I finally got around to visiting the Museum of National History the other day. It’s by far the most modern and best laid out of Ulaanbaatar’s museums, especially the Bronze Age exhibit on the ground floor. The cases are nicely lit and well labeled in both Mongolian and English. The various stages of the nation’s history are well represented on the other floors, although there is perhaps a bit of ‘editorial bias’ in the choice of items shown. The long period Mongolia spent under Manchu rule (from the 17th to the early 20th century) is represented by three display cases of instruments of torture and execution. I am under the impression that people were executed during Chinngis’ reign too, and probably later Khans, and I’m not sure that there’s any evidence that Chinese rule was any harsher – that in fact the centre of government being so far away and fervent Buddhism mostly keeping the populace equable, Mongolians were mostly allowed to carry on their lives as they had for centuries. The infamy of the Manchus is very much taken for granted by the majority of Mongolians today, however, which I think may well have been a version of history strongly encouraged in the Soviet era. This and some of the slant on the Soviet period should be borne in mind of the fact that this building was formerly The Museum of the Revolution.
The hall of Soviet history itself is pretty interesting, although unfortunately a lot of the labels are left untranslated. Mongolia has an interesting place in Communist history – it was the second country in the world to have a Communist revolution. Lenin is still quite fondly regarded in Mongolia, for his support in freeing Mongolia from Chinese rule. There’s a prominent statue of Lenin outside the Ulaanbaatar Hotel. The museum has one display case dedicated to the victims of the purges during the 1930’s – whether these were ordered by Stalin or just inspired by him seems unclear. The justification for the mass arrests at the time was a fabricated Japanese-inspired fifth columnist plot to take over the country. There’s no mention (in English anyway) of the many thousands (30,000?) of Buddhist monks who disappeared at this time, but there are the pocket watches of Minister of Finance S. Dovchin, former Party Secretary O. Badrakh and Minister of Justice D. Dorjpurev’s wife’s handbag: the perhaps unintentional impression that these three items are all that remain of the victims of the mass murder is chilling.
To what extent Mongolia's leaders were under the command of the Kremlin is a question that I would be interested to see historians answer. I believe that there’s evidence that Mongolia had a considerable degree of autonomy. For example, throughout World War Two, Mongolia’s contribution to the fighting on the Eastern front was the loan of a handful of tanks and planes – which Russia had presumably given Mongolia in the first place – and the sale of horses and a few other supplies to the Allies: this when Stalin was sacrificing millions of his countrymen to slow the German advance. Of course, Mongolia’s population was very small at the time (around 1 million? Less?) – and Mongolia was later to fight fiercely against Japan in the campaigns that led to VJ Day. Until the democratic revolution of the 90s, Russia stationed troops and carried out military exercises in Mongolia – but Russia also built apartment blocks, power stations, and factories and indeed provided a degree of security against the country’s other Marxist neighbor.
Anyhow, an interesting museum, with food for these questions and others - well worth a visit. 3,000T admission, I didn’t check how much it costs to take photos. I will try and remember to update this entry with a photo of the exterior, which is a piece of Soviet modernist architecture that is a credit to the city.
Showing posts with label UB City Guide. Show all posts
Showing posts with label UB City Guide. Show all posts
Wednesday, 27 June 2007
Friday, 25 May 2007
Manzushir Monastery, Highway Robbery
Yesterday I was finally able to get out of the city to breathe some clean air. Actually, as it was a windy day with clouds threatening rain, the air in the city felt cleaner than it has done over the past week, and noticeably less dusty. Nonetheless, I was extremely grateful that a Mongolian friend took a day off work and found a friend of hers with a car to drive us to Manzushir Monastery in the South of the Bogd Khan mountains - ie - on the opposite side from Ulaanbaatar, about an hour's drive away. A nice omen for any trip, heading out on to the airport road, is a billboard showing a merry, bearded actor on a horse representing the fearsome conqueror Chinggis Khan with the chilling message "Have a nice journey" scripted in English across it.
We skirted around the Holy mountain reserve counter-clockwise. Once the city and its power stations were out of sight, the scenery and the clean air are overwhelming. We passed numerous herds of horse, goats, sheep and cattle - many casually crossing the road (and for whom our driver only very marginally decelerated) and all with new-born young. The windows wound down and the cool air blowing fiercely, I found myself moved to tears.
The road to Manzushir is north out of Zuun Mod, the small capital of Tuv Aimag(province) - a town of mostly wooden houses and ger, with a few old soviet era buildings at the centre, including a couple of derelict factories - in other words, a town like most of the population centres outside of the capital.
The Bogd Khan mountains are not tall and imposing, but roll with many folds and spurs, the heights usually hidden from the low lands up in the forested tops. There are many changes of terrain and scenery - here North of Zuun Mod we found ourselves heading into a very Alpine valley. At the gates to the strictly protected area we paid our entrance fee (500T for the Mongolians, 2000T for me) and drove on up to a parking area. Manzushir is still in the process of being developed as a tourist destination. There are improved facilities being built at the ger camp, which, bearing in mind the proximity to the capital and the airport, ought to boost the number of visitors here, which in turn helps to pay for projects in the Strictly Protected Area. One hopes that a little would kick back to projects in the town, too.
As we drove I was very excited to see two almost golden-furred, big-headed rodents frolicking about in the sun - marmots, apparently. The beauty of the valley here is dazzling, and there were many falcons or hawks flying very low overhead, quite possibly on the lookout for marmots. The pine trees here seemed to be of substantial age, and now with fresh green needles. All around in the valley are scattered time-worn boulders of every shape and size, the heights they have come down from have fine cliffs and rocky pinnacles.
The Manzushir Monastery was founded in 1733, with many temples and a thriving community of monks: it was, of course, regrettably destroyed in the 1930s. There's now one wooden temple which has been restored as a museum, and the rest are picturesque ruins. I didn't spend much time in the museum here because I really wanted to climb up into the beautiful hills above, so I'm afraid I may well have missed out on some fascinating history to the place. I am sure that the valley is a location long-held to be particularly sacred, as the be`auty of the place seems to allow no other interpretation.
Above the monasteries are three main shrines in the rock face. In them are fine rock carvings of various buddhistic deities, some of which are painted. After paying mumbled respect at the shrines we carried on over fallen boulders, climbing slowly upwards. There is a strong feeling of having entered another world up there - again, it is so awe-inspiringly beautiful and, in the late spring at least, so fresh and revitalizing. Gradually, the temples below were lost to sight, and we were up in an entirely natural environment - but here, there are striking walls of rock, looking as though built carefully by giants. High above the valley, one such wall curves in a vast semi-cicle, towering maybe a hundred feet above, creating a natural enclosure, a fortress of rock.
The mysterious nature of the place was emphasised for us as the wind began to howl in the tree-tops, the sky blackened, and a fierce flurry of snow started to fall. We didn't dawdle too long, and took this as a sign to start heading back down. Perhaps unsurprisingly, once we had passed the shrines and were back down in the valley, the sky had completely cleared, we were back beneath the deep Mongolian blue sky of near summer.
We drove back to UB early in the evening, feeling very refreshed. Unfortunately, shortly before the city our driver committed a very minor traffic violation, for which he was stopped by a very smartly-uniformed and extremely serious-looking traffic police officer. His license was demanded and he was told to pull over off the road. Looking considerably apprehensive, our driver went back to speak with the police officer. Meanwhile, my companion expressed a fairly strong contempt for the nation's police force, which I have to say I have heard on any number of occasions before, and never heard contradicted. Finally our driver returned to rummage through his wallet. The situation was quite simple - he had been told "If you want your license back, pay me 4000T." This hadn't come as any kind of surprise. There wasn't even any discussion of the violation itself, nor any pretense that a fine was being paid, just a run-of-the-mill, petty extortion of slightly less than $4.
We skirted around the Holy mountain reserve counter-clockwise. Once the city and its power stations were out of sight, the scenery and the clean air are overwhelming. We passed numerous herds of horse, goats, sheep and cattle - many casually crossing the road (and for whom our driver only very marginally decelerated) and all with new-born young. The windows wound down and the cool air blowing fiercely, I found myself moved to tears.
The road to Manzushir is north out of Zuun Mod, the small capital of Tuv Aimag(province) - a town of mostly wooden houses and ger, with a few old soviet era buildings at the centre, including a couple of derelict factories - in other words, a town like most of the population centres outside of the capital.
The Bogd Khan mountains are not tall and imposing, but roll with many folds and spurs, the heights usually hidden from the low lands up in the forested tops. There are many changes of terrain and scenery - here North of Zuun Mod we found ourselves heading into a very Alpine valley. At the gates to the strictly protected area we paid our entrance fee (500T for the Mongolians, 2000T for me) and drove on up to a parking area. Manzushir is still in the process of being developed as a tourist destination. There are improved facilities being built at the ger camp, which, bearing in mind the proximity to the capital and the airport, ought to boost the number of visitors here, which in turn helps to pay for projects in the Strictly Protected Area. One hopes that a little would kick back to projects in the town, too.
As we drove I was very excited to see two almost golden-furred, big-headed rodents frolicking about in the sun - marmots, apparently. The beauty of the valley here is dazzling, and there were many falcons or hawks flying very low overhead, quite possibly on the lookout for marmots. The pine trees here seemed to be of substantial age, and now with fresh green needles. All around in the valley are scattered time-worn boulders of every shape and size, the heights they have come down from have fine cliffs and rocky pinnacles.
The Manzushir Monastery was founded in 1733, with many temples and a thriving community of monks: it was, of course, regrettably destroyed in the 1930s. There's now one wooden temple which has been restored as a museum, and the rest are picturesque ruins. I didn't spend much time in the museum here because I really wanted to climb up into the beautiful hills above, so I'm afraid I may well have missed out on some fascinating history to the place. I am sure that the valley is a location long-held to be particularly sacred, as the be`auty of the place seems to allow no other interpretation.
