Ulaanbaatar /MONTSAME/. J.Munkhbat, Chairman of the Parliamentary Standing Committee on Education, Culture, Science and Sports, and members of the Standing Committee got acquainted with the activities and cultural development of the Ministry of Culture on March 9.

The members visited the construction site of the Museum of Natural History. On July 3, 2019, the Government of Mongolia approved Resolutions 280 and 281 to build a new Museum of Natural History in Ikh Tenger area in the Bogd Mountain, 1.8 kilometers from the city center. The total area of the museum is 74,000 square meters, which is 75 times larger than the land owned by the former Museum of Natural History. There are a total of 250,000 parking spaces. Experts believe that the implementation of this project will turn a new page in the history of museum in Mongolia and usher in a new stage of museum development.

N.Zorigtbaatar, Director of the Museum of Natural History, Ch.Nomin, Minister of Culture, and members of the Standing Committee were asked to select a tender for the construction of the museum and pay attention to the urgent start of work.

Afterwards, the members got acquainted with the activities of the National Center for Cultural Heritage, which operated under the Ministry of Culture and is located south of the Buyant-Ukhaa area in Khan-Uul District, to the west of the National Archives, has recently moved into its new location.

The new building of the National Cultural Heritage Center was built with a budget of 8 billion MNT. The two-storey building with a total area of 8,000 square meters has more than 130 rooms, a security fence, a driveway with parking lots, and a green area.

The commissioning of the new building of the National Center for Cultural Heritage will improve the quality and quantity of registration, study, protection and restoration of cultural heritage, as well as provide an opportunity to preserve the tangible cultural heritage in designated rooms. The center not only oversees 38 museums in the capital city and local areas, but also registers, restores and preserves archeological and paleontological finds.

G.Enkhbat, Director of the National Center for Cultural Heritage, said that there are more than 240,000 exhibits in the museum's collection at this time, of which 60-70 percent are damaged. Therefore, there is an urgent need to restore the exhibits, and it has the capacity to restore about 150-200 museum exhibits from about 20 organizations per year. He said that in the future, the center aims to gradually increase the number of specialized teams and plans to have 139 employees by 2050. As of 2021, the center employs 35 people, 11 of whom are in the field of restoration and about 15 are engaged in paper and electronic registration.

The MPs also got acquainted with the construction of the Chinggis Khaan Noble Museum, National Library, National Arts Theater, Children's Library and the Puppet Theater.

As of today, the Chinggis Khaan Museum is 70 percent complete, the auditorium is scheduled to be completed within three months, and the National Library building construction is 65 percent complete. The land acquisition process for the National Arts Theater, which will be built on a total of 10 hectares of land in the 9th and 11th khoroo of Sukhbaatar District, is 80 percent complete. Out of a total of 160 households, 91 households have so far vacated their land, 20 households are ready to vacate their land, and negotiations are underway with the remaining 50 households.

The construction of Children's Library and Puppet Theater will begin this year, while the Sage Tonyukuk Museum and the Umnugobi Dinosaur Museum will be built in the future, the rationale and needs have been identified, and the construction design has been developed.

At the end of the meeting, members of the Education, Culture and Science Committee visited the Ministry of Culture, where Minister of Culture Ch.Nomin introduced the current situation and challenges in the cultural sector, and L.Munbat, Director of the Strategic Planning Department, introduced the 2021-2024 Strategic Plan.

The Ministry of Culture