Chingii

Mongolians are very proud of their ancient leader, Chinggis Khan. In the rest of the world this bloke is known as Ghenghis Khan, a ruthless barbarian. In Mongolia Chinggis is revered - the truth of his great feats lies somewhere in the middle - he was very intelligent, a smart leader but also killed alot of people and conquered alot of land.

I'm not going to go into the details of history - wikipedia can help you out with that: http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Genghis_Khan

Instead I am going to document some of the present incarnations of the man - or 'the many Chingii of Mongolia'

1. Chinggis Khan International Airport.

2. Chinggis Hotel. One of the swankiest in town.

3. Chinggis Vodka.

There are lots and lots of products with the name Chinggis, ranging from about $2 to $100 a bottle.

4. The Chinggis statue

5. Chinggis carpets. These adorn at least 80% of gers.

Countless, literally hundreds, of restaurants and bars across Ulaanbaatar and in the countryside are named in his honour. Every provinces has a local museum, every one of these featuring the local connection to Chinggis: Chinggis' birthplace, Chinggis' mother's birthplace, where Chinggis grew up, where Chinggis once drank some water...and so on.