Above the monasteries are three main shrines in the rock face. In them are fine rock carvings of various buddhistic deities, some of which are painted. After paying mumbled respect at the shrines we carried on over fallen boulders, climbing slowly upwards. There is a strong feeling of having entered another world up there - again, it is so awe-inspiringly beautiful and, in the late spring at least, so fresh and revitalizing. Gradually, the temples below were lost to sight, and we were up in an entirely natural environment - but here, there are striking walls of rock, looking as though built carefully by giants. High above the valley, one such wall curves in a vast semi-cicle, towering maybe a hundred feet above, creating a natural enclosure, a fortress of rock. 
The mysterious nature of the place was emphasised for us as the wind began to howl in the tree-tops, the sky blackened, and a fierce flurry of snow started to fall. We didn't dawdle too long, and took this as a sign to start heading back down. Perhaps unsurprisingly, once we had passed the shrines and were back down in the valley, the sky had completely cleared, we were back beneath the deep Mongolian blue sky of near summer.
We drove back to UB early in the evening, feeling very refreshed. Unfortunately, shortly before the city our driver committed a very minor traffic violation, for which he was stopped by a very smartly-uniformed and extremely serious-looking traffic police officer. His license was demanded and he was told to pull over off the road. Looking considerably apprehensive, our driver went back to speak with the police officer. Meanwhile, my companion expressed a fairly strong contempt for the nation's police force, which I have to say I have heard on any number of occasions before, and never heard contradicted. Finally our driver returned to rummage through his wallet. The situation was quite simple - he had been told "If you want your license back, pay me 4000T." This hadn't come as any kind of surprise. There wasn't even any discussion of the violation itself, nor any pretense that a fine was being paid, just a run-of-the-mill, petty extortion of slightly less than $4.
Monday, 5 February 2007
Back Streets, Bookshops, Morin Khuur
Monday 5th February 2007
The tree-lined avenues north of the Government Building at the centre of Ulaanbaatar stretch out to east and west and are the main university district of the city. The buildings along these avenues are rather grand and sombre, built, I suppose, in the early soviet era. They are brick buildings, with plaster facades moulded as stone. There isn't the profusion of shops selling bootleg cds and cut-price cashmere, but rather some very good restaurants here and there, and otherwise the heavy wooden doors and dark stone-linteled windows don't give much clue to what goes on within, except to suggest serious business of some kind.
I enjoy cutting through the back streets between this area and my apartment block, which is at the north western edge, behind blocks of accommodation known, I am told, as Student Town. The surface of the street rolls like a frozen sea, and the cars that do pass down there make their way as cautiously as I do, no more eager to rip off their exhaust pipe than I am to slip and break my neck. There are two make-shift ice rinks behind what I suppose is a school, most evenings and throughout the day at weekends children and teenagers skate around to Mongolian and Russian-sounding pop music played from tinny speakers screwed to the wall of a wooden shack.
In an impressive building between the back wall of the Chinese Embassy and back alleys where dogs root through discarded vegetables and shredded plastic bags, running off with the prize of a large filthy leg bone, there's a karaoke bar and the neon-lit sign for the King Arthur restaurant. I'll pass this having left my home, ignore the temptingly-priced menu, turn a corner then pass through a gap in a wooden fence.
Just before reaching the main road there's a great square of a building with one of the ubiquitous 'PC Game' establishments in the basement, and on the first floor, behind a typically anonymous great wooden door, a little supermarket that I tend to buy bread at and - sorry mum - cigarettes. Of course I'll give them up again once I'm back in Blighty but at 40p a pack I'd be losing a fiver every time I didn't buy any, wouldn't I?
In the hallway before the the supermarket there's a door leading to a bookstore which has thte best collection of second-hand English books I've found so far. It seems that most have found their way there through the hands of diplomats at the US Embassy - there are an awful lot of very dry books on American politics, mostly 30 years old at least but with the odd book on Clinton in between numerous appraisals of the Nixon era. A lot of Grisham and Grishamesque thrillers, which I assume is also popular reading with diplomats. When my iBook had decided to take a five day rest I was very happy to find a copy of 'Creation' by Gore Vidal which I am enjoying working my way through. They only charged me 3000 Tugric ($3) - a lot cheaper than most second-hand books here. Actually, I was very happily surprised to receive my first piece of mail when I arrived at school today - my sister Helen had sent me 'Out of the Ordinary' by Jon Ronson. At first I was deeply disappointed because I thought I'd already read it just before leaving the UK: then happily remembered that I was confusing it with Louis Theroux's book. A confusion which I am given to believe Mr Ronson would not find flattering.
Having passed through this area on Saturday whilst wandering aimlessly in the direction of Sukhbaatar Square, at the corner between the Natural History Museum and the rear of the ominous Government Building I noticed that the building on my left called itself National Musical Instruments and Instrument Makers of Mongolia. Couldn't see up to the windows, so I climbed the steps to the door. Most of the souvenir shops in UB sell somewhat gaudily painted Morin Khuur - known as the Horse Head fiddle - a beautifully carved two-stringed cello most typical of Mongolian folk music. For all I know the instruments flogged amongst mocassins, fur hats, bows and arrows and paintings of Genghis on stretched hide are as good musically as any, however, this small establishment has the sombre feel of the home of the work of true craftsmen. The walls are lined with Morin Khuur and other instruments: including large snake-skinned Chinese banjos, an array of different sized and styled dulcimers, European fiddles and, somthing I was hoping to find, a lovely fretless Khulsan Khuur. The Khulsan Khur looks pretty much like a Morin Khuur - with the same two strings and box-shaped body - but this one's head was carved as an ibex rather than a horse. It is plucked or indeed (for the benefit of Old Time banjo enthusiasts) frailed - at least it was when I saw one on TV a while back. I had a little play around with it - was very delighted with the silly little melody that fell onto my fingers, and the beautiful feel of the neck. They're asking 100,000T for it and I may have to go back there on pay day.
The back room is a workshop, where it seemed at the time mostly old instruments - some very fine and venerable looking, very intricately detailed and carved - were being repaired. The smell of sawdust in the air, and clouds of it dancing in the sunlight, contrasting with the shadowed darkness of wood hanging all around.
I picked up a brochure for the shop: they're the Eshiglen Magnai Co. Ltd: established in 1991 by Purevdavaagiin Baigal av, "famous master on production of Mongolian traditional instruments", they now have more "40 masters leading in the field of traditional musical instruments" working with them. Their mail address is
Eshiglen Magnai Co. Ltd
Ulaanbaatar 210646
Mongolia
PO Box 46-178
and they can be contacted by email via
toogii_36899@yahoo.com
The tree-lined avenues north of the Government Building at the centre of Ulaanbaatar stretch out to east and west and are the main university district of the city. The buildings along these avenues are rather grand and sombre, built, I suppose, in the early soviet era. They are brick buildings, with plaster facades moulded as stone. There isn't the profusion of shops selling bootleg cds and cut-price cashmere, but rather some very good restaurants here and there, and otherwise the heavy wooden doors and dark stone-linteled windows don't give much clue to what goes on within, except to suggest serious business of some kind.
I enjoy cutting through the back streets between this area and my apartment block, which is at the north western edge, behind blocks of accommodation known, I am told, as Student Town. The surface of the street rolls like a frozen sea, and the cars that do pass down there make their way as cautiously as I do, no more eager to rip off their exhaust pipe than I am to slip and break my neck. There are two make-shift ice rinks behind what I suppose is a school, most evenings and throughout the day at weekends children and teenagers skate around to Mongolian and Russian-sounding pop music played from tinny speakers screwed to the wall of a wooden shack.
In an impressive building between the back wall of the Chinese Embassy and back alleys where dogs root through discarded vegetables and shredded plastic bags, running off with the prize of a large filthy leg bone, there's a karaoke bar and the neon-lit sign for the King Arthur restaurant. I'll pass this having left my home, ignore the temptingly-priced menu, turn a corner then pass through a gap in a wooden fence. Just before reaching the main road there's a great square of a building with one of the ubiquitous 'PC Game' establishments in the basement, and on the first floor, behind a typically anonymous great wooden door, a little supermarket that I tend to buy bread at and - sorry mum - cigarettes. Of course I'll give them up again once I'm back in Blighty but at 40p a pack I'd be losing a fiver every time I didn't buy any, wouldn't I?
In the hallway before the the supermarket there's a door leading to a bookstore which has thte best collection of second-hand English books I've found so far. It seems that most have found their way there through the hands of diplomats at the US Embassy - there are an awful lot of very dry books on American politics, mostly 30 years old at least but with the odd book on Clinton in between numerous appraisals of the Nixon era. A lot of Grisham and Grishamesque thrillers, which I assume is also popular reading with diplomats. When my iBook had decided to take a five day rest I was very happy to find a copy of 'Creation' by Gore Vidal which I am enjoying working my way through. They only charged me 3000 Tugric ($3) - a lot cheaper than most second-hand books here. Actually, I was very happily surprised to receive my first piece of mail when I arrived at school today - my sister Helen had sent me 'Out of the Ordinary' by Jon Ronson. At first I was deeply disappointed because I thought I'd already read it just before leaving the UK: then happily remembered that I was confusing it with Louis Theroux's book. A confusion which I am given to believe Mr Ronson would not find flattering.
Having passed through this area on Saturday whilst wandering aimlessly in the direction of Sukhbaatar Square, at the corner between the Natural History Museum and the rear of the ominous Government Building I noticed that the building on my left called itself National Musical Instruments and Instrument Makers of Mongolia. Couldn't see up to the windows, so I climbed the steps to the door. Most of the souvenir shops in UB sell somewhat gaudily painted Morin Khuur - known as the Horse Head fiddle - a beautifully carved two-stringed cello most typical of Mongolian folk music. For all I know the instruments flogged amongst mocassins, fur hats, bows and arrows and paintings of Genghis on stretched hide are as good musically as any, however, this small establishment has the sombre feel of the home of the work of true craftsmen. The walls are lined with Morin Khuur and other instruments: including large snake-skinned Chinese banjos, an array of different sized and styled dulcimers, European fiddles and, somthing I was hoping to find, a lovely fretless Khulsan Khuur. The Khulsan Khur looks pretty much like a Morin Khuur - with the same two strings and box-shaped body - but this one's head was carved as an ibex rather than a horse. It is plucked or indeed (for the benefit of Old Time banjo enthusiasts) frailed - at least it was when I saw one on TV a while back. I had a little play around with it - was very delighted with the silly little melody that fell onto my fingers, and the beautiful feel of the neck. They're asking 100,000T for it and I may have to go back there on pay day.
