No matter how long you have been living in the city or in the desert: Mongolian peoples is "nomad in the heart" because it deeply relies on their freedom and independence. Nomadism has its roots in the need of moving trough large areas in search of food for the cattle, and today is also expressed in the movements from city to city looking for jobs. The traditional yurt (ger in Mongolian language) is the perfect representation of the nomadic spirit: it can be dismantled in less than one hour, loaded up on camel or on pick-up and the same day assembled elsewhere. Similar roots has the spirituality which permeated the Mongolian peoples. The Stalinist purges of 1937 caused the death or deportation to Siberia for thousands of monks, the cult was forbidden and the monasteries was destroyed, except the few ones converted into a museums. Anyway the orderly religions represent only a small part of the Mongolian religious life and the holiness still survives because it appears in many other ways, the all inspired by the shamanic rituals of the ancient animist tribes which arrived here from Siberia. Today Mongolia remains an ancient, tribal society splitted in several ethnic groups that, after the Independence, deeply try to regain the national unity, rediscovering their roots.
