text: According to tradition, in 1745, a local Buddhist disciple named Bunia made several unsuccessful attempts to fly with a device he invented which was similar to a parachute.
  In 1939, the communist leader Khorloogiin Choibalsan ordered the monastery destroyed, as part of a purge that obliterated hundreds of monasteries in Mongolia and killed over ten thousand monks. Three small temples and the external wall with the stupas survived the initial onslaught. By 1944, Joseph Stalin pressured Choibalsan to maintain the monastery (along with Gandantegchinlen Monastery in Ulaanbaatar) as a showpiece for international visitors, such as U.S. Vice President Henry Wallace, to prove that the communist regime allowed freedom of religion. In 1947, the temples were converted into museums and for the four decades that followed Gandantegchinlen Khiid Monastery became Mongolia's only functioning monastery.
  After the fall of communism in Mongolia in 1990, the monastery was turned over to the lamas and Erdene Zuu again became a place of worship. Today, Erdene Zuu remains an active Buddhist monastery as well as a museum that is open to tourists.
  On a hill outside the monastery sits a stone phallus called Kharkhorin Rock. The phallus is said to restrain the sexual impulses of the monks and ensure their good behavior.