THE MONGOLIAN INSPIRATION
Kharkhorin, Mongolia
MONGOLIA: MEMORY, ERASURE, AND THE RETURN TO THE ESSENTIAL
I have always believed that geography shapes a people more deeply than ideology ever can. History may interrupt. Politics may scar. But land endures. Mongolia is proof of this.
Mongolia was never formally colonised by Russia, yet for almost seventy years it lived under Soviet shadow. After the 1921 revolution, the country became a satellite state, politically, economically, and militarily dependent on Moscow. The imposition of the Cyrillic script in the early 1940s was not a benign administrative reform. It was part of a deliberate Sovietisation campaign—designed to detach Mongolia from its Buddhist, nomadic, and Chinese roots, and to reorient it towards the Soviet sphere.
I still shudder when I think how close an entire culture came to being erased.
Before the Communist purges of the late 1930s, Mongolia was home to somewhere between seven hundred and over a thousand monasteries and temple complexes. During the Great Repression of 1937–1939, almost all were destroyed. Thousands of monks were executed or imprisoned. A handful of temples survived only as museums. Since the democratic revolution of the 1990s, there has been a revival—over one hundred and fifty monasteries reopened or rebuilt—but absence leaves a deeper mark than presence ever does.
And yet, I must say this plainly: the Russian people themselves are among the kindest, warmest individuals I have had the good fortune to meet. Empires act. People endure.
Erdene Zuu Monastery, the earliest surviving Buddhist monastery in Mongolia
The Golden Buddha statue inside the Erdene Zuu Monastery in Mongolia.
ARRIVAL IN THE ORKHON VALLEY
We stayed together—the von Buerens and the Gordon Gu group—at the Genghis Khan Retreat, set within the Orkhon Valley, a UNESCO World Heritage Site. The valley stretches some one hundred kilometres east to west along the Orkhon River and has long been regarded as a gateway to heaven. It is a place where Mongolian history is not reconstructed, but still inhabits the land.
The retreat sits on a hillside overlooking the river, around twenty-five kilometres west of Karakorum, the ancient capital of the Mongol Empire. To reach it, one drives four to five hours across open land without seeing a single tree. The landscape strips away expectation. It demands attention.
The camp itself is seasonal—open only from June to September—eco-conscious, nomadic in spirit, and deeply considered. Guests stay in spacious gers: round, portable dwellings used for centuries by nomadic families, here fitted with specially crafted beds and furniture. Every amenity one expects from a resort is present, but translated into a rural, restrained vocabulary that respects Mongolian tradition rather than overriding it.
Orkhon River
The Meandering Beauty of The Orkhon River
TIME, HORSES, AND CONTINUITY
We were there during a polo event. Polo, long before it was a pastime of courts and clubs, was a training method of the Mongol cavalry in the Middle Ages. The Genghis Khan Polo Club, established in 1996, seeks to revive this heritage and reconnect Mongolia with an international equestrian community. Watching the game unfold against the steppe, it was impossible not to feel how seamlessly past and present can coexist when allowed to do so.
The purpose of the retreat is clear: to preserve Mongolian culture at a time when increasing urbanisation threatens to flatten difference. Being there feels like stepping into a time capsule—not nostalgic, but instructive. A reminder of how little is actually required for life to feel complete.
The Genghis Khan Polo Club
The Winners of The Genghis Khan Polo Tournament
GORDON GU AND THE WILLINGNESS TO ENTER
Gordon had been to Mongolia before, but he had never seen the camp. What struck me was how completely he entered into the experience. He used every facility, embraced every activity, and approached each offering with a kind of childlike curiosity—without irony, without distance.
This openness is not accidental. It is the same quality that defines him as a designer. Gordon has an instinctive understanding of form, but equally of relationships—how to handle business not as transaction, but as exchange. He is cheerful, enterprising, and worth following. Wherever he goes, something interesting tends to happen, because he looks for the spirit of a place rather than its surface.
Finding that spirit, and then allowing it to inform one’s work, is not something that can be taught.
Rolf von Bueren the founder of LAdV and Gu Hailong the founder of GORDON GU
Rolf von Bueren and Gu Hailong working on the LAdV x GORDON GU Collection
Nicklas von Bueren the CEO of LAdV and Gu Hailong
NATURE, INNOCENCE, AND RETURN
For my part, what I value most in any place is closeness to nature. It is the quickest way I know to return to something essential—almost a return to innocence. Mongolia offers this without performance. In a world increasingly shaped by profit, standardisation, and speed, places like this function as escape doors: small pockets of wonder that slow the mind and sharpen perception.
They remind us that culture does not need to be invented. It needs to be protected.
In the end, GORDON GU and Lotus Arts de Vivre (LAdV) share a similar philosophy, expressed simply and without adornment:
“Finding the spirit of each place and using it for your own inspiration and purpose.”
That, to me, is enough.
The Natural Beauty of Orkhon Valley in central Mongolia, a UNESCO World Heritage site
