Ideas from the Land of the Blue Sky

My Father's Name - Mongolian's did not have family names in the past. On official documents they added their father's name. In common practice it was reduced to an initial. In 1991, the president supported the idea to re-introduce family names. A book with 1,300 names, grouped by Mongolian districts, was created to help Mongolians in tracing their family names. People who did not know about their family name could select a name from the area their parents came from or invent a name. 

New Capital - Karakorum (Central Mongolia, population today 8,000) was the ancient capital of the Mongolian Empire in the 13th century for 40 years. Following the move of the capital to Beijing and the collapse of the empire, the city was abandoned and destroyed. Recently the idea was proposed to move the capital here and build a modern city. (Apparently there is a billboard in town with the layout. We could not find it - maybe because the project was abandoned in 2004 by the new prime minister according to Wikipedia http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Karakorum).