Gandantegchinlen Monastery

The monastery was established in 1835 by the Fifth Jebtsundamba, then Mongolia's highest reincarnated lama. It became the principal center of Buddhist learning in Mongolia.
In the 1930s, the Communist government of Mongolia, under the leadership of Khorloogiin Choibalsan and under the influence of Joseph Stalin, destroyed all but a few monasteries and killed more than 10.000 lamas.
Gandantegchinlen Khiid monastery, having escaped this mass destruction, was closed in 1938, but then reopened in 1944 and allowed to continue as the only functioning Buddhist monastery, under a skeleton staff, as a token homage to traditional Mongolian culture and religion. With the end of communism in Mongolia in 1990, restrictions on worship were lifted. See Mongolian Buddhism for details.