soviets won and they were the ones kind
of allied with mongolia throughout the
communist times and mongolia has had
problems with china for a while so i
think between the two they don't mind
the soviets because the alternative is
china okay and i've been talking enough
now check out this view it's absolutely
insane i think only about a million and
a half people live in this city but it
looks huge to me
it's crazy and now you can see these
mountains that i was talking about i
think in yesterday's video
with
i mean just the green rolling hills like
right on the edge of the city the city
just ends and then it's just barren
landscape okay here i am on the far side
now
they're building so much here too
like i mean you've got a lot of these
like communist style apartment blocks
but they're building
even more it looks like
and
yeah i imagine the city will just keep
expanding and expanding up into the
hills hey look at that we've got a
rainbow over here it just rained
can you guys see that little rainbow
nice all right guys it just rained again
kind of fitting for the whole
soviet communist vibe
but
i was looking for stalin and i said
there's no way he's not included on this
it's a world war ii memorial built by
the soviets
there he is
knew he had to be here somewhere
to be honest i'm surprised he's not
front and center i had to come around
the side here
to see him
oh my gosh look at this
slippery
wow
just beautiful
all right and we are heading out now
leaving
the zaisa monument definitely come check
this out it's an amazing view
of ulambatar so
if you are here
this one is not to be missed okay hello
guys it is the next day now because i
forgot to end the video so i'm going to
do that now i hope you guys have enjoyed
this look at a few components of
mongolia's very long and interesting and
complicated history but the good news is
that is not the last you'll be seeing of
mongolia because right now i am headed
off to narantul market which is
apparently the largest black market in
mongolia so stay tuned that video will
be coming up next but other than that i
want to say thank you so much for
watching and i'll see you in the next
one bye
you