Childhood and Education
Elbegdorj was born into a nomadic herding family in Zereg sum, Khovd on March 30, 1963. He was the youngest of eight sons. Elbegdorj spent most of his early childhood herding livestock through the high mountains of Zereg sum. His father, M. Tsakhia, was a veteran of Mongolia's border conflict with the Empire of Japan that resulted in the 1939 Battle of Khalkhyn Gol. Elbegdorj finished the sum's eight-year school in 1979. Afterwards, his family moved to Erdenet, and he graduated from Erdenet's No.1 ten-year school in 1981.
In 1981/82, he worked in the Erdenet copper combine as a machinist, and in 1982 was drafted into military service. For heading a Revolutionary Youth League group in the army, he was awarded with the possibility to study Journalism and Marxism-Leninism at the Military Political Institute of the USSR in Lviv (Ukraine) from 1983 on. He graduated in 1988 and then worked for the Mongolian army newspaper Ulaan Od (Red Star).
After his first term as prime minister, he spent a year at the University of Colorado at Boulder's Economic Institute, earning a Diploma in 2001. Then Elbegdorj studied with a full scholarship to Harvard University and graduated from Harvard University's John F. Kennedy School of Government with a Master of Public Administration (MPA) in 2002.
Read more about this topic: Tsakhiagiin Elbegdorj
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