The back room is a workshop, where it seemed at the time mostly old instruments - some very fine and venerable looking, very intricately detailed and carved - were being repaired. The smell of sawdust in the air, and clouds of it dancing in the sunlight, contrasting with the shadowed darkness of wood hanging all around.
I picked up a brochure for the shop: they're the Eshiglen Magnai Co. Ltd: established in 1991 by Purevdavaagiin Baigal av, "famous master on production of Mongolian traditional instruments", they now have more "40 masters leading in the field of traditional musical instruments" working with them. Their mail address is
Eshiglen Magnai Co. Ltd
Ulaanbaatar 210646
Mongolia
PO Box 46-178
and they can be contacted by email via
toogii_36899@yahoo.com
Monday, 8 January 2007
Workaholic, Encore en Bogdkhaan Uul, Bones, Rocks, Peanuts
Monday 8th January 2007
It has been a while since I’ve had the chance to sit down and write either this or the many emails and letters I have promised people (sorry). I could blame myself (congenital laziness, watching too much TV, having nothing worth writing, etc) but the fact is that my conniving employer tricked me into agreeing to produce 8 exam papers by today. It would be “no problem at all,” I boasted. I managed to ‘finish’ (well, slightly more than start) 4 papers by about 9.30pm last night, when I angrily threw my books aside, cursed my boss for allowing me to agree to such a head-wrecking task, and watched a DVD of ‘Snakes on a Plane’ (accompanied by a few vodka and cokes) in rebellion. I dreamt of exam questions all night. When I set a reading piece in the classroom, I have no problem coming up with a half dozen thoughtful and engaging questions that manage to both test the students’ abilities and enable them to learn from the process. Multiple choice, fill in the blanks (which is what are preferred for exam papers here) I find it takes me half an hour to come up with one facetiously worded question, ie - (from my first paper) Complete the following sentence using a gerund:
It is very annoying for me ________(deal) with sudden changes in my schedule.
I didn’t even know what a gerund was until a few weeks ago. And I spelled sentence ‘sentance.’
Of course, I took the correct approach to informing my boss that I hadn’t done the work I’d agreed to do: I went to her office first thing this morning and complained at great length about my incompetence in the area of test writing. I’ve been given a week’s reprieve.
It is very refreshing being in a job where, owing to a complete absence of any other suitable candidates, I can be honest about my failings. There is no need to lie and claim to be punctual, hard-working, competent, etc. Today I went to visit the Turkish teacher’s language school. He very much wants me to start working for him. At present his courses are indeed taught by “100% foreign English teachers” as his literature boasts, but he has not attempted to hide from me that he really, really needs to hire a native speaker. We discussed terms. “I have to tell you,” I said, “I’ve no previous experience teaching English, am extremely lazy and not at all drawn to the idea of hard work.” I start next Monday, teaching 2 hours in the evening Monday, Tuesday and Wednesday.
I’m promised that I’ll be paid a decent salary - I’ll check exactly how much tomorrow (if it’s T10,000, ie £4 an hour then that buys a decent meal at a restaurant). After talking terms though (and me further saying that the salary is very important to me regardless of my ability) my new boss then told me that one of my students will be a member of the Mongolian group Guys666! That’s the fellers who are currently pictured on the back of Hite beer cans, and who I previously mentioned in the blog here.If I’d known that I’d be teaching Guys666 then I would have agreed to work for nothing.
In all serious, though, although I am congenitally lazy, I think I may enjoy the tutoring job, and it should be an interesting change to teach students who are all motivated to learn.
Yesterday, other than spending a few weary hours in the evening attempting to work, I spent the day out hiking in the Bogdkhaan Uul again - this time dragging two young french travellers, Mathieu and Francois, along with me, so as not to be trespassing on my own. There was fresh snow on the ground, creating a pleasant contrast with my previous hike; the sun, of course, shone as brightly as ever and again there was barely a breath of wind. Crossed the path of many more people out gathering firewood. At the top of a mountain pass Francois found two camel heads and two horse heads left at the foot of a pile of stones (an ‘ovobo’ I think the word is) presumably for shamanic reasons.Unfortunately the powdery fresh snow was not as good for sledging on the plastic sack I’d saved from my previous trip. Mathieu and Francois are travelling on the Trans-Mongolian, with the aim of eventually heading to Kazakhstan and driving back to France. They keep a blog of their travels at onetrip-onenoise.over-blog.com (written in French for some reason)
Saturday I went to the Museum of Natural History. The Gobi desert has been the location of some of the most important finds in palaentology, and Ulaanbaatar has some of the most significant finds in this splendid and very soviet era museum. I was most excited to see the fossil of two dinosaurs who died locked in (assuredly) mortal combat: the only such dinosaur remains in the world. I don’t know what dinosaurologists say, but my 2 minute inspection led me to conclude that the smaller dinosaur, which looks in a pretty bad shape, managed, with a kick of its sharply clawed feet, to rip the stomach out of the more powerful-looking one in its death-throes. There are also about half a dozen dinosaur egg nests, and (ah!) a fossilized nest of deceased newly hatched dinosaurs.
An irresistable appeal to me of the Museum of Natural History is the building itself, which is as soviet-era forbidding and run-down as you could hope to imagine. I will return someday soon and pay the T5000 photography fee to take pictures of the walls and dimly lit corridors. This is a real Natural History museum, with stuffed birds and insects pinned to cards. No high falutin’ interactive displays - unless you count iron meteorites that you can rub or try to pick up (heavy) when the attendants aren’t watching.
As I didn’t bring my notebook with me I couldn’t jot down any of the gems of asian English from the display labels. To compensate, here’s the label from the back of a chinese packet of salted peanuts:
THIS PRODUCT IS MADE OF SELECTED SHANDONG GREAT PEANUT KERNELS AND PROCESSED WITH ADVANCED EQUIPMENT AND TECHNOLOGY OF THE WORLD. IT IS TASTY AND CRISP, NOT OILY, AND IS A KIND OF CONVENIENT TOURING FOOD AS WELL. YOU MAY CHOOSE IT AS A PRESENT OR ENTERTAIN GUESTS WITH IT. IF IT GOES WITH TEA AND WINE, A NICE FLAVOUR COULD BE ENJOYED.
It has been a while since I’ve had the chance to sit down and write either this or the many emails and letters I have promised people (sorry). I could blame myself (congenital laziness, watching too much TV, having nothing worth writing, etc) but the fact is that my conniving employer tricked me into agreeing to produce 8 exam papers by today. It would be “no problem at all,” I boasted. I managed to ‘finish’ (well, slightly more than start) 4 papers by about 9.30pm last night, when I angrily threw my books aside, cursed my boss for allowing me to agree to such a head-wrecking task, and watched a DVD of ‘Snakes on a Plane’ (accompanied by a few vodka and cokes) in rebellion. I dreamt of exam questions all night. When I set a reading piece in the classroom, I have no problem coming up with a half dozen thoughtful and engaging questions that manage to both test the students’ abilities and enable them to learn from the process. Multiple choice, fill in the blanks (which is what are preferred for exam papers here) I find it takes me half an hour to come up with one facetiously worded question, ie - (from my first paper) Complete the following sentence using a gerund:
It is very annoying for me ________(deal) with sudden changes in my schedule.
I didn’t even know what a gerund was until a few weeks ago. And I spelled sentence ‘sentance.’
Of course, I took the correct approach to informing my boss that I hadn’t done the work I’d agreed to do: I went to her office first thing this morning and complained at great length about my incompetence in the area of test writing. I’ve been given a week’s reprieve.
It is very refreshing being in a job where, owing to a complete absence of any other suitable candidates, I can be honest about my failings. There is no need to lie and claim to be punctual, hard-working, competent, etc. Today I went to visit the Turkish teacher’s language school. He very much wants me to start working for him. At present his courses are indeed taught by “100% foreign English teachers” as his literature boasts, but he has not attempted to hide from me that he really, really needs to hire a native speaker. We discussed terms. “I have to tell you,” I said, “I’ve no previous experience teaching English, am extremely lazy and not at all drawn to the idea of hard work.” I start next Monday, teaching 2 hours in the evening Monday, Tuesday and Wednesday.
I’m promised that I’ll be paid a decent salary - I’ll check exactly how much tomorrow (if it’s T10,000, ie £4 an hour then that buys a decent meal at a restaurant). After talking terms though (and me further saying that the salary is very important to me regardless of my ability) my new boss then told me that one of my students will be a member of the Mongolian group Guys666! That’s the fellers who are currently pictured on the back of Hite beer cans, and who I previously mentioned in the blog here.If I’d known that I’d be teaching Guys666 then I would have agreed to work for nothing.
In all serious, though, although I am congenitally lazy, I think I may enjoy the tutoring job, and it should be an interesting change to teach students who are all motivated to learn.
Yesterday, other than spending a few weary hours in the evening attempting to work, I spent the day out hiking in the Bogdkhaan Uul again - this time dragging two young french travellers, Mathieu and Francois, along with me, so as not to be trespassing on my own. There was fresh snow on the ground, creating a pleasant contrast with my previous hike; the sun, of course, shone as brightly as ever and again there was barely a breath of wind. Crossed the path of many more people out gathering firewood. At the top of a mountain pass Francois found two camel heads and two horse heads left at the foot of a pile of stones (an ‘ovobo’ I think the word is) presumably for shamanic reasons.Unfortunately the powdery fresh snow was not as good for sledging on the plastic sack I’d saved from my previous trip. Mathieu and Francois are travelling on the Trans-Mongolian, with the aim of eventually heading to Kazakhstan and driving back to France. They keep a blog of their travels at onetrip-onenoise.over-blog.com (written in French for some reason)
Saturday I went to the Museum of Natural History. The Gobi desert has been the location of some of the most important finds in palaentology, and Ulaanbaatar has some of the most significant finds in this splendid and very soviet era museum. I was most excited to see the fossil of two dinosaurs who died locked in (assuredly) mortal combat: the only such dinosaur remains in the world. I don’t know what dinosaurologists say, but my 2 minute inspection led me to conclude that the smaller dinosaur, which looks in a pretty bad shape, managed, with a kick of its sharply clawed feet, to rip the stomach out of the more powerful-looking one in its death-throes. There are also about half a dozen dinosaur egg nests, and (ah!) a fossilized nest of deceased newly hatched dinosaurs.
