The modern Ghengis…
Across the barren steppe totem flags flap in the cold winds that blow from the Altai mountains beneath a bright blue sky. The world’s last wild horses run in the distance as herds of goat, sheep and cows graze on the sparse grass. A shaman’s drum beats rhythmically across the land while a woman in a sheepskin deel robe emerges from the lone white tent standing out against the blue sky to gather dried dung for the evening fire. A few hundred kilometers west of the Soviet built capital of Mongolia, Ulaan Baatar, the nomadic life continues much as it has since the time of the Great Khan. Somewhere nearby lies the Shankh Buddhist monastery, one of the oldest in the country, built by the khan’s lama descendant Zanabazar, and purportedly where for hundreds of years thousands of monks from the Yellow Hat sect of Tibetan Buddhism protected the great horsehair staff banner – the sulde, which represented Genghis Khan’s soul – from the weather and the harsh environment of the steppes, foreign invasion and civil wars, yet could not withstand the rising tide of Soviet Totalitarianism, and mysteriously disappeared in the early 20th century.