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Point #10: 44.77° N, 100.99° E
Time for a new random point: 44.77° N, 100.99° E.
Physical geography:
Staying in the same part of the world, we're now in the foothills of the Gobi-Altai mountains in between the taller mountains of Ikh Bogd (12,982 ft) to the west and Baga Bogd (11,811 ft) to the east. South of the mountain range is the vast Gobi Desert. To the north is the Valley of the Lakes and beyond that the Khangai mountains. The gap we're in is created by the usually dry stream Builsun Dzadagay Sayr that runs north to Orog Lake, which has no outlet and is salty, and sometimes is completely dry itself.
This area is semi-arid desert steppes. The climate is cold and dry, gets maybe 2 inches of rain a year, mostly during the brief summer. The winter is long and cold with temps below 0 for 6 months, extremes into the -30's, while there can be snow, the winters are usually dry. The area is subject to a natural disaster unique to this part of the world, the Zud, which is an extended period of severe cold bad enough to kill livestock and wildlife. Other fun features are commonly drought, high winds, and dust storms. It's hard to tell if there's any vegetation right at our point, but I think there is probably grass. The soil such as it is is rocky and would not support much else. Critters will be mostly small mammals like the jerboa we found in Algeria and marmots, though there may also be some asses.
This area is at risk for desertification, due to both climate change and overgrazing. Climate change is causing the area to become colder and dryer than it already is, the Gobi desert is creeping northward and Zuds are becoming more common.
Human geography:
We are in the Bayanling district of Bayankhongor Province of Mongolia. This is pretty barren, sparsely populated country, but we aren't that far from signs of civilization. The Bogd-Bayanlig road is only 1.7 miles away, and there are what might be 4x4 tracks even closer. There are however no signs of any buildings anywhere close, the nearest being the tiny town of Bayanling only 17 miles to the south, but it'll take you an hour of mountain driving to get there, population 805. The closest city is the province capital of Bayankhongor, 100 miles or a 5 hour drive to the north, across the Valley of the Lakes. Population only 30,931, but that's large enough to have transportation connections to the rest of the country. Continuing south from Bayanlig is the Bayanlig-Gurvantes road, one of the few crossing the Gobi desert and going through Gobi Gurvansaikhan National Park.
The main economic activity around were would be herding and grazing. Sheep, goats, camels, yaks, and horses are all raised on the Mongolian steppes, though as the climate worsens many herders have given up their traditional lifestyle and moved to the cities. Hard to tell if there is much herding still going on here. There apparently isn't much to do in Bayanling, which is the only explanation I have for the existence of camel lifting as entertainment at their annual camel festival. Also they sing to their camels (includes baby camel pictures).
It probably will not be surprising that the people here are Mongols and they speak Mongolian. The steppes have been inhabited for a long time, not far away is White Cave with evidence of peoples from 700,000 years ago. The people here have been living a primarily nomadic lifestyle, tending to their herds, for most of history. Ancient times saws a series of nomadic empires, the earliest that definitely included our point was the Xianbei. Fast forwarding, the area was conquered by the non-nomadic Liao in the 10th century, but again became independent tribes when that fell apart. The one everyone knows is the Mongol Empire of the 1200's which the people of this area would have very much been a part of. We are within the Mongolian homeland that would've been part of Temüjin's initial uniting of the tribes and locals would have been with him on his sweep across Asia. The modern day Mongolian identity largely descends from this time. Besides his conquests Temüjin also codified the Mongolian language and its laws. When the Empire was divided among Temüjin's son, our area became part of the Yuan Dynasty of China. In 1368 the Ming pushed the Yuan out of central China, but they would continue to rule in what is now Mongolia and northern China until 1635. During the Yuan period most of the people converted from the traditional shamanic Tengri religion to Buddhism which was promoted by Kublai Khan.
We talked about the Manchu conquest of China and establishment of the Qing Dynasty with the last point. The last Yuan Khan surrendered to the Qing in 1635. The Mongolian portion of his realm became independent, smaller khanates, but they too would be conquered by the Qing in 1698. The Qing introduced feudalism to Mongolia, local Mongol rulers continued ruling as vassals, and were largely able to keep their language and customs. The Qing did begin a program of "sinification" in 1901, but they did not get far before the Qing collapse in 1911. The Mongolians declared their independence and fought with the newly created Republic of China and managed to create a de facto state, but it was to be short lived as Mongolia got caught up in the events of the Russian civil war and the wars between China's warlords, and an attempt by a German general from Estonia to revive the Mongol Empire. I won't go into detail as I don't think any of the fighting was close to our point. The Soviets would emerge victorious in 1921 and set up a puppet state, the Mongolian People's Republic.
Soviet Mongolia became one of the most isolated countries in the world as it cut off outside contact, it lost between 3-5% of its population to the Stalinist purges. Pretty much all Buddhist institutions were destroyed. Initial attempts at forcing herders into collectives was disastrous, killing off a third of the countries livestock. The oppressive policies let up during WWII when Mongolians fought for Russia. Cold war era voluntary collectives for the herders (Negdels) were more successful and herding became heavily subsidized by the state. When Gorbachev began opening up Russia with his policies of Glasnost and Perestroika the Mongolian government followed suit and peacefully transitioned to a democratic government in 1990. With that though came the loss of subsidies from Russia, and herders lost their state support as well, contributing to the exodus to the cities. There is a budding tourist industry, but our point is pretty far off the beaten path for any potential tourists, but I'm sure it would be lovely with just the grass and the wind to keep you company.
Hey look, an opportunity to share another of my maps, our point on the Altai side of the valley between the Altai and Khangai mountains.