An irresistable appeal to me of the Museum of Natural History is the building itself, which is as soviet-era forbidding and run-down as you could hope to imagine. I will return someday soon and pay the T5000 photography fee to take pictures of the walls and dimly lit corridors. This is a real Natural History museum, with stuffed birds and insects pinned to cards. No high falutin’ interactive displays - unless you count iron meteorites that you can rub or try to pick up (heavy) when the attendants aren’t watching.
As I didn’t bring my notebook with me I couldn’t jot down any of the gems of asian English from the display labels. To compensate, here’s the label from the back of a chinese packet of salted peanuts:
THIS PRODUCT IS MADE OF SELECTED SHANDONG GREAT PEANUT KERNELS AND PROCESSED WITH ADVANCED EQUIPMENT AND TECHNOLOGY OF THE WORLD. IT IS TASTY AND CRISP, NOT OILY, AND IS A KIND OF CONVENIENT TOURING FOOD AS WELL. YOU MAY CHOOSE IT AS A PRESENT OR ENTERTAIN GUESTS WITH IT. IF IT GOES WITH TEA AND WINE, A NICE FLAVOUR COULD BE ENJOYED.
Sunday, 31 December 2006
Parties, Pageants, Hiking in the Bogdkhaan Uul
I’ve had a little trouble getting photographs onto this blog, so for the time being I’ve decided to stick to small file sizes - however, if you want to see any of the pictures in their full glory, and also photos I don’t have room for in the blog, please check out my new Flickr site (also under the Ulaanbaanjo name, there should be a link in the column on the right). Once I figure out the technology I may be able to improve the situation and make it a little more user friendly. And if anyone has any advice, please be encouraged to either leave a comment or send me an email ulaanbaanjo@yahoo.co.uk
Thursday 28th, Friday 29th & Saturday 30th December 2006
Following the party at the Grand Khan, the social whirl has continued: I’ve attended the students’ Christmas/New Year party - much of which was taken up by a beauty pageant style contest judged by the teachers to find a King and Queen of the Prom; I was also given a gift from the students (a giant candy Christmas tree made in China for export to the US, listed ingredients include Titanium Dioxide). I’ve attended the teachers’ Christmas/New Year party, where entertainments included an inevitable contest to find out who the King and Queen of the teachers were (I feel I was let down in this by not wearing a suit, otherwise then my banjo turn would surely have won me a crown); we also had two ballet dancing angels who danced for 2 minutes and posed for photos for 20. We had a traditional singer perform a few songs - the singing style seems to be a fusion of western operatic singing and oriental tones and melodies. At the Grand Khaan we had a woman singing who I’d seen a video of on Mongolian TV a few times - a really powerful singer.
Having learnt the error of my ways since the party on Boxing Day, I sat at the ‘Wine’ table, with the older and calmer teachers rather than at a ‘Vodka’ table, on the understanding that I would so be able to civilly stick to a glass or two from the vine, rather than struggling to keep down distilled grain. Having sat down, a waiter then brought a half dozen beer and two vodka bottles to the table, and a single bottle of cheap red wine. Later in the evening the ‘Vodka’ tables got an additional bottle of quality ‘Chinggis’ vodka - our table got a bottle of real French red. Still, I managed to wilfully refuse all but the most obligatory vodka toasts. As the party wound up our glamorous principal arrived and shortly announced to a cheering audience of inspirited teachers that we had all been invited to the corporation’s employees’ party, which was being held at an expo centre on the far side of town. I gamely attended, danced without being drunk, listened to one of the top young Mongolian rock bands play their hits (they were pretty good), amongst a crowd of wildly enthusiastic photocopier engineers, teachers, waiters and god knows what other lines of business (and I am assured there are many) the corporation is involved in.
Saturday morning, regardless of having avoided the pitfall of drinking copious amounts of vodka, felt I really needed to clear my head. Yet another bright and glorious day, but with a particularly thick and orange morning smog. I left my apartment at 10am, walked across the edge of the centre, past the Ulaanbaatar Hotel and the statue of Lenin out front, and down a long avenue south with little traffic. My map showed this to be an alternative route over the railway and river south in the direction of the mountains to the busy road across the ‘Peace Bridge’ which I had walked on Christmas Day. After crossing over the tracks of the Trans- Mongolian the long straight road continued, through a very quiet area with even less traffic, smart new apartment blocks being built, and the mountains south and east clear and inviting.
The road surface seemed smooth and quite new, and walking almost the only sound was the steady crunch of the powdery snow beneath my boots, the sky here clean and deep blue. Past the last of the construction sites and then a large and fancy looking driving range. Had almost reached the mountains - the road carried on, rising, clearly to bridge the wide river that runs from west to east at the foot of the southern mountains. Strangely, there seemed to be a few obstacles in the road - it occurred to me that although there were no signs to warn of it, the bridge was incomplete. Left the road then and walked down to the wide, frozen river: and indeed, 20 feet above me the bridge continued half way across, and then abruptly stopped, pillars in the middle of the river awaiting the bridge’s completion. Later, I was told that it is not uncommon for unwary and usually unsober drivers to drive off the edge. I didn’t actually see any sign of this, although I’ll have to go back and check out if it’s possible. How long the bridge has been incomplete I don’t know - I do know that for the obvious reason of the deep subzero temperatures, most construction in Mongolia grinds to a halt for the winter months.
Now at the foot of the mountains, headed west up the frozen river. The river must have been frozen entirely solid, but I still trod a little warily. When I’d previously walked to the war memorial (Zaysan Tolgoy) I’d been very drawn to the hills that surrounded it in a horseshoe ridge - presumably a small glacial valley. I was dimly aware that these hills presumably formed part of a very old National Park I remembered reading about. The eastern foot of these hills came down a quarter mile upriver from the unfinished bridge. As I reached that point, I past a large group of fellers, all dressed in the colourful sashed robes, boots and fur hats of nomads, playing a sort of curling/bowls game on the ice with pucks of some sort. It was a very picturesque scene - regrettably my camera was playing up at the time. I left the river and struck off up the hillside.
The hill was quite steep, and the going fairly slippery with slow (yellowed grasses growing through), but I took my time, knowing it would be easier on the ridge, enjoying the warm sunlight and the ghost of green in the grasses above me; pausing frequently to look back down on the game in the ice, and the higher I climbed, looking back in wonder at the city, and the thick dark sea of smog above it: all the time myself breathing wonderful, clean air, and wondering why no one else in a city of a million people would be out here walking on so glorious a day. In Britain it is a very hit or miss thing to go out hill-walking at winter - you have to be very wary of changes in the weather, have precious little daylight to walk in either - the day seems to be darkening as soon as it has begun, and your spirits inevitably harden and darken with it. I don’t know what the air temperature was during yesterday’s climb - it may have been unseasonably warm, but was undoubtedly no more than -8C and could feasibly have been significantly less. With no wind, and the air dry and crisp, I felt a lot warmer and in none of the life-or-death rush to get to the top and down of climbing Snowdon on a wet and windy summer’s day.
After the first small peak, the ridge was easy to follow, and eventually I came across the boot tracks of other walkers. My geology is pretty much non-existent, the hills reminded me of the Lake District, smooth sided, with broken rock showing through.
There was practically no litter at all, which seems incredible contrasted with the casual filth and grime of dear old UB. The hills are pristine, feel wild - and always you look back at the colourful, sprawling chaos of Ulaanbaatar - at the power stations belching out smoke to the West, at the crowded tower blocks, cranes and construction sites, at the barely visible northern ger districts rising on the slopes of the northern hills - then the snow covered mountain tops rising like islands from the dark grey sea of smoke above. Looking down into the basin the ridge surrounded, at it’s lip is the rugged pyramid of rock (I would like to say basalt, except I only have a vague idea of what basalt actually is), topped by the very splendid Zaysan Tolgoy monument, looking not unlike Isengard. Beyond that, too, the golden, shining Buddha statue (according to my city map, the “highest, bronze-plated statue of Buddha” in the world!) and from the gardens, the big bronze bell ringing out intermittently, clear, heavy and deep. There are ger in the little valley, and I watched as a farmer herded his brown sheep and maybe goats from one pasture to another.
I continued along the ridge from small peak to peak, stopping often, looking about and smiling to myself. After a while I met my first other walker - a man in blue robe and orange sash, bearing a large sack of chopped fire wood on his back. He smiled and nodded when, I raised my hand, and continued his laborious way down along the ridge. On the higher slopes there is a large forest - how legal it is to chop down the wood I am not entirely certain. It’s an extensive forest, but I am guessing it wouldn’t feed the stoves of UB’s ger for a week if it was open game.
Eventually I approached an ominous looking battered old sign - some fierce cyrillic words and beneath: PROHIBITED AREA. Oops. It may have referred to the area East of the ridge trail I was following, which was to be my excuse if anyone challenged me over being there. Later, I had a fresh look at my map and my Bradt guide. The National Park south of Ulaanbaatar is called ‘Bogdkhaan Uul’ (or Bogd Khan, or Bogdhan) - ‘uul’ means mountain. It is Mongolia’s oldest protected area - a minister declared it such in 1778. I am yet a bit vague on the details, but the guide refers to both a “Strictly Protected Area” and a “Transition Zone” - so whether I was breaking any rules I am not sure. I have a feeling that the area may not be much policed in the winter, but that I might risk a fine walking it in tourist season. I am reluctant to enquire at the official Bogdkhaan office as I have a pretty strong feeling that they will say that I need a pass whatever - so I think I’ll get Mongolian friends to enquire for me.
I walked up into the timber line.
