Choibalsan Airport — , Mongolia

Out on Mongolia's eastern steppe, COQ serves a provincial capital whose very name commemorates Khorloogiin Choibalsan, the country's mid-twentieth-century communist ruler whose decades-long grip on power closely mirrored Stalinist patterns imposed from Moscow. Dornod province's remoteness from Ulaanbaatar, several hundred kilometers to the west, makes air travel a practical necessity for residents and officials alike, and limited scheduled flights connect Choibalsan with the capital on a modest weekly rotation. During the Cold War, the town hosted a substantial Soviet military garrison owing to its position near the Chinese frontier and not far from Khalkhin Gol, site of a pivotal 1939 border war between Soviet and Japanese forces. Grassland stretches in every direction from the airfield, reflecting the vast, sparsely populated character of Mongolia's eastern aimags.