The two-seater "charter" connection in the form of ultralight aircraft SHARK with serial number 103, which set off from Václav Havel Airport Prague on June 26, landed at the newly-launched international airport of Ulaanbaatar on July 3, 2021, after covering a distance of 7,299 kilometers.

SHARK, having a symbol of the Mongolian Four Powers – mythical creatures of the Heaven and Earth Guardians depicted on the wings by the artist L. Amarsanaa, has become the first to arrive in Mongolia. Under the protection of these Four Powers the airplane arrived via its own unique route and seal the path of Heaven.

SHARK with registration OK-AUR71 is built on the 71-year history of Czech-Mongolian relations, during which the Czechs built the 1st hospital in Ulaanbaatar, helped build the mining, leather and footwear industries, in recent years also engaged in environmental protection, mainly thanks to the project Prague Zoo "Return of Wild Horses". After deliveries of Czech buses, motorcycles, cars, locomotives and other equipment to Mongolia, it is time for cooperation in the aviation industry, which is one of the world's best in the Czech Republic, especially in the field of ultralight flying.

The commander of the aircraft Denis Gibadulin and at the same time the managing director of SHARK.AERO CZ together with the German pilot living in Mongolia for a long time Gerhard Wackenhut will present the Czech model of private flying in 20 times larger Mongolia. As in the 1990s, Mongolia was largely inspired by the Czech path to democracy and a market economy and became a priority country for Czech development aid, today it has the opportunity to use the Czech model of a country with a vibrant aviation industry and services with more than 3,000 private ultralight aircraft.

Despite their great geographical distance, the Czech Republic and Mongolia are very close partners. Diplomatic relations were established between the two countries as early as 1950. In the 1960s, Czech geologists worked in Mongolia and contributed to the discovery of the largest copper and molybdenum deposits. In the 1970s, the then Czechoslovakia financed and implemented the construction of the 1st hospital in Ulaanbaatar, and was at the birth of the Mongolian leather and footwear industry. In Mongolia, Czech buses, motorcycles, cars and trucks, turbines and locomotives, production lines in the food industry, equipment for the armed forces have proved their qualities, but of course Czech beer, Czech glass and porcelain have also gained popularity.

Tens of thousands of Mongolian students studied at Czech universities. In the 1990s, Mongolia was largely inspired by the Czech path to democracy and a market economy and became a priority country for Czech development aid. The importance of trade relations between the two countries and cooperation in the field of environmental protection is growing, especially thanks to the Prague Zoo project "Return of Wild Horses", but also thanks to long-term activities of Czech non-profit organizations People in Need and Charity. Today, the Czech Republic is the second home of the largest Mongolian community in Europe, numbering more than ten thousand citizens.

The Parliament of Mongolia adopted amendments to the Banking Law on January 29, 2021. According to the amendments and the “Temporary regulation on developing, implementing, reporting, and monitoring, a bank’s plans to restructure of the bank as publicly traded company and change its shareholding structure, and plans” for the implementation of its restructuring, must be submitted for review to the Bank of Mongolia and Financial Regulatory Commission by July 1, 2021.

Golomt Bank submitted its plan for becoming a Publicly Traded Company to the Bank of Mongolia and Financial Regulatory Commission on June 29, 2021.

In the process of offering shares to the public, Golomt Bank is cooperating with the best, prestigious international and domestic organizations, as the main underwriter “Mirae Asset Securities Mongolia” LLC, as the assistant underwriter “Golomt Capital” LLC, as a legal advisor “Financial Law Consulting” LLC, as an external evaluation organization KPMG LLC, and as a financial auditor PWC LLC.

Golomt Bank firstly introduced an international payment card system and delivered the first MasterCard and Visa cards to its customers. Therefore, has been a pioneer in the field of innovative products and services such as the first international payment card system, internet banking, 24-hour banking service, Western union money transfer, ATM, Smart banking service, and SocialPay digital wallet. Golomt bank’s every service introduced to the market, aims to take the development of the Mongolian banking and financial sector to a new level and become a world standards Mongolian bank.

Sandwiched between Russia in the north and China in the south, Mongolia could soon serve as an important transit country for Russian natural gas and its related supply chains.

Even so, Russia will struggle to boost its economic presence in Mongolia, which has long served as a buffer zone between its two neighboring giants.