Most of the trees seem to be dead or dormant (as well as not being a geologist, I am not a great expert on flora or fauna, either) - so it was a pleasant surprise to climb one peak and find a tree fresh and green. I don’t know what kind of evergreen it is, but it was round-topped and the green very light and bright, and so a further surprise among all the lifeless, conical pines. I sat on a rock that was almost warmed by the sun, and enjoyed the peace.Being around 2pm, having got most the way along the eastern arm of the horseshoe, I decided to find a path down through the forest. I came across what seemed to be a sledge track down through the woods, and shortly found a sturdy piece of plastic sheeting. Had to give it a go, and so slid very quickly down through the trees, panicked a bit as I sped up and up and was also entirely unable to steer, carried down by the track. I managed to bring myself to a stop, and walked the rest of the way down. At the bottom, in the middle of the small valley, is a collection of ger and ramshackle wooden houses. Approaching this I passed a group of kids playing with a sledge - maybe having come down the way I’d just followed, maybe just pulling each other around on the flat. They followed me, laughing, introducing themselves with “Hello, may name is...”, giving me the ‘peace sign’ and shouting out bye-bye as I left.
Walked through the settlement towards the Buddha park, dogs barking at me, feeling invigorated and a little footsore too. Ignored the buses though, and carried on up towards the Peace Bridge, through the increasing noise and dirt, occasionally looking back at the mountains, which seem to get larger as they get fainter towards the city. Past two police traffic officers deep in joking conversation, one miming beating someone with his orange traffic baton, the other wearing`a full santa outfit (including beard) beneath his Day-Glo outer jacket. Plodded across Sukhbaatar square, gearing up for tomorrow night’s big celebration. The tree, according to the UB Post, is the first real Xmas tree the city has had: a splendid Spruce from the Bogdkhaan Uul. “We sought and received permission of the Environment Minister for this,” the city’s head of the Cultural Office hastened to add.
Monday, 25 December 2006
Merry Christmas, Zanabazar Museum
Monday 25th December
Merry Christmas!
Yesterday I met a young American doctor whilst getting a meal at a Korean restaurant. He’s over here as part of an exchange program, working in Accident & Emergency for a few weeks. He had a piece of advice for me: “Whatever you do in Mongolia, don’t get sick. There’s a reason you don’t see old people here.”
Managed to get myself up, fed and out at a reasonable hour of the morning today. It was snowing when I left the house, which was very apt and seasonal, although the sun was shining brightly too: looking around, there did not seem to be any clouds in the sky. Quite possibly, as part of the seasonal celebrations, the city had a giant snow making machine hid behind one of the tower blocks, bellowing out chemically manufactured flakes.
Crossing Sukhbaatar Square I noticed that they were still putting up decorations around the tree that was erected yesterday: it has miniature Santas crawling up it, and a big red soviet star on the top. I guess the decorations may actually be getting put up for New Year’s Eve, but possibly they are just being erected on an unfathomable Mongolian schedule.
After a long visit to the Zanabazar Fine Art Museum (on which more later in this post) I started to walk south out of the city , heading for the War Memorial, with the intention of taking the day-time photographs I had promised after my previous night-time visit to the spectacular location.
Outside a restaurant near the centre I was very impressed to see a bunch of guys putting finishing touches to a splendid ice sculpture of four life-sized horsemen, leading the way for a bronze sculpture of Genghis behind them. I got a couple of decent photographs, and a laconic sculptor taking a cigarette break took one of me pretending to carve the ice, before the battery failed on my camera.
Crossed the Peace Bridge out of the city: it takes four lanes of traffic over a wide valley of railway tracks (including the Trans Mongolian), concrete-clad pipes, and a sorry-looking frozen river. The view to the west is dominated by the city’s two monstrous, smoke-belching power stations. Half way over the bridge, eight fully battle-dressed Mongolian horsemen came charging from the other direction into the city. Behind them followed a cart pulled by two horses, containing a somewhat slim, but doubtless merry, white-bearded and crimson-clad fellow. Now that is Christmas, Mongolian style! I carried on walking in the direction of the looming mountains.
It doesn’t take long to walk out of the city and reach the Bronze Buddha park at the foot of the 'Zaysan Tolgoy', War Memorial’s hill. On the way I passed a lot of construction sites where, to judge from the completed sites, ‘luxury’ apartments in the shape (very approximately) of Bavarian castles, garishly painted, will be built. Otherwise, the usual mysterious pipes and broken concrete structures abound. Managed the few hundred steps up the monument without too great difficulty; passed an empty plastic ‘Vodka Blackcurrant’ drink cup near the bottom - further up, a mysterious splash of frozen purple fluid in the centre of the steps. The view, climbing and from the top, is splendid. The mountains look very Scottish, are dappled with snow, and forested with firs. Beyond the Monument there are a few old soviet buildings and a few ger encampments. Was very drawn to make my way up the encircling ridge of hills - if I can get out there earlier in the day maybe next weekend I could give it a try. Looking back at Ulaanbaatar, it is at least more visible than at night. Unbelievable that these hundreds upon hundreds of apartment blocks are barely lit after dark. It is a smoggy and scrappy sight: a considerable contrast with the beauty of the mountains.
Walked back into the city, deciding to treat myself to another restaurant meal. Unfortunately, the American Ger’ll Bar was closed for a private function, so I had very good Indian food at Los Bandidos Indian & Mexican Restaurant - indeed, Los Bandidos is Mongolia’s Only Indian & Mexican Restaurant - fancy that!
So, the Zanabazar Fine Art Museum. At the Choijin Lama Temple the other day none of the guides spoke English, but the lady who ran the gift shop spoke very fluent English indeed. She was reading a copy of ‘The Beautiful and the Damned’, although was reluctant to be drawn into conversation on it. “Ah,” I said, “’The Beautiful and the Damned’: one of my favourite novels.” “Yes,” she replied neutrally. “F Scott Fitzgerald is a really fine writer,” I ventured. “Yes.” It didn’t look as though we’d be starting a book club, so I had a look at the odds and ends on display. She was much more vocal on the merits of various pieces of tat (and otherwise - there was plenty of interesting stuff in the shop too, to be fair) for sale. Because I was a volunteer in Mongolia (I didn’t hasten to disabuse her of this notion) I would be entitled to a special rate and not have to pay “tourist prices.” Wow. Of course, as everything in the shop was labelled but nothing was priced, I had no way of ascertaining the veracity of this statement and - call me a cynic - I suspect that the T1000 I paid for a Mongolia sticker for the old banjer case was the same amount a mere tourist would have to shell out. I said that I was particularly taken with the Temple’s collection of traditional Mongolian devotional art, and enquired whether there were any other collections on display in Ulaanbaatar. “No,” shopkeep answered very vaguely, “well, some of the other Temples have some art, but our collection is the best.” She would be very surprised, then, to learn that in the centre of UB I found, with the help of my Bradt guide, the Zanabazar Museum of Fine Art - a museum entirely devoted to Buddhist devotional art.
Arrived at the Zanabazar Museum at 11am this morning. It’s a fine old dour soviet era building. The ground floor seems to be being prepared for an exhibit of some sort, but I was allowed upstairs to view the main collection. Again, I was the only visitor, but was allowed to view without a curator “tsk”ing at my heels. As I left each room, however, the lights were turned out, in what may have been something of a hint.
There’s some interesting Bronze Age pieces in the museum: I am assuming that I’ll find more at the Museum of Mongolian History so will pass over these for now. The centre of the collection is a room of bronze work by the master of the Mongolian Renaissance, Zanabazar (1635 - 1724). I took some notes from the decently labelled displays.
Zanabazar was the grandson of a Khan and so a direct descendant of the great Chinngis - always a good pedigree for a Mongolian national hero. He was born on the 25th day of the 9th month of the year of the Wooden Boar, which I don’t need to tell you is “the best day for the meeting of fairy goddesses between the autumn & winter.” As a young child he studied in Tibet as a disciple of the 5th Dalai Lama and was proclaimed to be the first reincarnation of the Bogd Jivzundamba. He received the title of Khalkun Gegeenten, or “Holy Saint.” He founded numerous monasteries and temples in Mongolia (his first when he was just 13).
He “created an ideogram and derived script in 1686 which he named ‘Svayambu” meaning ‘self-enlightening’; the ideogram, today the state symbol of Mongolia, was intended to express the idea ‘May the Mongol nation exist by its own right.’”
Zanabar’s bronze castings of buddhist deities are the work for which he was best known. The pieces in the museum are very fine, and about a foot and a half in height. The main pieces at the Fine Arts Museum are the five Buddhas, representing the defeat of “the five evils: anger, ignorance, pride and greed.” I am assuming that this list is a sort of buddhist mystery or joke, something like the painting of ‘The Three Asses.” The five appear alike, but “every detail of each differs.”
Zanabazar’s works “embody the 32 and 80 features (32 inner content, 80 iconographic[?]) for depiction of the beautiful human body, which include proportionality of the body and its various parts, strength, youthful muscles, straight and shapely shoulders and limbs, rounded waist and so on; so Zanabazar’s works were the Mongolian mode of Mankind’s dream of aesthetics.”
There is an excellent collection of Mongolian Thangka paintings, Mandalas and applique (embroidered silk) wall-hangings. The Thangka and Mandalas are basically of the Tibetan school of devotional art - which Liverpool residents can see an extremely good collection of at the World Museum. Thangka painting came to Mongolia in the early 19th Century and reached its artistic peak in the early 20th century. These portraits of deities are characterised by “precise anatomical proportion, the incorporation of symbolism from religious parables and artistic amplification.” They’re very trippy. The ‘Ten Wrathful Deities’ - the protecting demons of Buddhism of which our pal in coral Jamsran seems to be chief - are a favourite subject.
Mandalas, the museum informs, serve to invoke ”the Holy Force within the contemplator... not communion outside oneself with the Divin Power, but an ecstasy or invocation whose purpose is to find and realise the... Divine Power in one’s own heart.” The Mandalas are designed to suit “all levels of consciousness... for the spiritually highly developed, for average people and for the people not yet developed... who are politely referred to as children.” The Mandalas will typically incorporate into their design the Eight Auspicious Symbols: The White Conch, The Wheel, The Lotus Flower, The Auspicious Drawing, The Golden Fish, The Vase of Treasure, The Victory Banner and The Precious Umbrella. My favourite is The Precious Umbrella.
