What animals can you find in Mongolia?

[question from Sam, Julia, Annabel, Victoria, Patrick and Aaron]

Mongolia is a place that is of great interest to animal-lovers. If one looks hard enough you can find some of the rarest animals in the world:

The snow leopard lives in some of the mountains in the west of Mongolia. It’s a beautiful animal, but is sadly being hunted to make medicines. As a result, the snow leopard is an endangered species – whilst Mongolia has the second largest number of snow leopards in the world, only 500-1000 are thought to live there.

The Gobi bear is another animal that is close to extinction. It has been many years since someone has spotted one, so people are worried that they may already have died out.

On a more positive note, a success story is the Przewalski horse. Fifty years ago it was close to extinction, but now the numbers are growing. The Przewalski horse is very unique – it is the only wild horse in the whole world. All other horses have been bred by men, but the Przewalski horse remains the same as it did hundreds of years ago.

Some explorers recently found a new species of mouse in the Mongolian desert, the "long-eared jerboa". Have a look at the following video clip for more information:

People in the countryside often have a few horses or camels to help them with their work and to transport them from place-to-place. They also have a dog to guard their house. Farmers will sheep, yaks and cows, and will take them to market when they are ready to be sold.

Marmots are everywhere in the countryside, you can spot there holes all over the place. Mongolians love to eat marmot meat, so in the summertime they will catch the marmots and roast them.

Cats are found in cities, but they are generally not liked by Mongolians. They are thought to bring bad luck, so are quickly chased away!

How cold can it get?

[question from Anna, Henry and Theo]

As it is now the coldest period of the year in Mongolia, I guess it’s a good time to answer this question. It gets very cold! Have a look at the weather forecast for this week (the middle of January):


At the moment, everyday is at least -20C. It never gets that cold in the UK! In fact, Mongolia’s capital is the coldest capital city in the world. The average yearly temperature is -1.3C, so on average it is freezing! If you leave your clothes outside to dry in the winter, they will soon become completely frozen. As it is so cold, snow and ice doesn’t really melt – snow can fall one day, and it will still be there a month later. This situation means that all of Mongolia’s pavements are very slippery. I’ve fallen over many times!

The coldest temperature ever recorded in Mongolia was -46C. These extreme temperatures mean that many animals die. This is a real problem for Mongolian farmers, as within a month all their animals could die. They then wouldn’t have anything to eat or to sell at the market. The farmers will try to protect their animals by building temporary shelters for them, but sometimes this still isn’t enough.

What sports do Mongolians play?

[question from Miles]

Mongolians play most of the same sports that we do in the UK. Football is often played (even in the snow!), but perhaps the most popular sport is basketball. Both boys and girls are out on the streets playing basketball.

One sport that Mongolians find difficult to do is swimming. Mongolia doesn’t have access to the sea, and only a couple of the big cities have swimming pools (which are expensive to use). This means that most Mongolians can’t swim!

The three traditional “manly sports” are:

Wrestling

Archery

Horseracing

These are still the main Mongolian sports, and men in the countryside practice them regularly. Women do not play these sports, so keep themselves fit through other sports.

Mongolians expect to do well in the wrestling and shooting events in this year’s Olympics. As Mongolian horses are quite different to the horses that are used in Olympic events, they don’t expect any medals in the horse-related events. Mongolian horses are small and certainly don’t jump!

Do they have any famous sports stars?

Mongolians have been doing very well at Sumo wrestling. Three of the top 5 Sumo wrestlers are Mongolian. This achievement has been quite controversial in Japan – Sumo is a very traditional Japanese sport, so some Japanese people do not like the fact that Mongolians are dominating the sport. However, the Mongolians are very proud of their Sumo wrestlers. There is a big poster of the best Mongolian Sumo wrestler, Hakuhu, on the main square in Ulaanbaatar.

How long does it take to get to Mongolia?

[Question from Patrick]

As the crow flies, it’s 4329 miles from London to Mongolia’s capital, Ulaanbaatar.

By plane - if you are lucky, the journey from London Heathrow airport to Ulaanbaatar’s Chingis Haan airport takes 11 hours. Most people fly to Moscow, the capital of Russia, and then get on a different plane going to Ulaanbaatar. The journey would be something like this:
*London Heathrow – Moscow Sheremetyevo: 3 and a half hours.
*Wait whilst changing plane: this wait can be a long wait or a short wait. Most of the time the wait is about 3 hours (there are no seats in Moscow Sheremetyevo airport, so this wait can seem like a very long time!)
*Moscow Sheremetyevo – Ulaanbaatar Chingis Haan: 4 and a half hours.

By car – going by road the distance to Ulaanbaatar is about 8000 miles (the route is very windy). It takes experienced drivers about three or four weeks. However, you would need a very strong car to get to Ulaanbaatar, as the roads are very bumpy and quite dangerous. Often there are no proper roads at all, just tracks in the dirt. Most people would use a jeep or a rally car to get to Mongolia, as an ordinary car would just break down.

On foot - it would take ages! Before cars were invented there were not many links between Europeans and Mongolians (the journey was too tough for most, and would take many months, sometimes over a year). The two different cultures did not mix much. I’m very lucky that planes exist now, otherwise I don't think I would have come!

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.

What is school life like in Mongolia? (boy's view)

[question from Louisa, Sam, Ed, Danielle, Miles, Anna, John, Victoria, Jake, Tom B, Louisa and Patrick]

Carrying on from last week's edition, this week I asked Bud, an 11 year old schoolboy from Ulaanbaatar about what school life is like in Mongolia. As Bud had previously been in a school in England (his family worked in Manchester for a few years, before returning to Mongolia), his answers were particularly interesting:

1. What subjects do you learn at school? Maths, Advanced Maths (Bud's school is a specialist maths school), Mongolia, English, History, Biology, P.E, Art, Physics and Geometry.

2. What do you like about school, and what do you not like?

:) I really like seeing my friends at school. There are 46 people in my class, so I have many friends to play with. I like Maths, English, Mongolian and P.E lessons. My maths teacher is really nice and teaches very well.

:( My school has some very strict rules. We have to walk around the school following a particular system - we cannot take short cuts, and we always have to walk on the right-hand side of the corridors. Running and shouting is definitely not allowed! If we break these rules, or misbehave in class, then we are given punishments. Usually the punishment is to wash the classroom after the end of the school day. I have had to do this when I was late for school! If someone is really bad then they may be smacked by the teachers, or may even have to leave the school. Other things I do not like are that I have to wake up early for school (at 6am), and that sometimes the lessons can be boring.

3. What games do you play with your friends? I play basketball and PC games with my school friends. I really like to play football, but we are not allowed to do this - the teachers think that we will hit the ball into the windows. We have to play our football in secret, so that the staff do not see us! My favourite team is Manchester United.

4. What are the main differences between English and Mongolian schools? (N.B. Bud studied in England for a few years before returning to Mongolia).

In England I had one teacher who taught us all our classes, whereas in Mongolia I have a different teacher for each of my subjects. Also, my English school was smaller (200 children, not the 2000 that are in Bud's current school), but it had a bigger playground! In Mongolia boys and girls don't really play together, but in England they did. I think that English school is easier than Mongolian school. I had a real shock when I came back to Mongolia - the maths that we were learning in Mongolia was a lot more difficult than the maths that we were learning in England. I had to catch up quickly!

5. How long it takes for you to get to school?
I have to take a bus to school. It takes me about 5 minutes to walk to the bus stop. Then I take a 15 minute-bus ride. My bus drops me off very near to school.

This edition of Project Mongolia was brought to you with the help of Bud and his mother Urnaa. To both of them many thanks!