Square pegs

Ulaanbaatar has more than a few squares, an unsurprising love of the great Chinggis and the less well known hero Sukhbaatar (who led an uprising against the Chinese in the 1920's) and perhaps more surprisingly... a deep affection for the beatles.

Sukhbaatar Square is the biggest and most famous, it is a place of gathering, a place to protest and to play. It really is as big as it looks. It is hard not to imagine a soviet style military parade goose stepping past the statues of Chinghiss and Sukhbaatar.

Sukhbaatar

Chinggis

These days however the statues are places where the nippers ride around on electric cars or get a bit of a ride around on a tandem.

It's also a place to have your picture taken after your wedding and drink your champagne out of paper cups.

and while it is a huge place with some imposing buildings surrounding it, perhaps the most impressive of them is the big glass sail of a building that provides a landmark from just about anywhere in the city.

Sukhbaatar may be the most impressive of the squares but my favourite is...um...no idea what it's called, lets just call it  Beatles Square.

Not quite sure why there appears to be a window frame leant up against John and Ringo but they have clearly decided that the apple is not quite right and it is being resized. Perhaps they'll take a bite out of it as well.

The view the other way is not quite as impressive but does point to the circus, yep the big yellow place is/was a circus, now it's more of a multi purpose venue but is still referred to as the circus. 

Sadly the picture just missed a teenager surfing the crossbar and handlebar of his knackered old mountainbike, a bike with one brake and a home made single speed gear. Brilliant. I nearly had enough bottle to ask him to do it again but sadly...

Maybe I need to get braver!