Erdenet, one of
the youngest settlements in Mongolia, was founded in 1974 in an area where
large deposits of copper had been discovered in the 1950s. A single-track
railway line with a length of 75 miles (120 km) linking Erdenet to the
Transmongolian Railway was inaugurated in 1977. In the middle of the 1980s,
more than 50% of the inhabitants were Russians working as engineers or miners.
After the fall of communism in 1990, however, most of them left Erdenet. Today
about 10% are Russians
