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Nestled in the heart of the Altai mountains—the most landlocked spot on earth—lies Bayan Olgii province, home to Mongolia’s 100,000 Kazaks. It is beautiful a land of glacier capped peaks, rolling steppes and rushing rivers, but it is also a land of severe climate and economic hardship.
Kazaks make up about five percent of Mongolia’s total population. They are related to the Kazaks in Kazakstan and more remotely to other Turkic people groups that range from Turkey to western China. They speak a dialect of the Kazak language unique to Bayan Olgii, though many can understand and speak the Mongolian language as well.
The collapse of Communism and Mongolia’s economy in the early ‘90s left most people struggling to make ends meet. Years of drought and unusually harsh winters have also taken their toll, especially in the countryside where nomadic Kazaks still move seasonally with their flocks and felt tents.
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