Once a poor Soviet satellite famous for cashmere and Genghis Khan, Mongolia is now booming with the profits of coal mining. But what does it mean for the nation’s nomadic heritage?
Dan Chung’s gallery of photographs from Mongolia
The icy wind gusting across the Gobi slices through clothing, scours the rock and churns the coal piles, blowing dust into clouds 50 metres above us and fogging the horizon to a grey-beige blur beneath the perfect blue. Soot coats mouths and nostrils and blackens faces.
Wrapped in heavy workwear, his eyes shielded by dark goggles beneath his hard hat, Amarsanaa Batsuren strides across this remote and unlovely stretch of desert. He is on his way to inspect an ugly gash in the earth, 500m by 800m and growing fast. "Brilliant, innit?" he says, and flashes a grin.