Chinggis Square

I thought I should make a little post about Chinggis Square (formerly Sukhbaatar Square) since I’ve walked across it twice a day for the past five weeks (my workplace is just behind that big black building on the left).

That impressive-looking building in the middle is the Government Palace. Seated in the centre is Genghis Khan, flanked by Ogedei Khan and Kublai Khan.

In the centre of the square stands an equestrian statue of Damdin Sukhbaatar, one of the leaders of Mongolia’s 1921 revolution against the Chinese.

The State Ballet and Opera House is my favourite building, located on the East side of the square. It looks somehow edible…

On the South side of the square is the most useful landmark in Ulaanbaatar – the Blue Sky Tower.

On the West side you have the Golomt Bank, the Mongolian Central Stock Exchange, the Telecommunications building and the Central Post Office.

And of course, you can always see the mountains.

On particularly fine days, there are these tiny colourful cars that parents can rent out for their children to drive around the square in. The true Mini Coopers.

They say that 1 in every 200 Mongolian men is a direct descendant of Genghis Khan. I believe I found one of these descendants in the miniature Land Rover that nearly took my legs out from underneath me the other evening — the kid seemed pretty hell-bent on annihilating every non-Mongolian in his path without mercy.

Chinggis Square at night is also pretty impressive. The whole of the Government Palace is lit up, and twinkling string lights are also spiralled around the avenue of trees lining the South side. Oh, and the little cars for the children light up too.