Mongolia
In sixty short years, the Mongols
created an empire that stretched from Turkey to China, and they
did so by the qualities they still display: impressive riding
skills, discipline and toughness. The country they emerged from
is raw, vast and unforgiving. Much is spectacular desert and lofty
mountain ranges, and even the wide grasslands of the steppes do
not support settlement for long. The Mongolians are one of many
nomadic peoples who continually move their sheep and horses to
fresh water and grazing lands, carting their felt-covered homes
with them. Except in winter, when snowfall is heavy and temperatures
plunge to -40°C, the Mongolians live in the saddle, rounding up
their herds and engaging in contests of riding skill and bravery.
Life is always a challenge, and even Spring, the most attractive
of seasons, is very brief. At midday in June the temperature in
the deserts and parched upland valleys is climbing to 40°C, and
by October the biting winds are bringing the first snow flurries.
The Mongol Empire soon fragmented,
but left an enduring mark on Asian history. Novgorod and the early
Russian state grew as tax-collecting vassals of the Golden Horde.
Khubilai, the grandson of Genghis, ruled China and launched expeditions
into Burma, Indonesia and Japan. Until suppressed by Russia in
the mid nineteenth century, the khanates of central Asia raided
Persia and gorged the markets of Kokand and Khiva with spoils
and slaves. Oddly enough, the later Mongols were talented and
cultivated rulers. Timur built his splendid capital at Samarkand,
and from Timur and Genghis Khan descended Babur the Tiger, who
founded the Moghul Empire of India. Though rulers converted to
Islam, the Mongols allowed a good deal of religious freedom in
their territories, and Buddhism in particular has reasserted its
hold on these vast and empty places.
The Soviet era brought centralisation
and many changes. Stalin transported peoples wholesale, and in
the larger towns today there are various mixtures of Uighurs,
Tajiks, Mongols and Russians. There were policies of introducing
a Russian way of life with cultural exchanges and the trappings
of western life - trucks, television and refrigerators. But many
Mongolians still live as they always did. Embroidery, leatherwork
and weaving are practised. Men tell stories and the women embellish
them with traditional songs.
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