Contortionists and acrobats with celestial skills train in squalid conditions as the promise of a former sumo wrestler to restore the national circus to its past glory has gone mostly unfulfilled.
The circus used to be hugely popular in Mongolia, and the country's circus artists world-famous. But a lack of training facilities and financial support means that more and more artists are leaving the country.
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Mongolian circus performers fly through a cavernous hall inspectors have warned could collapse any time, one of the few places left to train if they hope to travel the world with their country's spectacular big top shows.But teacher Erdenetsetseg Badarch, who trained as a contortionist under the country's Soviet-backed regime and performed thousands of times on the stage of the Mongolian Circus, said the facilities available are far from enough.