Everything you need to know about Mongolia

Absolutely no exaggeration—this blog posting will provide you with everything you would ever need to know about Mongolia.  It’s 100% true and triple fact checked.  And triple word score.  And martinized in under an hour.  And completely fascinating and totally unimpossible.

• There are no yurts in Mongolia

Much of the Mongolian population still lives a nomadic lifestyle—moving as necessary to keep livestock fed and bodies warm.  As such, they depend on lightweight, mobile housing that provides protection from the elements.  Some might think that a yurt would be the perfect option for the average Mongolian nomad.  But there are no yurts in Mongolia.  Instead, Mongolian nomads live in gers—tent-like homes with wooden frames and felt walls that look exactly like yurts but in Mongolia are called gers (it’s pronounced like the name Gary, but without the ‘ee’ at the end).  Ok, so I recognize that it’s a misleading game of semantics to say there are no yurts in Mongolia, but knowing to refer to gers rather than yurts can set you apart from neophyte foreigners in Mongolia.

If you want to learn more—or even purchase your own ger—you can go visit this poorly named Mongolian yurt website: http://www.mongolian-yurt.com/index.html

• This not the most polluted city in the world

Ulaanbaatar is not the most polluted city in the world.  This time of year, mid- January, the air is often thick and soupy and the Weather Channel website literally lists the conditions as “smoke” rather than sunny or cloudy.  Not sure if you can read it, but here’s a screenshot from earlier this week:

The forecast calls for "Smoke"

As someone described it to me on my first day here, simply breathing the air can feel like you’ve been punched in the lung.  The cars clog the streets and fill the air with exhaust fumes; smokestacks at 10 power plants on the edge of the city pour smoke into the sky as a byproduct of providing heating to businesses, offices, and homes.  But the worst contributor to pollution are the tens of thousands of ger communities within the city limits that burn coal and wood in their stoves to stay warm through bitter cold nights and mornings.  And just in case the burning of tons of fossil fuels isn’t bad enough, Ulaanbaatar sits in a virtual bowl—surrounded by mountain ranges in a valley on the Tuul River— which traps the cold, heavy, polluted air and curses its citizens.  It is estimated, in fact, that one-in-ten deaths in Ulaanbaatar is related to the pollution and that the air quality can be four times worse than in the middle of a forest fire.

Another sunny morning in UB

But Ulaanbaatar is not the most polluted city in the world.  According to the World Health Organization, the title of the most air polluted city in the world belongs to Ahvaz, Iran.  Ulaanbaatar, then, is the second most polluted city in the world.

For more about the pollution: http://www.huffingtonpost.com/nina-wegner/ulaanbaatar-air-pollution_b_2245035.html

• Genghis Khan is not a bad guy, really

Actually, it’s Chinggis Khan.  Why Westerners felt compelled to rename him is a mystery to me.  (It’s not like Genghis is any more common or easy to pronounce than Chinggis…)  But back to the topic at hand, Chinggis Khan is immortalized by statues and honored (or exploited) by corporations that name their business or product after him.  Restaurants and especially vodka brands use his revered name as their own.  It seems that Chinggis Khan’s brutal campaign of empire building that destroyed entire societies and left countless people dead is not dwelled on as much as his ability to bring together an otherwise disparate collection of nomadic tribes that had previously been vulnerable to attack by outside occupiers.  Chinggis Khan changed the narrative by uniting his people under a common purpose, using innovative strategies in war, and eventually becoming the occupier rather than the occupied.  And it seems, for that, he is revered.

 

• But it is cold here

If you’re going to a country known for its extremes, why not experience those extremes?  I arrived in Mongolia just days before the start of the nine nines.  Mongolia divides the winter into 9 periods each lasting 9 days, starting on December 21.  Each nine is accompanied by a saying that is supposed to help describe the conditions.  During the previous nine, it is said that “the horns of 3 year old bulls will freeze.”  Currently, “the horns of 4 year old bulls will freeze.”  But things will get better soon, because next, “rice will not freeze.”

Today was particularly warm and pleasant day, but otherwise it’s been darn cold here.  On December 23, it was -37 when I spent a brutal 15 minutes walking to a friend’s house.  Often when I walk to work bundled from head to toe except for my eyes, the perspiration from my breath freezes on my eye lashes, giving the effect that my eyes themselves are frozen.  Apparently the news reported last week that more than 180 people were showing up at hospitals in Ulaanbaatar each day due to the slippery roads and sidewalks.  Luckily, I’ve kept myself upright despite several close calls.  And I’ve also heard that it’s not uncommon for men to lose fingers due to frostbite after drinking too much and passing out on the way home.

Here’s a short article about that claims Ulaanbaatar is the coldest capital city in the world:  http://geography.about.com/od/physicalgeography/a/coldcapital.htm

• And it is sparsely populated

This is perhaps the least interesting fact, but it is notable that Mongolia is the most sparsely populated country in the world.  There’s lots of room to roam on the Mongolian steppe and in the Gobi desert.   But that’s sometimes hard to believe when I’m walking home among a crowd of people and waiting for a break in the endless stream of cars so I can cross the street.

So there you go: Mongolia is a cold, polluted, wide-open country with plenty of gers and plenty of love for Chingiss Khan.  There’s actually probably more to Mongolia than these five facts, but I would need a few more weeks to figure everything else out…