The final section of the museum is mostly devoted to the art of Marzan Sharav - and features his most famous work ‘A Day in the Life of Mongolia’: a large traditional zurag painting on cloth - which depicts many colourful incidents typical of Mongolian nomad life (and with a great deal of humour).
I spent a good while absorbing some of the details: wool and hides are prepared; a blacksmith’s privates are exposed when his pants catch fire: an old man points and his wife covers her eyes; sheep are butchered, and someone throws a boot at a dog escaping with a sheep’s head - it jumps over a roll of wool, beneath which a man and woman secretly embrace; a priest says rites over a dead body in the desert while dogs (or wolves) watch - other dogs meanwhile devour a fresh corpse, while vultures pick at the remains of another; men brawl in various encampments; at the top of the picture trees are felled and carpenters work the wood at the edge of the forest; there feasts, traders, ger being assembled, women attacked by snakes that have hidden in their baskets; farmers tend fields and scrubland is burned; at an encampment of camels a man and wife make love, and a midwife assists at the birth of a child.
Merry Christmas!
Yesterday I met a young American doctor whilst getting a meal at a Korean restaurant. He’s over here as part of an exchange program, working in Accident & Emergency for a few weeks. He had a piece of advice for me: “Whatever you do in Mongolia, don’t get sick. There’s a reason you don’t see old people here.”
Managed to get myself up, fed and out at a reasonable hour of the morning today. It was snowing when I left the house, which was very apt and seasonal, although the sun was shining brightly too: looking around, there did not seem to be any clouds in the sky. Quite possibly, as part of the seasonal celebrations, the city had a giant snow making machine hid behind one of the tower blocks, bellowing out chemically manufactured flakes.
Crossing Sukhbaatar Square I noticed that they were still putting up decorations around the tree that was erected yesterday: it has miniature Santas crawling up it, and a big red soviet star on the top. I guess the decorations may actually be getting put up for New Year’s Eve, but possibly they are just being erected on an unfathomable Mongolian schedule.
After a long visit to the Zanabazar Fine Art Museum (on which more later in this post) I started to walk south out of the city , heading for the War Memorial, with the intention of taking the day-time photographs I had promised after my previous night-time visit to the spectacular location.
Outside a restaurant near the centre I was very impressed to see a bunch of guys putting finishing touches to a splendid ice sculpture of four life-sized horsemen, leading the way for a bronze sculpture of Genghis behind them. I got a couple of decent photographs, and a laconic sculptor taking a cigarette break took one of me pretending to carve the ice, before the battery failed on my camera. Crossed the Peace Bridge out of the city: it takes four lanes of traffic over a wide valley of railway tracks (including the Trans Mongolian), concrete-clad pipes, and a sorry-looking frozen river. The view to the west is dominated by the city’s two monstrous, smoke-belching power stations. Half way over the bridge, eight fully battle-dressed Mongolian horsemen came charging from the other direction into the city. Behind them followed a cart pulled by two horses, containing a somewhat slim, but doubtless merry, white-bearded and crimson-clad fellow. Now that is Christmas, Mongolian style! I carried on walking in the direction of the looming mountains.
It doesn’t take long to walk out of the city and reach the Bronze Buddha park at the foot of the 'Zaysan Tolgoy', War Memorial’s hill. On the way I passed a lot of construction sites where, to judge from the completed sites, ‘luxury’ apartments in the shape (very approximately) of Bavarian castles, garishly painted, will be built. Otherwise, the usual mysterious pipes and broken concrete structures abound. Managed the few hundred steps up the monument without too great difficulty; passed an empty plastic ‘Vodka Blackcurrant’ drink cup near the bottom - further up, a mysterious splash of frozen purple fluid in the centre of the steps. The view, climbing and from the top, is splendid. The mountains look very Scottish, are dappled with snow, and forested with firs. Beyond the Monument there are a few old soviet buildings and a few ger encampments. Was very drawn to make my way up the encircling ridge of hills - if I can get out there earlier in the day maybe next weekend I could give it a try. Looking back at Ulaanbaatar, it is at least more visible than at night. Unbelievable that these hundreds upon hundreds of apartment blocks are barely lit after dark. It is a smoggy and scrappy sight: a considerable contrast with the beauty of the mountains.
Walked back into the city, deciding to treat myself to another restaurant meal. Unfortunately, the American Ger’ll Bar was closed for a private function, so I had very good Indian food at Los Bandidos Indian & Mexican Restaurant - indeed, Los Bandidos is Mongolia’s Only Indian & Mexican Restaurant - fancy that!
So, the Zanabazar Fine Art Museum. At the Choijin Lama Temple the other day none of the guides spoke English, but the lady who ran the gift shop spoke very fluent English indeed. She was reading a copy of ‘The Beautiful and the Damned’, although was reluctant to be drawn into conversation on it. “Ah,” I said, “’The Beautiful and the Damned’: one of my favourite novels.” “Yes,” she replied neutrally. “F Scott Fitzgerald is a really fine writer,” I ventured. “Yes.” It didn’t look as though we’d be starting a book club, so I had a look at the odds and ends on display. She was much more vocal on the merits of various pieces of tat (and otherwise - there was plenty of interesting stuff in the shop too, to be fair) for sale. Because I was a volunteer in Mongolia (I didn’t hasten to disabuse her of this notion) I would be entitled to a special rate and not have to pay “tourist prices.” Wow. Of course, as everything in the shop was labelled but nothing was priced, I had no way of ascertaining the veracity of this statement and - call me a cynic - I suspect that the T1000 I paid for a Mongolia sticker for the old banjer case was the same amount a mere tourist would have to shell out. I said that I was particularly taken with the Temple’s collection of traditional Mongolian devotional art, and enquired whether there were any other collections on display in Ulaanbaatar. “No,” shopkeep answered very vaguely, “well, some of the other Temples have some art, but our collection is the best.” She would be very surprised, then, to learn that in the centre of UB I found, with the help of my Bradt guide, the Zanabazar Museum of Fine Art - a museum entirely devoted to Buddhist devotional art.
Arrived at the Zanabazar Museum at 11am this morning. It’s a fine old dour soviet era building. The ground floor seems to be being prepared for an exhibit of some sort, but I was allowed upstairs to view the main collection. Again, I was the only visitor, but was allowed to view without a curator “tsk”ing at my heels. As I left each room, however, the lights were turned out, in what may have been something of a hint.
There’s some interesting Bronze Age pieces in the museum: I am assuming that I’ll find more at the Museum of Mongolian History so will pass over these for now. The centre of the collection is a room of bronze work by the master of the Mongolian Renaissance, Zanabazar (1635 - 1724). I took some notes from the decently labelled displays.
Zanabazar was the grandson of a Khan and so a direct descendant of the great Chinngis - always a good pedigree for a Mongolian national hero. He was born on the 25th day of the 9th month of the year of the Wooden Boar, which I don’t need to tell you is “the best day for the meeting of fairy goddesses between the autumn & winter.” As a young child he studied in Tibet as a disciple of the 5th Dalai Lama and was proclaimed to be the first reincarnation of the Bogd Jivzundamba. He received the title of Khalkun Gegeenten, or “Holy Saint.” He founded numerous monasteries and temples in Mongolia (his first when he was just 13).
He “created an ideogram and derived script in 1686 which he named ‘Svayambu” meaning ‘self-enlightening’; the ideogram, today the state symbol of Mongolia, was intended to express the idea ‘May the Mongol nation exist by its own right.’”
Zanabar’s bronze castings of buddhist deities are the work for which he was best known. The pieces in the museum are very fine, and about a foot and a half in height. The main pieces at the Fine Arts Museum are the five Buddhas, representing the defeat of “the five evils: anger, ignorance, pride and greed.” I am assuming that this list is a sort of buddhist mystery or joke, something like the painting of ‘The Three Asses.” The five appear alike, but “every detail of each differs.”
Zanabazar’s works “embody the 32 and 80 features (32 inner content, 80 iconographic[?]) for depiction of the beautiful human body, which include proportionality of the body and its various parts, strength, youthful muscles, straight and shapely shoulders and limbs, rounded waist and so on; so Zanabazar’s works were the Mongolian mode of Mankind’s dream of aesthetics.”
There is an excellent collection of Mongolian Thangka paintings, Mandalas and applique (embroidered silk) wall-hangings. The Thangka and Mandalas are basically of the Tibetan school of devotional art - which Liverpool residents can see an extremely good collection of at the World Museum. Thangka painting came to Mongolia in the early 19th Century and reached its artistic peak in the early 20th century. These portraits of deities are characterised by “precise anatomical proportion, the incorporation of symbolism from religious parables and artistic amplification.” They’re very trippy. The ‘Ten Wrathful Deities’ - the protecting demons of Buddhism of which our pal in coral Jamsran seems to be chief - are a favourite subject.
Mandalas, the museum informs, serve to invoke ”the Holy Force within the contemplator... not communion outside oneself with the Divin Power, but an ecstasy or invocation whose purpose is to find and realise the... Divine Power in one’s own heart.” The Mandalas are designed to suit “all levels of consciousness... for the spiritually highly developed, for average people and for the people not yet developed... who are politely referred to as children.” The Mandalas will typically incorporate into their design the Eight Auspicious Symbols: The White Conch, The Wheel, The Lotus Flower, The Auspicious Drawing, The Golden Fish, The Vase of Treasure, The Victory Banner and The Precious Umbrella. My favourite is The Precious Umbrella.
The final section of the museum is mostly devoted to the art of Marzan Sharav - and features his most famous work ‘A Day in the Life of Mongolia’: a large traditional zurag painting on cloth - which depicts many colourful incidents typical of Mongolian nomad life (and with a great deal of humour).
