History of Ulaanbaatar
A balbal or ancient human statue was chosen as the ceremonial foundation site (Shav) of the city when it settled in 1778 at its current location.
Okladnikov also revealed an Upper Paleolithic (40,000-12,000 years ago) site on the south-east base of the Zaisan Hill on the northern edge of Mt.
The lower strata of this bistratified settlement located at the present-day Zaisan Memorial revealed tools and materials fashioned according to the Levallois technique.
Red ochre rock paintings from the Bronze Age (1st millennium BCE) are to be found at Ikh Tenger Gorge on the north side of Mt.
The paintings show human figures, horses, eagles and abstract designs like horizontal lines and large squares with over a hundred dots within them.
The same style of painting from the same era is found very close to the east of the city at Gachuurt, as well as in Khovsgol Aimag and southern Siberia, indicating a common South Siberian nomadic pastoral culture.
Wooden cups, plates, ceramic vessels and a 12 branch deer horn were found in the "Xiongnu Queen Tomb" (Hunnu Khatni Bulsh) at the Baruun Boginiin Am gorge of Mount Bogd Khan Uul.
Wang Khan Toghrul (1130-1203) of the Keraites, a Nestorian Christian monarch who was identified as the legendary Prester John by Marco Polo, is said to have had his palace here (the Black Forest of the Tuul River) and forbade hunting in the holy mountain Bogd Uul.
The Secret History of the Mongols mentions this area in many places, for example in Paragraphs 115 and 264: (After defeating the Merkits with Temujin and Jamukha)...Toghrul Khan returned home, following the edge of Mount Burkhan Khaldun, going past Ogort Forest, continuing past Gachuurt suvchid and Uliastai suvchid, hunting along the way, till he came to the Black Forest of the Tuul River.
(SHM 264) He rode against the Xi Xia the next year taking Queen Yesui with him.In 1984 a rich 13th century tomb of a 50- to 60-year-old, 175 cm (69 in) tall warrior with an ornate golden belt was excavated at Dadart Uul of Mt.
The French missionary Gerbillon camped at the site of Ulaanbaatar on August 5, 1698 and continued north the next day along the Selbe River valley (present-day Sukhbaatar District).
On the way we passed many streams that empty into the River, and for a distance of about thirty li, we followed the edge of a high mountain, called Han-alin (Mount Bogd Khan Uul), covered by a grand forest of pine and fir trees, full of bears, wild boars and deer.
[1]The Manchu envoy Tulišen wrote an account of his travels through this region in 1712, describing how his party rested and fished ten to twenty salmon and pike in the river "Tu-la" while one Ko-tcha-eur-too killed a deer with a gun in the "Han-shan" (i.e., Khan Uul).
His successors are: his eldest son Dondovdorj (1692-1743), Rinchendorj (1743-1755), Khajivdorj (1757-1759), Gejeedorj (1759-1771), Tsevdendorj (1771-1774), Sundevdorj (1774-1798), Nyambuudorj (1799-1832) all the way till Darkhan Chin Wang Puntsagtseren (1914-1921).
[4] The 2nd Jebtsundamba Khutuktu was born at Mount Songinokhairkhan in present-day Ulaanbaatar in 1724 as the son of Darkhan Chin Wang Dondovdorj and Tsagaan Dari Bayart.
Nukhtiin Am, on the south of Ulaanbaatar, was where Zanabazar (1635-1723) consecrated and meditated under a tree called Janchivsembe, the shadow of which was used to choose the location of Gandan Monastery in 1838.
Founded in 1639 as a yurt monastery, Ulaanbaatar, then Örgöö (palace-yurt), was first located at Lake Shireet Tsagaan nuur (75 km directly east of the imperial capital Karakorum) in what is now Burd sum, Övörkhangai, around 230 kilometres (143 miles) south-west from the present site of Ulaanbaatar, and was intended by the Mongol nobles to be the seat of the first Jebtsundamba Khutughtu, Zanabazar, son of Tusheet Khan Gombodorj (1597-1655).
There he was proclaimer "teacher of multitudes", ordained by high lama Wensa Brulgu Luvsandanzanjamts and received the name Luvsandambiijaltsan (Blo-bzang-bstan-pa'i-rgyal-mtshan).
In 1778, the city moved from Khui Mandal and settled for good at its current location, near the confluence of the Selbe and Tuul rivers and beneath Bogd Khan Uul, back then also on the caravan route from Beijing to Kyakhta.
In 1758 the Qianlong Emperor appointed the Khalkha Vice General Sanzaidorj as the first Mongol amban of Urga with full authority to "oversee the Khuree and administer well all the Khutugtu's shabinar".
A pair of highly ornate 11 metre tall inscribed columns (1783) standing in front of the surviving Dari Ekh Temple (1778) in the former Maimaicheng district is now under national protection.
Urga was visited by many foreign envoys and travelers, including Egor Fedorovich Timkovskii (1820), N.M.Przhevalsky, Pyotr Kozlov, M. De Bourbolon (1860) and A.M. Pozdneev.
[14] In 1910 the amban Sando went to quell a major fight between Gandan lamas and Chinese traders started by an incident at the Da Yi Yu shop in the Baruun Damnuurchin market district.
In 1911, with the Qing Dynasty in China headed for total collapse, Mongolian leaders in Ikh Khüree for Naadam met in secret on Mount Bogd Khan Uul and resolved to end 220 years of Manchu control of their country.
Baron Ungern's capture of Urga was followed by clearing out Mongolia's small gangs of demoralized Chinese soldiers and, at the same time, looting and murder of foreigners, including a vicious pogrom that killed off the Jewish community.
[18] However, at the same time Baron Ungern was taking control of Urga, a Soviet-supported Communist Mongolian force led by Damdin Sükhbaatar was forming up in Russia, and in March they crossed the border.
[21] Since Mongolia's transition to a market economy in 1990, the city has experienced further growth - especially in the ger districts, as construction of new blocks of flats had basically broken down in the 1990s.
After the meeting was over some protestors left the central square and moved on to the nearby headquarters of the Mongolian People's Revolutionary Party, attacking and burning the building.
[22] At night rioters set fire to the Cultural Palace, where a theatre, museum and National art gallery were vandalised and burned.
Ulaanbaatar has been receiving regular OSCE delegations after Mongolia became a participating state of the Organization of Security and Cooperation in Europe in November 2012.
