Stories of Mongolia stole Frédéric Lagrange’s heart and sparked his imagination when he was a young boy. Today, the photographer captures intimate everyday moments and epic landscapes in the Land of the Eternal Blue Sky
I have been to Mongolia 14 times, experienced every season, along with the challenges that come with working in a climate that shifts so wildly.
The first time I travelled to Mongolia was in the summer of 2001. I was working as an assistant in New York to a fashion photographer. I had saved enough money to take a month off from work and organised a trip to practise photography. I had long had it in mind to go to Mongolia, as that country is intricately entwined with my family’s history.
My grandfather fought in the French army during the Second World War and was caught and jailed by the Germans. A faction of Mongol soldiers under Soviet command freed him, along with other British, American and French soldiers, from a prisoner-of-war camp in late 1944.
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I remember the spark in my grandfather’s eyes and his loud laugh as he recounted how the Germans recoiled—and, he said, retreated—when they saw these strong, ferocious Asian men barrelling into the camp. How emotional my grandfather was as he described how the soldiers hugged and embraced each other after being freed. Those Mongol soldiers had saved my grandfather’s life, and ultimately mine as well.
Mongolia always had a very special place in my mind, not only for the beautiful landscape I had seen in photos, but also because I hoped to finally meet those legendary warriors.
I remember arriving in Ulaanbaatar, the Mongolian capital, barely ten years after the break-up of the Soviet 26 Union, and witnessing a nascent democracy that was in the middle of tremendous change. Everywhere in the city—and later I would see throughout the country— were the grey, ominous, Soviet-era buildings.