According to some statistics more than half the people in the city are unemployed. The population increased from 500,000 to 800,000 between 19 and surpassed a million before 2010. There are now some nice hotels and a surprising number of nice European- and Japanese-made vehicles on the streets. Since the collapse of the Soviet Union, Ulaan Baatar has become both poorer and more prosperous. After the Soviets purges in 1930s there was only one working monastery left and it was the only one that remained functioning during the Soviet period.Дescribing the city in the 1980s, Paul Theroux wrote, 'Every apartment block looked like a barracks, every parking lot like a motor pool, every street in the city looked as though it had been designed for a parade.A cynic might have said the city resembles a prison, but if so the Mongolians were very cheery prisoners-it was a youthful, well-fed, well-dressed population.' In the 19th century there were 100 Buddhist monasteries serving a population of 50,000 people. Most of the structures were gers or mudhouses, with a handful of monasteries and places for the aristocracy. Until the Soviets gave the city a makeover beginning in 1920s, the city looked like something from the Mongol era. It was called Ikh Huroo ('Big Circle') when it was ruled by its last non-Communist ruler, the living Buddha Bogda Khan. Ulaanbaatar ('Red Hero') has been so named since the Socialist revolution in 1921. The Turtle Rock Symbol just opposite the Ballet Theater in downtown Ulaan Baatar marks the center of the original sentiment. It has been at its present location in 1778. Ulaan Baatar was called Urga when it was established in 1639 as a roving nomad camp long after the Genghis Khan era was over. Smoke from their coal fires has turned the capital into one of the worldвЂ™s most polluted cities, according to a World Bank report. Others live just outside the cityвЂ™s center in yurts - known locally as gers - without sewers, running water or, in most cases, electricity. Michael Kohn and William Mellor wrote in the Washington Post: вЂњMany of UlaanbaatarвЂ™s 1.3 million inhabitants live in crumbling concrete apartment buildings from the Soviet era. Some suburban communities are made up completely of gers, and according to one survey, 35 percent of the residents of the city live in tents. The suburbs spread out for a long distance from the city center. In the peripheral zones and suburbs they live in fenced-off gers (tents) and permanent homes made of concrete, cinder blocks and railroad ties. People in the central city live in drab apartments. In the winter Ulaan Baatar is often engulfed in smog - produced by large coal-fired power plants and tens of thousands of household stoves - that gets trapped by temperature inversions.

Harsh conditions in the steppes have forced thousand of people to move to Ulaan Baatar. An average of 236 days of the year are sunny and blue skies and sunshine make even the coldest temperatures seem pleasant.

It is the worldвЂ™s coldest capital, even colder than Moscow and can be surprisingly cool even in August - which can be a good thing. The weather is probably the biggest issue. There are Stalin-era buildings built with Soviet help and new buildings financed with Korean, Chinese and Japanese aid money. Teenagers danced with glow-sticks, and herders on horseback took to the pavements to avoid traffic and talk on their mobile phones.вЂќ Sam Knight wrote in the Times of London, вЂњAcross Ulaanbaatar.the sound of the lamaвЂ™s conch competed with Russian pop music. There is a lot of died hair, hip hop fashions among young people as well as men in business suits and people playing Korean smartphone games. Its residents are surprisingly urbanized. Ulaan Baatar means 'Red Hero,' the name given it in 1924 and a reference to the great Mongolian liberator Suhee Baatar. About 1.4 million people (almost half the country's population) make their home here, almost double what there were 15 years ago. Around the city are for four sacred mountains: Tsetseegun Mountain to the south, Songino Mountain to the west, Bayanzurkh Mountain to the east and Chingeleti Mountain to the north. The capital and only major city in Mongolia, it is situated at an elevation of 1,350 meter and spreads out over a wide area in a valley the Tuul River and among the foothills of the Bogd mountains. Ulaan Baatar is a flat, windy city made up of rows of Russian-built buildings, large open spaces, wide, dusty boulevards, ger suburbs and construction projects.

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