10 Most Famous People from Mongolia

10 Most Famous People from Mongolia

Mongolia is the world’s largest landlocked country, bordered by Russia to the north and China to the south.  It covers an area of 1,564,116 square kilometers, with a population of just 3.3 million. This makes it the world’s most sparsely populated sovereign nation. 

The Mongols are an East Asian ethnic group native to Mongolia, Inner Mongolia in China, and the Buryatia Republic of the Russian Federation. The Mongols are the principal member of the large family of Mongolic peoples. A shared heritage and ethnic identity bind together the Mongols. Their indigenous dialects are collectively known as the Mongolian language. 

Let’s look at 10 of the most famous people from Mongolia. 

1. Oleg Alekseev 

Oleg Aleksandrovich Alekseev was a Soviet wrestler. An ethnic Buryat,(a Mongolic ethnic group), he engaged in wrestling as a child under influence of his elder brother Vyacheslav and progressed through national competitions. 

He became the first Buryat to become an Honoured Masters of Sport of the USSR. He won the gold medal at the 1979 European Wrestling Championships in Bucharest. With the Soviet Union team, the team World Cup in Toledo, US 1979. Toward the end of his sports career, he worked as a coach.

2. Ukhnaagiin Khürelsükh

Ukhnaagiin Khürelsükh – Wikimedia Commons

Ukhnaagiin Khürelsükh also referred to as Khürelsükh Ukhnaa, is the 6th and current president of Mongolia, beginning his term on June 25, 2021, after winning the 2021 Mongolian presidential election. 

He was prime minister from October 2017 to January 2021 and was elected to the Parliament of Mongolia four times in 2000, 2004, 2012, and 2020. He was the secretary-general of the Mongolian People’s Party from 2008 to 2012 and its chairman from 2017 to 2021.

3. Naidangiin Otgonjargal

Naidangiin Otgonjargal is an amateur Mongolian freestyle wrestler, who played for the women’s lightweight category. Between 2001 and 2004, Otgonjargal won a total of three medals for the 51 and 55 kg classes at the Asian Wrestling Championships. She also captured two bronze medals in the same division at the 2002 Asian Games in Busan, South Korea, and at the 2006 Asian Games in Doha, Qatar.

Otgonjargal represented Mongolia at the 2008 Summer Olympics in Beijing, where she competed in the women’s 55 kg class. She lost the first preliminary round match to Canadian wrestler and Olympic silver medalist Tonya Verbeek, who was able to score seven points in two straight periods, leaving Otgonjargal without a single point.

4. Khaltmaagiin Battulga

Khaltmaagiin Battulga by Shealah Craighead – Wikimedia Commons

Khaltmaagiin Battulga is a Mongolian politician and sambo wrestler who served as the 5th President of Mongolia from 2017 to 2021. He served as a Member of the State Great Khural from 2004 to 2016 and as Minister of Roads, Transportation, Construction, and Urban Development from 2008 to 2012. 

Before his career in politics, Battulga was a sambo wrestling champion. He was the Democratic Party’s candidate in the 2017 presidential election and was elected President with 50.6% in the run-off, the first-ever run-off election in modern Mongolian history.

5. Bayarjargal Agvaantseren 

Bayarjargal Agvaantseren is a Mongolian conservationist who has campaigned to save the habitat of the snow leopard in an area of the South Gobi Desert which has become a major mining hub. 

Thanks to her successful efforts to create the 8163-sq-km Tost Tosonbumba Nature Reserve and to have the authorities cancel 37 mining licenses, in 2019 she was awarded the Goldman Environmental Prize.

6. Ankhmaa Gankhuyag

Ankhmaa on stage by Shirako – Wikimedia Commons

Ankhmaa Gankhuyag, known professionally as Ankhmaa is a Mongolian singer, actress, and producer. She graduated from the Music and Dance College of Mongolia in 2001 as a professional pianist. In 2007, she finished Mongolian State University of Arts and Culture.

During her years at the Mongolian State University of Arts and Culture, she started her singing career in 2005 with the band 3 Охин (“three girls”). Since 2019, she pursued her solo career.

7. Hu Sihui 

Hu Sihui was a Chinese court therapist and dietitian during the Yuan dynasty.  He has been credited as of Mongol descent by some East Asian scholars.

He is known for his book Yinshan Zhengyao (Dietary Principles), which became a classic in Chinese medicine and Chinese cuisine. He was the first to empirically discover and clearly describe deficiency diseases.

8. Uizenma Borchu

Uizenma Borchu is a Mongolian-German filmmaker and film actress. In 1989, she moved with her family from Mongolia to East Germany, where she grew up. 

During the period of 2006 to 2015, she studied documentary film at the University of Television and Film in Munich.

9. Eregzengiin Choidog

Eregzengiin Choidog is one of Mongolia’s best-known composers. He was cited as belonging to “the nineteenth-century European school of composers” who along with the other Mongolian composers Sembiin Gonchigsumlaa and Luvsanjambyn Mördorj drew inspiration from composers such as Tchaikovsky and Mahler.

He is perhaps best known for his overture Friendship composed in 1962 for the USSR Radio and TV symphony orchestra, conducted by Yevgeny Akulov, and his The Tale of Lady Choijid or The Choijid Tara, a Mongolian ballet based upon the Buddhist story of the young girl Choijid which is now considered one of the classics and staples of state opera theatre in Mongolia. He was also noted for his A Flower Among Sage Bushe in the 1950s.

10. Dashdorjiin Natsagdorj 

Dashdorjiin Natsagdorj – Wikimedia Commons

Borjgin Dashdorjiin Natsagdorj was a Mongolian poet, writer, playwright, and founder of the Mongolian Writer’s Union. 

He is considered one of the founding fathers of modern Mongolian literature and Mongolia’s first classic Socialist writer. Also, he was a master of the short essay.