were the Mongoltrans offices, the Ministry of Internal Affairs and the Military Club. Classicism and mass production Downtown Ulaanbaatar was designed by Soviet architects, who developed classicism as Stalinist architecture. The Ministry of Foreign Affairs, the State University, Government House, the Opera House and the State Library exemplify European classicism. Mongolian architects worked to creatively combine this neoclassicism with traditional Mongolian architecture. The development of downtown Ulaanbaatar continued at the initiative of B. Chimed, who designed the National Theatre, the Natural History Museum and the Ulaanbaatar Hotel. The theatre has the quadratic plane and double-tier marquee roof of Mongolian architecture; it and his other buildings Chimed's use of indigenous traditions in contemporary architecture. This direction was followed by other architects; the Urt Tsagaan (Tourists' Walk) and Ministry of Health by B. Dambiinyam and the Astronomical Observatory, State University Building #2 and Meteorology Building by A. Hishigt are distinct from European architecture. Mongolian architecture was dictated by economy and mass production during the Nikita Khrushchev and Leonid Brezhnev eras in the Soviet Union. The early 1960s were characterised by increased Soviet and Chinese investment due to their competition for Mongolian influence, and the competition resulted in accelerated development. The older districts south of the Middle River (Dund gol) and the Peace Bridge were built by Chinese workers. The architecture of the 1960s and 1970s included monotonous four-, five- and nine-storey apartment blocks with simple rectangular shapes, dictated by the need for cheap, speedy construction. Hostility between the Soviet Union and China forced Mongolia to take sides, and the country allied with the former (leading to increased Soviet investment). Apartment districts were built around Ulaanbaatar, including south of the Dund gol river, often by Soviet soldiers. New cities were built (Darkhan, Erdenet and Baganuur) during this period. Brezhnev's 1974 visit was followed by modern housing in Ulaanbaatar's Bayangol district. The housing consists of nine-storey apartment blocks and five V-shaped 12-storey buildings on Ayush Street, similar to Kalinin Avenue in the centre of Moscow. This street is the city's busiest shopping centre. The monotony of urban architecture was criticised at four successive congresses of the Mongolian Association of Architects beginning in 1972, but no significant improvement was achieved. The early 1980s brought new public buildings, such as the Lenin Museum and the Yalalt Cinema (now the Tengis). The Ethnographical Museum, in the centre of Ulaanbaatar's amusement park, was designed as a Mongolian castle