I spent a good while absorbing some of the details: wool and hides are prepared; a blacksmith’s privates are exposed when his pants catch fire: an old man points and his wife covers her eyes; sheep are butchered, and someone throws a boot at a dog escaping with a sheep’s head - it jumps over a roll of wool, beneath which a man and woman secretly embrace; a priest says rites over a dead body in the desert while dogs (or wolves) watch - other dogs meanwhile devour a fresh corpse, while vultures pick at the remains of another; men brawl in various encampments; at the top of the picture trees are felled and carpenters work the wood at the edge of the forest; there feasts, traders, ger being assembled, women attacked by snakes that have hidden in their baskets; farmers tend fields and scrubland is burned; at an encampment of camels a man and wife make love, and a midwife assists at the birth of a child.
Saturday, 23 December 2006
Cruelty, The Choijin Lama Temple
Saturday 23rd December
Yesterday evening my former helper Puru got a severe dressing-down in front of me by her mother, for neglecting her duties cleaning the halls etc by taking time to tidy my apartment. Her mother (or grandmother or aunt - I don't know which) drove home one point by slapping the poor girl backhanded across the mouth. It was a sorry scene. I felt particularly useless and stupid as of course I could contribute nothing except protests in English. I had had a cleaner start working for me earlier in the day: I may see if she can speak to the vicious woman for me to clarify matters. Meanwhile, the incident did at least spur me to make a phonecall to the Christina Noble Children's Foundation - who work with street kids in Ulaanbaatar, please visit the link on the right where you can sponsor a child from $24 per month - to see about doing some voluntary work out here whilst I'm getting paid an extremely comfortable salary teaching the spoilt offspring of the city's wealthy.
Today the sun was glorious and in the direct sunlight, felt almost warm. I walked down to the Choijin Lama Temple. Traditionally, Mongolia’s Buddhist temples were mobile structures, to move with the mobile population. From the end of the 19th Century more permanent structures of wood and brick were built. During the 1930s however, the majority were destroyed by the communists. Of the few surviving temples, according to my Bradt guide to Mongolia, Choijin Lama, built around 1905, is one of the finest.
The temple compound is close to the centre of Ulaanbaatar. It is surrounded by half built concrete towers and cranes, but faces south where the mountains loom blue and impressive. The curling roofs and their carved and painted eaves are dimmed and coated by the city’s dust. The Choijin Lama Temple is a museum now: June to September traditional Mongolian ‘Tsam’ masked dances are held here: on this fine sunny December afternoon I was the only visitor.
A guide opened each of the different temples for me and did her best not to show impatience as I slowly strolled around the chilly interiors. The main temple building has dozens of glass cases containing the elaborate and monstrous Tsam costumes. The daddy of the lot is this here costume, which I believe is Jamsran. The mask is made of coral, and weighs thirty kilos. That’s more than three full-size bluegrass banjos! The total weight of the costume is 70kgs. The sign on the case notes that the costume is worn by particularly strong and healthy young men.
There are many fine brass and gilted buddhas and the like. I was particularly interested in two paintings one of the ‘cold hells’ and one of the ‘hot hells’: many amusing little Bosch-like details (a flaming elephant walking on sinners; demons using naked men as pack animals; naked warriors chopping each other to pieces: all the damned wearing dolorous and pained expressions, as you might expect).
A frequent motif in the temples is that the ceilings are often decorated in what I guess is Genghis-fashion: with rows of the carcasses of enemies hanging down from broken knees. I first noticed these painted on the ceiling in one temple and so was pleased to see silk, stitched corpses tied together with pink silken entrails around what I take to have been the throne of the chief priest of the complex.
Most tantalising stop on the tour was The Temple of Yadam: forbidden to the public when the Temple was operating as intended - home of secret Tantric rites. After the gruesome silk work mentioned above, I had hoped for something outrageous and carnal in the decor, and so was a bit disappointed. Finally, paid my respects to the Mongolian deity of Banjo-playing, a cheery-faced little chap, who has his home, most appropriately, in the Temple of Peacefulness.
Yesterday evening my former helper Puru got a severe dressing-down in front of me by her mother, for neglecting her duties cleaning the halls etc by taking time to tidy my apartment. Her mother (or grandmother or aunt - I don't know which) drove home one point by slapping the poor girl backhanded across the mouth. It was a sorry scene. I felt particularly useless and stupid as of course I could contribute nothing except protests in English. I had had a cleaner start working for me earlier in the day: I may see if she can speak to the vicious woman for me to clarify matters. Meanwhile, the incident did at least spur me to make a phonecall to the Christina Noble Children's Foundation - who work with street kids in Ulaanbaatar, please visit the link on the right where you can sponsor a child from $24 per month - to see about doing some voluntary work out here whilst I'm getting paid an extremely comfortable salary teaching the spoilt offspring of the city's wealthy.
Today the sun was glorious and in the direct sunlight, felt almost warm. I walked down to the Choijin Lama Temple. Traditionally, Mongolia’s Buddhist temples were mobile structures, to move with the mobile population. From the end of the 19th Century more permanent structures of wood and brick were built. During the 1930s however, the majority were destroyed by the communists. Of the few surviving temples, according to my Bradt guide to Mongolia, Choijin Lama, built around 1905, is one of the finest.The temple compound is close to the centre of Ulaanbaatar. It is surrounded by half built concrete towers and cranes, but faces south where the mountains loom blue and impressive. The curling roofs and their carved and painted eaves are dimmed and coated by the city’s dust. The Choijin Lama Temple is a museum now: June to September traditional Mongolian ‘Tsam’ masked dances are held here: on this fine sunny December afternoon I was the only visitor.
A guide opened each of the different temples for me and did her best not to show impatience as I slowly strolled around the chilly interiors. The main temple building has dozens of glass cases containing the elaborate and monstrous Tsam costumes. The daddy of the lot is this here costume, which I believe is Jamsran. The mask is made of coral, and weighs thirty kilos. That’s more than three full-size bluegrass banjos! The total weight of the costume is 70kgs. The sign on the case notes that the costume is worn by particularly strong and healthy young men.There are many fine brass and gilted buddhas and the like. I was particularly interested in two paintings one of the ‘cold hells’ and one of the ‘hot hells’: many amusing little Bosch-like details (a flaming elephant walking on sinners; demons using naked men as pack animals; naked warriors chopping each other to pieces: all the damned wearing dolorous and pained expressions, as you might expect).
A frequent motif in the temples is that the ceilings are often decorated in what I guess is Genghis-fashion: with rows of the carcasses of enemies hanging down from broken knees. I first noticed these painted on the ceiling in one temple and so was pleased to see silk, stitched corpses tied together with pink silken entrails around what I take to have been the throne of the chief priest of the complex. 
Most tantalising stop on the tour was The Temple of Yadam: forbidden to the public when the Temple was operating as intended - home of secret Tantric rites. After the gruesome silk work mentioned above, I had hoped for something outrageous and carnal in the decor, and so was a bit disappointed. Finally, paid my respects to the Mongolian deity of Banjo-playing, a cheery-faced little chap, who has his home, most appropriately, in the Temple of Peacefulness.
Monday, 11 December 2006
Mongolian Hospitality, Black Market, Big Buddha and the War Memorial
Sunday 11th December 2006
Today was gloriously sunny. Pottered around in the morning and had a fairly long bath. Downloaded a Today program piece about the 'Special Relationship' mainly out of Radio 4-longing . Need to get a little radio so I can hunt for the World Service.
The daughter of the building supervisor does not ever seem to be off duty herself. She knocked on my door to indicate that she needed me to turn on the light outside my flat. Then she very conscientiously scrubbed the floor outside my flat; following which she also started to wash the metal security door to my flat. I felt pretty guilty about this and eventually managed to persuade her to stop. Played her 'Blackberry Blossom' on the banjo in a very feeble attempt to compensate her for her troubles without getting into the awkward territory of paying her any cash. She smiled and at least allowed me to think that I had somehow repaid her hard graft. Resolved to buy her some colouring books or something.
Around 2pm I was collected by the one Mongolian family I know, who very kindly took me to their home for a Sunday roast. They live further out of town, and the mountains loom massive over their home. Their apartment is very nice but also very small: thye are waiting on a bigger apartment that they hope to get early next year. Between their home and the mountains is a settlement of ger, from which smoke curled up very picturesquely. My students largely blame the air pollution on people living in ger and burning anything they can get their hands on as fuel - which undoubtedly contributes to the problem, but here the air was noticeably cleaner. The dinner was wonderful - mutton, rice, roast potatoes and carrots and a lot more. The family apologised that they had run out of the Bisto gravy granules that they'd bought in England, so I'd had to make do with real gravy made from the mutton fat and absolutely delicious. Far too much dessert - including the discovery for me that the things that they sell in the supermarket that look like bags of miniature cream horns are miniature cream horns. I crammed in as many as I could.
As the family had very kindly promised me, I was taken, as the sun set behind the mountains, to Narantuul, the famous 'Black Market', which is close to their home. I know that a lot of this blog has so far been about how I bought this for 30p or that for £1 - frankly, an obsession for me, but I do hope to get onto other subjects about this fascinating country. Please indulge me one further time at least, or skip to the next entry.
The Market is definitely one of the must-sees for any tourist visiting UB - I am very happy to have had a guide, though. Nonetheless, the sheer number of vendors there mean that if you can resist being wheedled into making a purchase you will be certain of getting yourself a good price (i.e. not the tourist rate, as it were) on whatever you buy. The market is huge: conveniently, traders seem to be located together - so that you get rows of coats here, jeans there, boot-makers together, etc. Stalls are neatly laid out, and in general resemble a UK knock-off gear market - one nice forrin touch being that all traders keep the goods not on display in giant wooden chests. The aisles are narrow, and the ground was frozen so there was a considerable hazard from the people busily pushing past.
I would heartily recommend the clothing that I brought out with me to anyone visiting a similar climate to Mongolia who would prefer to travel light. Good quality but cheap canvas hiking boots provide ample insulation from the ground; M&S merino longjohns beneath hiking trousers; thermal long-sleeved vest topped by one top, over which a body warmer and a gore-tex jacket; ski gloves and a hat that covers as much of the face as possible: this is all plenty warm enough for -25c, I believe would stand up well to wind chill (with a scarf) and importantly is all very breathable so allows you to move about plenty. The moving about plenty could well be part of it - I don't know how well it would suit shooting the breeze in the middle of Sukhbaatar Square. So I felt that I needed to get some gear more in line with what I see worn about me - something a bit more substantial.
