The Mongol moment in world history represented an enormous cultural encounter between pastoralists and the settled civilizations of Eurasia. Differences among those civilizations — Confucian China, Muslim Persia, Christian Russia — ensured considerable diversity as this encounter unfolded across a vast realm. The process of conquest, the length and nature of Mongol rule, the impact on local people, and the extent of Mongol assimilation into the cultures of the conquered — all this and more varied considerably across the Eurasian domains of the empire. The experiences of China, Persia, and Russia provide brief glimpses into several expressions of this massive clash of cultures.