Once completed, the Soyuz Vostok gas pipeline will become an extension of Russia’s Power of Siberia 2 natural gas pipeline in Mongolian territory. In other words, this ambitious project is meant to provide supplies of Russian gas across Mongolia and into China.

Russia’s state-owned energy giant Gazprom has already opened a subsidiary company called Gazoprovod Soyuz Vostok in Mongolia and the landlocked country’s Foreign Minister Battsetseg Batmunkh recently visited Moscow, where she met with Alexey Miller, chairman of the Gazprom Management Committee.

It is unlikely a coincidence that Batmunkh’s first foreign trip since her appointment was to Russia. Prior to her visit to the Russian capital, two local General Intelligence Directorate officers in Ulaanbaatar were sentenced to 14 years in prison allegedly because they spied for Russia.

That action, however, did not apparently affect overall relations between Moscow and Ulaanbaatar. In November, the two nations will mark a century of establishing diplomatic relations and have already signed a permanent treaty on friendly relations and lifted bilateral ties to a comprehensive strategic partnership.

According to the document, Russia and Mongolia will undertake to develop cooperation in the spheres of politics, defense, economy, trade, finance and investment. Indeed, Ulaanbaatar’s bilateral military relationship with Moscow remains a priority for Mongolia.

Military-technical relations

In June 2021, Mongolia’s Defense Minister Gursed Saikhanbayar met with his Russian counterpart Sergey Shoigu to discuss the development of military-technical relations.

It is estimated that more than 60% of Mongolians who undertake military training abroad are in the Russian Federation. The two countries also regularly hold annual joint field training exercises.

On the other hand, since 2003 the Asian nation of about three million people holds joint exercises with the United States as well, and many Mongolian officers have been trained in the US. However, Mongolia seems to have more recently moved away from its “third neighbor” policy and started to pay more attention to its relations with Russia and China.

In 2016, the three countries reached a comprehensive deal on developing the China-Mongolia-Russia (CMR) economic corridor.

At its core, the CMR corridor aims to improve transport connectivity and cross-border trade services through infrastructure development. It also aims to strengthen three-way cooperation across energy, agribusiness, communication technology, tourism and environmental protection.

An oil pump jack in a field in the district of Omnodelger, in Khentii Province, Mongolia. Photo: AFP via Sputnik / Vladimir Astapkovich

“We pay great attention to the development of the central railway corridor to increase transit trade flows from Europe and Russia to China and in the opposite direction through the territory of Mongolia.

Along with this, the construction of new railway lines in Mongolia is underway,” a former Mongolian foreign minister wrote for Russian newspaper Rossiyskaya Gazeta in 2020.

Black gold from Mongolia

Indeed, the Tavan-Tolgoi-Zuunbayan railway route is now being actively built, with completion expected in 2022. China will be the biggest beneficiary of this transport network given that Beijing is one of the biggest buyers of Mongolia’s coal.

After China imposed a ban on the import of Australian coal, Beijing reportedly increased coal purchases from Mongolia as well as Russia and Indonesia. Mongolian authorities, on the other hand, seem to be trying to diversify the country’s coal export routes.

There are reports suggesting that Mongolia’s huge reserves of high-quality coal could be soon exported worldwide via the ports of the Russian Far East at Vladivostok and the Vostochny coal terminal.

Such a possibility is not surprising given that Mongolia sees Russia as a balance against Chinese economic and political dominance.

Maintaining good neighborly cooperation with Russia is necessary for Mongolia’s balanced foreign policy. In the past, however, the balance of power was greatly advantageous to Russia since the country was seen as the unofficial “16th republic” of the Soviet Union.

Following the collapse of the USSR, the Kremlin lost much of its influence in Ulaanbaatar. But that lost influence is being regained as Moscow redevelops its energy business in Mongolia.

Russian energy holding companies Inter RAO and Rotek could soon take part in the modernization of existing thermal power plants in the Mongolian capital. And once the Soyuz Vostok gas pipeline is fully operational, Moscow could increase not only its economic but also its political influence in Mongolia.

It is also probable that the country will eventually sign a free-trade agreement with the Russia-dominated Eurasian Union, although full membership in the supranational entity does not look realistic at this point since it would likely jeopardize Ulaanbaatar’s policy of strategic balance between Russia and China.

by: Nikola Mikovic is a political analyst in Serbia. His work focuses mostly on the foreign policies of Russia, Belarus and Ukraine, with special attention on energy and “pipeline politics.”

