Forward steppe
Breakneck economic growth has spawned a generation of Mongolians who are learning to savour their country's successes and excesses. Words and pictures by Marika Dee
''It's all going so fast," sighs Gerelkhuu, a 26-year-old artist living in Ulan Bator, the capital of Mongolia. "We have to remember who we are and to be careful not to lose our soul. If we don't know who we are, we don't know where we'll go."
Over the past few years, Mongolia, a landlocked country sandwiched between Russia and China, has experienced unprecedented economic growth, driven by the breakneck development of its natural resources.
Half of Mongolia's 2.8 million people live in Ulan Bator, or UB, as it is known. And more than half of the national population are under the age of 30.
Almost 25 years after the democratic revolution that ended the communist era, when Mongolia was a satellite state of the Soviet Union, the country appears to be in a state of flux; its urban youth are searching for an identity while trying to balance the forces of globalisation with the preservation of tradition.