Physical geography:
Staying in the same part of the world, we're now in the foothills of the Gobi-Altai mountains in between the taller mountains of Ikh Bogd (12,982 ft) to the west and Baga Bogd (11,811 ft) to the east. South of the mountain range is the vast Gobi Desert. To the north is the Valley of the Lakes and beyond that the Khangai mountains. The gap we're in is created by the usually dry stream Builsun Dzadagay Sayr that runs north to Orog Lake, which has no outlet and is salty, and sometimes is completely dry itself.
This area is semi-arid desert steppes. The climate is cold and dry, gets maybe 2 inches of rain a year, mostly during the brief summer. The winter is long and cold with temps below 0 for 6 months, extremes into the -30's, while there can be snow, the winters are usually dry. The area is subject to a natural disaster unique to this part of the world, the Zud, which is an extended period of severe cold bad enough to kill livestock and wildlife. Other fun features are commonly drought, high winds, and dust storms. It's hard to tell if there's any vegetation right at our point, but I think there is probably grass. The soil such as it is is rocky and would not support much else. Critters will be mostly small mammals like the jerboa we found in Algeria and marmots, though there may also be some asses.
This area is at risk for desertification, due to both climate change and overgrazing. Climate change is causing the area to become colder and dryer than it already is, the Gobi desert is creeping northward and Zuds are becoming more common.
Human geography:
We are in the Bayanling district of Bayankhongor Province of Mongolia. This is pretty barren, sparsely populated country, but we aren't that far from signs of civilization. The Bogd-Bayanlig road is only 1.7 miles away, and there are what might be 4x4 tracks even closer. There are however no signs of any buildings anywhere close, the nearest being the tiny town of Bayanling only 17 miles to the south, but it'll take you an hour of mountain driving to get there, population 805. The closest city is the province capital of Bayankhongor, 100 miles or a 5 hour drive to the north, across the Valley of the Lakes. Population only 30,931, but that's large enough to have transportation connections to the rest of the country. Continuing south from Bayanlig is the Bayanlig-Gurvantes road, one of the few crossing the Gobi desert and going through Gobi Gurvansaikhan National Park.
The main economic activity around were would be herding and grazing. Sheep, goats, camels, yaks, and horses are all raised on the Mongolian steppes, though as the climate worsens many herders have given up their traditional lifestyle and moved to the cities. Hard to tell if there is much herding still going on here. There apparently isn't much to do in Bayanling, which is the only explanation I have for the existence of camel lifting as entertainment at their annual camel festival. Also they sing to their camels (includes baby camel pictures).
It probably will not be surprising that the people here are Mongols and they speak Mongolian. The steppes have been inhabited for a long time, not far away is White Cave with evidence of peoples from 700,000 years ago. The people here have been living a primarily nomadic lifestyle, tending to their herds, for most of history. Ancient times saws a series of nomadic empires, the earliest that definitely included our point was the Xianbei. Fast forwarding, the area was conquered by the non-nomadic Liao in the 10th century, but again became independent tribes when that fell apart. The one everyone knows is the Mongol Empire of the 1200's which the people of this area would have very much been a part of. We are within the Mongolian homeland that would've been part of Temüjin's initial uniting of the tribes and locals would have been with him on his sweep across Asia. The modern day Mongolian identity largely descends from this time. Besides his conquests Temüjin also codified the Mongolian language and its laws. When the Empire was divided among Temüjin's son, our area became part of the Yuan Dynasty of China. In 1368 the Ming pushed the Yuan out of central China, but they would continue to rule in what is now Mongolia and northern China until 1635. During the Yuan period most of the people converted from the traditional shamanic Tengri religion to Buddhism which was promoted by Kublai Khan.
We talked about the Manchu conquest of China and establishment of the Qing Dynasty with the last point. The last Yuan Khan surrendered to the Qing in 1635. The Mongolian portion of his realm became independent, smaller khanates, but they too would be conquered by the Qing in 1698. The Qing introduced feudalism to Mongolia, local Mongol rulers continued ruling as vassals, and were largely able to keep their language and customs. The Qing did begin a program of "sinification" in 1901, but they did not get far before the Qing collapse in 1911. The Mongolians declared their independence and fought with the newly created Republic of China and managed to create a de facto state, but it was to be short lived as Mongolia got caught up in the events of the Russian civil war and the wars between China's warlords, and an attempt by a German general from Estonia to revive the Mongol Empire. I won't go into detail as I don't think any of the fighting was close to our point. The Soviets would emerge victorious in 1921 and set up a puppet state, the Mongolian People's Republic.
Soviet Mongolia became one of the most isolated countries in the world as it cut off outside contact, it lost between 3-5% of its population to the Stalinist purges. Pretty much all Buddhist institutions were destroyed. Initial attempts at forcing herders into collectives was disastrous, killing off a third of the countries livestock. The oppressive policies let up during WWII when Mongolians fought for Russia. Cold war era voluntary collectives for the herders (Negdels) were more successful and herding became heavily subsidized by the state. When Gorbachev began opening up Russia with his policies of Glasnost and Perestroika the Mongolian government followed suit and peacefully transitioned to a democratic government in 1990. With that though came the loss of subsidies from Russia, and herders lost their state support as well, contributing to the exodus to the cities. There is a budding tourist industry, but our point is pretty far off the beaten path for any potential tourists, but I'm sure it would be lovely with just the grass and the wind to keep you company.
Hey look, an opportunity to share another of my maps, our point on the Altai side of the valley between the Altai and Khangai mountains.