This picture displayed in the museum was taken in April 1946. The young man standing in the middle is Ke Li Geng, one of the key figures in facilitating the establishment of the Inner Mongolian Autonomous Region.

Sixty years on, the young man in the picture has become a grey-haired man in his 90's. He still remembers how miserable life was before liberation.

"Mongolian people have experienced untold suffering. With both ethnic and social oppression, life during my childhood was just like doomsday. It is a contrast to life in Inner Mongolia today," says Ke Li Geng.

There have been significant changes in Inner Mongolia over the past 60 years.

There was barely no industrial production in the region before the autonomous region was established. Today, Inner Mongolia is one of China's key production bases for agricultural and animal products, energy and raw materials.