Mongolia reported 2,520 new COVID-19 cases in the last 24 hours, raising its national caseload to 125,260, the country's health ministry said Sunday.

The ministry said that a total of 8,834 samples were tested across Mongolia in the past day.

One of the latest confirmed cases was imported from abroad, and the remaining ones were local infections.

In the past day, 10 patients died from the virus, pushing the death toll to 641, while the number of recoveries grew by 1,886 to 84,819, said the ministry.

The Asian country launched a national vaccination campaign in late February, aiming to vaccinate at least 60 percent of its population of 3.3 million. So far, more than 1,759,600 Mongolians have been fully vaccinated.

It’s once again time to strap in for the Silk Way Rally, as the 11th edition of the off-road adventure departs from Omsk, Russia on July 1. A total of 10 timed special stages lie in wait before the chequered flag flies in Ulaanbaatar, Mongolia on July 11.

A varied course measuring over 5,000km will take the race convoy over mountains, deserts and steppes. It will be a brutal test for both competitors and their machines on perilous terrain and under a baking sun. New for this year is the race becoming part of the FIA Cross-Country Rallies World Cup, while it also remains on the FIM Cross-Country Rallies World Championship calendar.

Before the starting pistol cracks, let's take a deep dive on what to expect from the 2021 Silk Way Rally.

A marathon in every sense of the word

No other discipline in the world of motorsports encapsulates pure adventure quite like rally-raid. Before the Silk Way Rally even starts, competitors must find their way to the Siberian city of Omsk. From there it's a trek of 5,250km to the Mongolian capital of Ulaanbaatar, 2,850km of which are against the clock.

The race course takes in scenery as stunning as it is dangerous to traverse, with pitfalls waiting to catch out competitors on every leg of the rally. From the Altai Mountains to the Gobi Desert and across the seemingly endless Mongolian steppes, this will challenge racers both mentally and physical.

Adding to the stress of competitors is the 840km two-day marathon stagebetween Khovd and Altai, which comes halfway through the rally. This will see racers separated from their mechanics overnight and forced to carry out all necessary repairs themselves.

The latest Silk Way Rally course is the brainchild of former overall World Cup-winning skier Luc Alphand. After hanging up his skis, the Frenchman then made his mark in rally-raid, winning the Dakar Rally in 2006 behind the wheel of a Mitsubishi.

Rally Kazakhstan was your reminder that nothing can …

Dakar Rally 2021

1 Season · 15 episodes

Beyond the Ordinary

Alphand knows what rally-raiders enjoy and what they don’t enjoy, and he's packed the route with a mixture of both.

"When preparing the route this year, we've learned and taken into account all the lessons of the previous years," he reported. "This helped us make it more interesting, complicated and diversified from the point of view of road surfaces and climatic zones, spectacular from the point of view of surrounding landscapes and, which is equally important for our racers, we've managed to shorten liaisons significantly."

Meet the fab 5 driving for KAMAZ

When legendary KAMAZ trucker Vladimir Chagin announced his retirement from racing after winning the 2011 Dakar Rally, it put his team at a crossroads. How do you replace a driver who's won seven Dakars in a decade? The answer was provided by Chagin himself, as he replaced himself not with one driver, but five – Eduard Nikolaev, Andrey Karginov, Ayrat Mardeev, Dmitry Sotnikov and Anton Shibalov

Since making his decision to retire, Chagin has blooded this new generation of KAMAZ talent. In the subsequent decade rally-raid truck races all over the world have been dominated by these five KAMAZ drivers. Among the honours collected by Chagin's squad in the last 10 years are eight Dakar wins and six Silk Way victories. All five of these former Silk Way-winning truck drivers are entered into this year's edition.

On the hunt for marginal gains

The quest for improvement never stops at the Russian headquarters of Team KAMAZ Master in Naberezhnye Chelny. It's part of what makes them such a feared opponent of other leading rally-raid truck manufacturers such as Maz, Renault, Iveco and Volvo.

Each year, subtle tweaks are made to the KAMAZ race truck to help its drivers maintain the edge over their rivals. From suspension settings to steering wheel columns, nothing is left to chance when the KAMA-43509 heads off to the desert to compete.

