Every day nomads give up herding and travel the dirt track from the grasslands of Altan Bulag to Ulaanbaatar, moving towards new life in the city.

Like their ancestors before them, herders Janiyansuren and Chantsal have been nomads all their lives. Even though the family herds have been decimated by the dzud ("winter disaster"), they will remain on the steppe while most of their children have moved to the city.

A baby goat killed by the cold, on the steppe about 20 miles from Ulaanbaatar.

While her daughter Anuka plays on the bed in the family ger, Norvoo (daughter of Janiyansuren and Chantsal) plans to permanently move to Ulaanbaatar within a couple of weeks, preparing to deliver her and Ganaa's second baby.

Over the past decade the herd shared by Ganaa (left) and his father-in-law Janiyansuren grew to 1200 animals. Then after the 2010 dzud ("winter disaster") wiped them out, they have 200 left. Here they add a few carcasses to the hundreds of dead animals piled next to their camp.

With the help of his father-in-law Janiyansuren and some friends, Ganaa breaks down his and Norvoo's ger to move from the Altan Bulag grasslands to the western ger district of UB. A Mongolian family can pack up and mobilize their entire household in about 3 hours, but this may be the last time for Ganaa.

More than half of Ulaanbaatar's 1.2 million people live in the ger districts that have formed as ex-herders have given up the nomadic life en masse to pitch their gers on the hills surrounding the city. These districts are little better than shantytowns, lacking running water or proper roads.

The Oyu Tolgoi copper/gold mine is currently under construction by Rio Tinto, digging tunnels 1.3 km below the South Gobi desert. This mine alone will increase Mongolia's GDP by a third when it starts full production, a major force in moving the national economy from herding to mining.

Every morning Dr Sharavjorj, a 91 yr old retired hospital administrator and a great-grandfather, makes the traditional grasslands offering of throwing the first milk tea of the day to the sky from the balcony of his apartment.

With temperatures spiking at 100 degrees Farenheit on a weekend, hundreds of city people, mostly poor ger district dwellers, head to the Tuul River to swim and cool off in the polluted water that runs through the town.

Horses and jockeys train for the Naadam festival races outside of Ulaanbaatar. Naadam is the annual festival celebrating the "manly games" of wrestling, archery, and horse racing.

The 'Soyolon' race for 5-year-old horses is the biggest race in Naadam, watched with great interest by thousands of spectators.

Traditional Mongolian wrestling remains a part of steppe culture, but the way to wealth and fame is through Japanese sumo. At this sumo school, many students are from the ger districts and they come with the idea that they can become sumo stars in Japan, where three of the recent top champions have been Mongolian.

Folk-death metal fusion band Altan Urag in their practice space. Their amped-up fiddles replace the traditional horseheads with skulls and creatures from the Alien movies.

With the rapid influx of nomads giving up the herding life, Ulaanbaatar's dirty coal burning power plants are burdened to the limit, especially in winter, producing epic waves of toxic air pollution.

Exhibit at Mongolian National Modern Art Gallery with an interactive piece commenting on the current pollution problem in Ulaanbaatar, called Smoke in the Brain by the artist Munkhtsetseg. The headphones play the sound of a baby crying.

In the winter, with temperatures hitting -40 degrees Farenheit, herders come into the city to drive horse-carts carrying coal and firewood to the ger districts.

Almost a quarter of all Mongolian men suffer from alcoholism. The vast majority of arrests made by the Mobile Police Patrols are related to alcohol abuse. Another primary duty they perform is to rescue drunks passed out on the side of the road. If left there overnight in subzero temperatures, these people would freeze to death.

Power plants are not the only culprits in Ulaanbaatar's air pollution problems. In winter, coal-burning stoves at home emit a thick carcinogenic smog that hangs over the ger districts.

Former Buddhist monk Turu is an unemployed father with a 2 year old son, living with his parents. He feels a kinship with the strength of Nazi Germany and sees the swastika, originally appropriated from Buddhism, as a symbol of Mongolian nationalism. He paid for the tattoo by doing some apartment repairs for a friend.

A bar owner straightens up after a brawl between five acquaintances who started fighting amongst themselves. Three have been removed by the police to the drunk tank while two remain, one man attending to his friend who has been bloodied and knocked unconscious. Alcoholism remains a major problem in Mongolian society, with 22% of all men and 5% of all women dependent on drink.

Nomad Wave women's art collective perform part of an installation piece at the former summer residence of Bogd Khan, the last emperor of Mongolia. The linked sleeves of their garments represents unity and sisterhood, but also forms a ring of protection against the fear of the tiny Mongolia being lost in face of Chinese and Western globalization.

On the outskirts of Ulaanbaatar, where settled nomads make their fences out of recycled industrial cans, Azjargal plays with her baby sister Gantsetseg. Their family moved from the steppe to the ger district five years ago. Their father works as a security guard and their mother at a Chinese restaurant -- they hope to move the family into a city apartment within a year.