Zaisan & the Winter Palace...

Visit to the Zaisan monument today with Ben and his friend Anna who is visiting from Oz.  The photos show how bad the pollution is at the moment...

Soviet tank

air so thick you can chew it!

UB city behind the apartments clouded by pollution

At the top of the monument is a ovoo.  It is a type of shamanistic cairn made from rocks or from wood. Ovoos are often found at the top of mountains and in high places, like mountain passes. They serve mainly as religious sites, used in worship of the mountains and the sky as well as in Buddhist ceremonies, but often are also landmarks.

When travelling, it is custom to stop and circle an ovoo three times in clockwise direction, in order to have a safer journey. Usually, rocks are picked up from the ground and added to the pile. Also, one may leave offerings in the form of sweets, money, milk, or vodka. If one is in a hurry while travelling and does not have time to stop at an ovoo, honking of the horn while passing by the ovoo will also work!  During the communist period ovoo worship was officially prohibited along with other forms of religion, but people still worshiped them secretly.  

We also stopped by at the winter palace which is now a museum of the last monarch Bogd Khan.  I am officially obsessed with this man.  

Agvnluvsanchoijinnimadanzanbanchugwas (what a name huh!) born as a son of Gonchigtseren, Tibet's treasurer of His Holiness the Dalai Lama in Lhasa, in 1869. He was announced as a reincarnation of Mongolian Bogd Jebtsundamba Khutugtu, the spiritual leader of Mongolia's Tibetan Buddhism and officially welcomed as religious leader in Mongolia 1874. Jebtsundamba VIII uas crowned as the Bogd Khan (emperor) and outright religious and political leader of Mongolia, from 1911 to 1921. After the 1921 people's revolution Bogd Khan was allowed to stay on the throne with a restricted monarchy until his death in 1924. He became a symbolic state figure and religious leader. He died at 55 years of age in 1924 due to ill health. 

He considered himself as lineage of Chinggis Khaan because he was reincarnated from the first Bogd Gegeen Zanabazar a direct descendant of the Great Chinggis Khaan.  Mongols crowned him as Bogd Khan of Mongolia in 1911 because no other nominee could gain such wide and public support that time. He was wealthy with many followers and although he was born a Tibetan, he devoted himself to Mongolia.

He collected stuffed animals and had animals from all over the world sent to him.  The collection was crazy...there was even an aquarium with puffer fish, seahorses and eels.  There were penguins, lions, monkeys, an armadillo and tons more!!  He was given an elephant which they had to walk for 8 months over the country side to get it to him.  Bogd Khan also had a ceremonial ger made from 150 snow leopard pelts.  I know the animal lovers out there would think that's horrible but it was an impressive sight to see.  His art collection was amazing and the amount of Jade and gold I saw was ridiculous.  

Depending on which version of history you read, the Bogd Khan was either a great visionary and nationalist, or a promiscuous bisexual cross-dresser who was eventually blinded by syphilis. One of his wives was the former wife of a wrestler and was well known for her sexual exploits with her hairdresser!