New for this addition of the Silk Way will be the K5 Cab on the race truck of current Dakar champion Dmitry Sotnikov.

Over in the bike race, there's a chance for 2015 FIM Cross-Country Rallies World Championship winner Matthias Walkner to take the lead of this year's contest. The 2018 Dakar winner finished as runner-up to Ross Branch at Rally Kazakhstan, the opening round of the new season.

Walkner will be out to emulate fellow Red Bull KTM Factory Racing biker Sam Sunderland, who won the first-ever two wheel contest at the Silk Way in 2019. Sunderland misses out on the chance to defend his title however due to injuries sustained at Rally Kazakhstan.

Matthias Walkner at the start of the fourth stage of Kazakhstan Rally, around Aqtau on the Caspian Sea, on June 12, 2021.

It's a new challenge for me and it definitely looks like it will be a tough one

Making his debut as a Gas Gas factory rider in Kazakhstan was Daniel Sanders and he rewarded his new team with a fourth place finish. Now, Sanders will be targeting further championship points on his first trip to the Silk Way Rally. Stiff competition for the podium places is guaranteed from fellow factory riders representing Husqvarna, Yamaha and Hero, as well as Walkner on his KTM.

"My strength is definitely racing in sand," Sanders said ahead of his trip to Silk Way. "I hope we see plenty of that when we hit Mongolia."

Time to make a move

The Silk Way is an excellent opportunity for any biker wishing to make an impression on the 2021 FIM Cross-Country Rallies World Championship. More points are up for grabs in Russia and Mongolia than at any of the other five rallies on the calendar this year.

The edition also sees the race become part of the seven-round FIA Cross-Country Rallies World Cup for the first time. Expect to see movement in the T1, T3 and T4 Drivers' Championship when the points are tallied up in Ulaanbaatar on July 11.

Mongolia recorded 2,485 daily new cases of the coronavirus after more than 8,000 PCR tests, the Ministry of Health reported July 1.

1,437 cases were reported in Ulaanbaatar, the remaining 1,048 cases were reported in the regions.

The total number of confirmed cases of coronavirus nationwide has risen to 117,963.

15 deaths from the infection were reported in the past day bringing the death toll to 578.

The Parliament of Mongolia adopted amendments to the Banking Law in January 2021, requiring the restructuring of systemically important commercial banks as public companies listed on the Mongolian Stock Exchange.

As specified in the amendments and a temporary regulation on developing, implementing, reporting, and monitoring, a bank’s plans to restructure the bank as public listed company and change its shareholding structure, and plans for the implementation of its restructuring (approved by the Governor of the Bank of Mongolia and Chairperson of the Financial Regulatory Commission), must be submitted for review to the Bank of Mongolia and Financial Regulatory Commission by July 1, 2021.

In accordance with this legislation, R.Munkhtuya, CEO of Khan Bank, and the bank’s executives submitted its plan for becoming a public listed company to B.Lkhagvasuren, governor of the Bank of Mongolia, and D.Bayarsaikhan, chairperson of the Financial Regulatory Commission, on June 30, 2021.

On June 29, a regular meeting of the Citizens’ Representative Khural of the Capital City took place virtually. During the meeting, Capital City Road and Transport Projects Manager B.Odsuren introduced a resolution on some measures to be taken in the capital city.

According to the resolution, traffic congestion will be comprehensively resolved with an annual financing of MNT 420 billion. In order to tackle the challenge, professional organizations highlight that there are numerous issues to be resolved such as auto roads, pedestrian overpass, traffic lights, a smart system for roads, and traffic security cameras.

Studies show that it is necessary to replace 70-80 percent of the 960 buses currently being operated for public transport in the capital city. Thus, the capital city is planning to replace 160 buses as starters, 350 buses in 2022, and 150 buses in 2023. Furthermore, many more works are also planned to reduce traffic, including measures to increase the daily amount of passengers from 800 thousand to 1 million, to increase the capital city’s road capacity to 650 thousand cars, and promote government organizations to move to the outskirts of the city.

As drivers currently spend an average of 26 minutes looking for parking spots, works are underway to increase parking spots by 5,000 and introduce a paid parking system, reported the officials. Light rail transit is also being planned for routes including Peace Avenue, and Doloon Buudal - Yarmag as well as one connecting the capital city districts of Songinokhairkhan and Bayanzurkh.