Keeping Up With the Times

This past weekend something remarkable happened. I went bowling. What's remarkable about this? Well, this is Mongolia's first bowling alley. Yes, the Mongolians have finally cracked the technology to allow its people to bowl (I think our nuclear secrets are pretty safe for now). It made me start thinking about the development of this peculiar city in which I live.

Mongolia has had three district periods of development that really capture the image of the country. The first of these periods was centuries ago, long before the time of Chinngis Khaan - that's Chinngis, not Ghengis. Mongolians are traditionally nomadic people, in fact, somewhere between thirty and forty percent of the country is still nomadic. The nomads live, almost without exception, in large felt tents called gers (often called yurts elsewhere). A ger is a circular tent with a wooden structure. The remarkable thing about these gers is that most people who live here in Ulaanbaatar still live in them. Anywhere else in the world these would be considered "slums", but here you find plenty of them mixed in with apartment complexes that sell the units for more than half a million American dollars. Outside of the city, it is far from rare to find solar chargers attached to banks of batteries to provide power. Even more stunning is the fact that at least half of these rural gers have a satellite dish. Living in a tent is not a curse, it's a practical matter, since these people pack up and move every three or four months. Keep in mind, they can take apart or build their house in a matter of a couple of hours, rather than in weeks or even months.

Skipping ahead a few hundred years, Mongolian construction was heavily influenced by the presence of the Soviet Union. In the early 1950s a massive amount of construction, where the first permanent buildings started to be erected. For the first time in Mongolian history, people were beginning to live in dwellings with multiple rooms. Unfortunately for Ulaanbaatar and some of the smaller cities (the second largest city only has a current population of 90 000) these are amongst the least attractive buildings ever built. They are also everywhere. Another drawback was the population explosion that this construction caused, particularly here in Ulaanbaatar, where the population has increased from 25 000 in the early twentieth century to over a million people today (to be clear, that means that over one-third of the population lives in this city). In addition to the horrible hideous apartment complexes, the city is also blighted by sets of asbestos-covered pipes that carry the hot water to all of the permanent structures. Of course the Soviets were unconcerned with appearance, so these pipes are all above ground, and actually create very imposing and bizarre looking overpasses over roads. They also make very odd U-shaped detours around any slight bump in the ground.

Finally, the country - which really means UB - is currently in it's biggest period of development. The only problem is that it doesn't appear that the city actually wanted to develop as there has been no preparations made whatsoever. Those who have facilitated the growth (private enterprises) never really took the dynamics of the people into account either. In my district, which is one of the wealthier ones in the city, there are currently 23 new apartment buildings under construction. Each of the resulting 200-plus new apartments will be sold for at least a quarter of a million dollars. The problem here is that this country doesn't have enough wealthy families to purchase these apartments. Cars have been imported from Japan (and yes, they are set up for driving on the left side of the road) and South Korea at an alarming rate, however; the only new road that is being built (in the entire country) is a 40 km stretch of road that leads and I kid you not, out into the middle of the desert.

I love that this country holds on to its traditional ways, but also that it embraces new ideas. I just find it odd that they seemingly reject the associated necessities that support the world they would like to believe Ulaanbaatar is. Imagine living somewhere that every person owns at least one cell phone when the entire country has never even had more that 200 000 land lines in its history. It's such a lovely mish-mash of the years 1208, 1954 and 2009.