I looked somewhat boggled at the endless ranks of coats - determined to find a decent parka to wear into school (meaning that I'd like to get something more traditional, but don't want the kids laughing at me). Settled on a huge Diesel 'Canada -Style' parka for a princely 45,000, or around £20. It certainly seems to be the real thing but curiously none of the labels say
Made in China - but maybe they leave those off for the domestic/semi-domestic market.
I had a pretty good time amongst the boot stalls. Every cobbler insisted on me trying their boots. By and large they were in no way big enough to fit me, but of course they all insisted that the leather would stretch, etc, and I couldn't possibly find anything any bigger. As I was about to give up hope (or take up one of the offers to have a pair made for me for next week) an old lady ran up with a very sizeable looking pair. They are hand-made Mongolian boots - in less of a traditional style - basically resembling biker's boots, tan in colour. They fit like a dream - a good shape, with a bit of room enabling me to wear an inner 'sock' for the winter or stuff in an extre insole. Sadly, the same lady also offered me another pair for only a little more, these others didn't fit quite as well. It was a shame because, as my friend translated, these were made with "real dog fur" inside. "But I like dogs!" I had her translate, "not wear, I like them." Everyone found this very funny. They were very cosy boots, but as I said, sadly did not quite fit. Stuck with the biker boots: T35,000, or around £15.
I bought one or two other things, shirts etc, but topped it all off with a delightfully revolting chinese padded dressing gown in gold and brown. It is a little on the small side but will do until I find something a bit bigger - whereupon I can sell this one to a fancy dress shop.
After the market, the family drove me up to Ulaanbaatar war memorial, the Zaysan Tolgoy, where I got to tramp around at night in the snow in my new boots and parka, which was very pleasing. The memorial is just outside the city on top of a col at the foot of the mountains. At the bottom of the hill there's a 20 foot or so golden buddha I am told was built in the last couple of years. To one side is a giant temple bell and on the other a drum. These can be rung or beat upon to your heart's content; the vibrations as they reverberate are incredible.
Once I'd tired of banging away like a school kid we drove halfway up to the monument then walked the remainder of the way. It must be an impressive sight by day - with the mountains behind, that were now shrouded in darkness. At night it has an utterly impressive character, though. The memorial, built by the soviets, is on the top of a very conical hill. It's a viewing platform maybe 50 feet or more in diameter. There's a wall around it about four foot high, into which there's one entrance - and then, from a pillar at the front of the memorial (which seems to be a stylized soviet soldier unfurling a flag) a band of concrete encircles the platform from aboev. This turns the whole surrounding landscape into a diorama , with the stars forming the ceiling. Somewhat difficult to describe, but utterly awe-inspiring. Inside the higher band we have a representation of the history of communism from Russia to Mongolia, that can be dimly made out in the dark.
We'd climbed the hill for the view of Ulaanbaatar. At night, it is a bunch of lights - and not that many. I think in the UK or America you'd be moved to say "Is there a town over there?" Must get there in the day some time, so as to get a photo of the monument and see the UB smog as a whole.
Home, I decided against/chickened out of walking over to the Great Khan yet again. Some instinct told me that there was a distinct possibility that any banjo picking was not guaranteed, and I now no longer have the money left to buy a pint. Will think about it again once I have a few Torogs in my pocket.
Today was gloriously sunny. Pottered around in the morning and had a fairly long bath. Downloaded a Today program piece about the 'Special Relationship' mainly out of Radio 4-longing . Need to get a little radio so I can hunt for the World Service.
The daughter of the building supervisor does not ever seem to be off duty herself. She knocked on my door to indicate that she needed me to turn on the light outside my flat. Then she very conscientiously scrubbed the floor outside my flat; following which she also started to wash the metal security door to my flat. I felt pretty guilty about this and eventually managed to persuade her to stop. Played her 'Blackberry Blossom' on the banjo in a very feeble attempt to compensate her for her troubles without getting into the awkward territory of paying her any cash. She smiled and at least allowed me to think that I had somehow repaid her hard graft. Resolved to buy her some colouring books or something.
Around 2pm I was collected by the one Mongolian family I know, who very kindly took me to their home for a Sunday roast. They live further out of town, and the mountains loom massive over their home. Their apartment is very nice but also very small: thye are waiting on a bigger apartment that they hope to get early next year. Between their home and the mountains is a settlement of ger, from which smoke curled up very picturesquely. My students largely blame the air pollution on people living in ger and burning anything they can get their hands on as fuel - which undoubtedly contributes to the problem, but here the air was noticeably cleaner. The dinner was wonderful - mutton, rice, roast potatoes and carrots and a lot more. The family apologised that they had run out of the Bisto gravy granules that they'd bought in England, so I'd had to make do with real gravy made from the mutton fat and absolutely delicious. Far too much dessert - including the discovery for me that the things that they sell in the supermarket that look like bags of miniature cream horns are miniature cream horns. I crammed in as many as I could.
As the family had very kindly promised me, I was taken, as the sun set behind the mountains, to Narantuul, the famous 'Black Market', which is close to their home. I know that a lot of this blog has so far been about how I bought this for 30p or that for £1 - frankly, an obsession for me, but I do hope to get onto other subjects about this fascinating country. Please indulge me one further time at least, or skip to the next entry.
The Market is definitely one of the must-sees for any tourist visiting UB - I am very happy to have had a guide, though. Nonetheless, the sheer number of vendors there mean that if you can resist being wheedled into making a purchase you will be certain of getting yourself a good price (i.e. not the tourist rate, as it were) on whatever you buy. The market is huge: conveniently, traders seem to be located together - so that you get rows of coats here, jeans there, boot-makers together, etc. Stalls are neatly laid out, and in general resemble a UK knock-off gear market - one nice forrin touch being that all traders keep the goods not on display in giant wooden chests. The aisles are narrow, and the ground was frozen so there was a considerable hazard from the people busily pushing past.
I would heartily recommend the clothing that I brought out with me to anyone visiting a similar climate to Mongolia who would prefer to travel light. Good quality but cheap canvas hiking boots provide ample insulation from the ground; M&S merino longjohns beneath hiking trousers; thermal long-sleeved vest topped by one top, over which a body warmer and a gore-tex jacket; ski gloves and a hat that covers as much of the face as possible: this is all plenty warm enough for -25c, I believe would stand up well to wind chill (with a scarf) and importantly is all very breathable so allows you to move about plenty. The moving about plenty could well be part of it - I don't know how well it would suit shooting the breeze in the middle of Sukhbaatar Square. So I felt that I needed to get some gear more in line with what I see worn about me - something a bit more substantial.
I looked somewhat boggled at the endless ranks of coats - determined to find a decent parka to wear into school (meaning that I'd like to get something more traditional, but don't want the kids laughing at me). Settled on a huge Diesel 'Canada -Style' parka for a princely 45,000, or around £20. It certainly seems to be the real thing but curiously none of the labels say
Made in China - but maybe they leave those off for the domestic/semi-domestic market.
I had a pretty good time amongst the boot stalls. Every cobbler insisted on me trying their boots. By and large they were in no way big enough to fit me, but of course they all insisted that the leather would stretch, etc, and I couldn't possibly find anything any bigger. As I was about to give up hope (or take up one of the offers to have a pair made for me for next week) an old lady ran up with a very sizeable looking pair. They are hand-made Mongolian boots - in less of a traditional style - basically resembling biker's boots, tan in colour. They fit like a dream - a good shape, with a bit of room enabling me to wear an inner 'sock' for the winter or stuff in an extre insole. Sadly, the same lady also offered me another pair for only a little more, these others didn't fit quite as well. It was a shame because, as my friend translated, these were made with "real dog fur" inside. "But I like dogs!" I had her translate, "not wear, I like them." Everyone found this very funny. They were very cosy boots, but as I said, sadly did not quite fit. Stuck with the biker boots: T35,000, or around £15.
I bought one or two other things, shirts etc, but topped it all off with a delightfully revolting chinese padded dressing gown in gold and brown. It is a little on the small side but will do until I find something a bit bigger - whereupon I can sell this one to a fancy dress shop.
After the market, the family drove me up to Ulaanbaatar war memorial, the Zaysan Tolgoy, where I got to tramp around at night in the snow in my new boots and parka, which was very pleasing. The memorial is just outside the city on top of a col at the foot of the mountains. At the bottom of the hill there's a 20 foot or so golden buddha I am told was built in the last couple of years. To one side is a giant temple bell and on the other a drum. These can be rung or beat upon to your heart's content; the vibrations as they reverberate are incredible.
Once I'd tired of banging away like a school kid we drove halfway up to the monument then walked the remainder of the way. It must be an impressive sight by day - with the mountains behind, that were now shrouded in darkness. At night it has an utterly impressive character, though. The memorial, built by the soviets, is on the top of a very conical hill. It's a viewing platform maybe 50 feet or more in diameter. There's a wall around it about four foot high, into which there's one entrance - and then, from a pillar at the front of the memorial (which seems to be a stylized soviet soldier unfurling a flag) a band of concrete encircles the platform from aboev. This turns the whole surrounding landscape into a diorama , with the stars forming the ceiling. Somewhat difficult to describe, but utterly awe-inspiring. Inside the higher band we have a representation of the history of communism from Russia to Mongolia, that can be dimly made out in the dark.
We'd climbed the hill for the view of Ulaanbaatar. At night, it is a bunch of lights - and not that many. I think in the UK or America you'd be moved to say "Is there a town over there?" Must get there in the day some time, so as to get a photo of the monument and see the UB smog as a whole.
Home, I decided against/chickened out of walking over to the Great Khan yet again. Some instinct told me that there was a distinct possibility that any banjo picking was not guaranteed, and I now no longer have the money left to buy a pint. Will think about it again once I have a few Torogs in my pocket.
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