The Christmas Test

It’s Christmas time! May you and your families all have a very Merry Christmas, and a Happy New Year. As a special Christmas treat, here’s a quiz for you to try. Time to test your knowledge of Mongolia so far!

To see the answers, hold down the left button on your mouse and drag it over the line underneath the question. The answer should then be revealed to you. Once you’ve finished the test check the score table to see how you’ve done. Good luck…

1. What is the capital of Mongolia?
Ulaanbaatar (Red Hero City)

2. Who is Mongolia’s most famous leader of all time (clue: he helped to created their biggest empire)?
Chengis Khann

3. How do you say “hello, how are you?” in Mongolian?
Sain bain uu?

4. Where do many of Mongolia’s street children live during the cold winter months?
Underground, in the sewers

5. What are 'nomads'?

People who live and constantly move around in the countryside

6. Name two types of Mongolian food.
Buuz and Hoshur

7. What is the name of the traditional Mongolian game played with sheep’s ankle bones?
Shagai

8. What does MEPPЙ ЧPИCTMAC translate into? (the word is spelt using the Cyrillic alphabet, so go back to my previous Project Mongolia entry on the Mongolian language for help)
MERRY CHRISTMAS

Test Scores:
0-2 Have you been paying attention?!
3-5 Ok, but there’s room for improvement.
6-8 Well done, the Mongolian people would be proud of you!

Project Mongolia will resume early January 2008. See you then!

How do Mongolians keep warm?

[Question from Louisa, Phoebe, Georgia & Miguel]

Mongolia is one of the coldest counties you could possibly visit, and its capital (Ulaanbaatar) is the coldest capital city in the world! Temperatures reach -35C during January and February. If you leave your clothes to dry outside they’ll quickly become frozen! As it’s so cold, it’s very impressive that the Mongolians manage to survive in these temperatures. So just how do they do it?
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Their clothes – everyone wraps up warm during the winter season. People spend a long time putting on warm clothes before they leave their house. Here you can see what the average Mongolian man would wear on a cold day:

Thermal underclothes

A jumper, many t-shirts and a warm pair of trousers

Hat, gloves and some very warm boots

A big coat!

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Their accommodation – People who own a house make sure that it has a lot of heating. All the windows and doors have a lot of insulation put around them, to stop the cold air outside getting in.
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Those who live in a gir (Mongolian tent) use coal fires to keep their gir warm. Because girs are well designed for Mongolia’s cold weather, it only takes thirty minutes from when the gir’s stove is lit for the temperature inside to rise from freezing to a nice, warm +20C. However, some people are not lucky enough to live in a house or a gir.

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Ulaanbaatar has many street children, who live on the streets begging for money. The only way they can keep warm in the winter is to live underground. The children climb down manholes and sleep next to the warm heating pipes that run underneath the city. They keep warm, but it’s dirty – they have a very difficult life.