Knowledge is treasure of MONGOLIANS
Every year, in the weekend of the third week of May and September, Book Fair occurs. This year is 33rd annual festival and it was held under the theme, “Let’s read more”. It took place from May 26 to 28, at the Sukhbaatar Square. During the book fair, cultural events such as rarest book, smallest book, photo exhibitions, meetings of writers and readers, literary readings, book listening hours and poetry day occur. According to the Department of Sociology at the National University of Mongolia, last year, more than 180,000 people attended the fair in three days, which is almost 12 percent of the population of Ulaanbaatar city. Also, 74.5 percent of visitors were aged between 15 and 35. Almost half of them are high school students.
This year also showed that young people really do care about books as young adults came and actively participated in the event even if it was raining. At the festival, parents came with their young children to make them love books more and took importance in educating them.This year, over 300 writers and 200 publishers joined in and are opening their publications in
280 booths. Moreover, characters of all-time favorite books were dressed up by students of the State University of Arts and Culture.
One of the volunteers of the fair said, “During the festival, there was a contest called ‘Win a Book’, which is happening for the first time. At the contest, participants were asked about characters, details, and plots of world-renowned books. Over 200 companies we work with each year came and dedicated their times for the education of everyone. In this year’s contest, we dedicated it to Mongolian classic, ‘Tungalag tamir’ by Lodoidamba.” This fair is held by “Nomiin Soyolt Yurtunts” NGO each year. At the opening ceremony, Director of the NGO B.Suvd said, “Books make one’s life creative and passionate. Therefore, we are grateful that our children and young people actively participate in this activity. We aim to become the ‘Book Capital of the World’. In this context, I am happy to share the news that Ulaanbaatar is going to have a world-class library.”
They also mentioned that the NGO has students and university students as their members. This year they are giving away boxes to each province which people donated to. There are 21 boxes which each has different books and people could come and give to all or even one box that they would like to give to. After the festival is done, they will be sending it to each province or at a school in the province.