I think it would be really interesting to learn more about the history of the region between ~Georgia and Mongolia before the USSR. It seems fantastic how the Turkic language group can be so geographically widespread as it is (there are languages belonging to it way up in Siberia), though TIL that Mongolian isn't Turkic.

And then the Mongols came from the other direction, unifying the area. What did that do culturally?

This is basically all I know about the area, but it seems extremely interesting.