 Mongolian archery |
 No Roman Emperor and no British monarch ever controlled more of the planet than did the Mongols. The grand sweep of the Khans took them west into Europe, east into China and south to Java - the largest contiguous land empire in world history.
Mongolia, 'The Land of Blue Sky', no longer has aspirations to bring the world's citizenry under its control, though it is determined to entice as many of them as possible to its sumptuous realm, where the Central Asian steppe, taiga forests, blue lakes, the Altai mountains and the Gobi Desert meet in a high landlocked plateau between Russian Siberia and northern China's plains.
Centred around Naadam, the summer festival of horseracing, archery and wrestling events staged in the surprising city of Ulaanbaatar with its shopping malls, supermarkets, boutiques, restaurants, yellow cabs and mini-skirts, this graphic feature takes you into a world where unexpected contrasts pile one atop the other. A Lenin statue stands a block from a swish fashion catwalk; a 4WD shares a road with a yak cart; a plush western hotel is just a short drive from a ger (traditional round felt dwellings). And evident everywhere - the spirit of Genghis Khan.
This story runs to about 1,750 words.
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