Sambu, Zhamsarangiin

Born June 27, 1895, in the southern part of Buren Somon (district), Central Aimak (administrative territorial unit); died May 21, 1972, in Ulan Bator. Mongolian political and state figure. Member of the Mongolian People’s Revolutionary Party (MPRP) from 1922.

Sambu was the son of an arat (livestock-breeding serf). From 1922 to 1930 he worked in the Ministry of Finance of the Mongolian People’s Republic (MPR). From 1930 to 1936 he headed various regional executive boards; in 1936 he became head of a department of the Ministry of Animal Husbandry and Land Cultivation of the MPR. Envoy of the MPR to the USSR in the years 1937–46, Sambu went on to head a department of the Ministry of Foreign Affairs of the MPR in the period 1946–50. From 1950 to 1952 he was Mongolian ambassador to the People’s Democratic Republic of Korea, and in 1952 and 1953 he was deputy minister of foreign affairs of the MPR. Sambu was deputy chairman of the Society for Mongolian-Soviet Friendship in 1953 and 1954. In 1954 he became chairman of the Presidium of the Great People’s Khural of the MPR and a member of the Central Committee and Politburo of the Central Committee of the MPRP.

Sambu was awarded the title of Hero of Labor of the MPR (1965) and was a recipient of the International Lenin Prize for Strengthening Peace Among Nations (1966). He was awarded four Orders of Sukhe-Bator, various orders and medals of the MPR, and the Order of Lenin and various other Soviet orders.