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Gobi desert - 1993
Gobi desert - 1993
Jacek Pałkiewicz2006-06-17 16:28:50
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to liquidate the vast theocratic encrustation which was impeding the people from passing into the modern age", an official from the Foreign Ministry told me.
I ought to stress that Ulan Bator has very little in common with the rest of Mongolia. Mongolia is a country five times as large as Italy but has a population of 1.5 million. Two thirds of the inhabitants are still yurt-dwellers. What is striking about Mongolia is that it is a country where nature has not yet been tamed by the hand of man. In Europe, it is said that Mongolia is the land of the steppe and the yurt: but this observation is inexact since two thirds of the territory is mountainous and the yurts should properly be called "gers". It is also accurate, however, in so far as most Mongolians do live on the steppes occupied in the country's greatest source of wealth : breeding camels, yaks, horses and goats. These animals produce leather, meat, kumiss (fermented horse milk) and hides which is used for many purposes including the making of felt and rope. The animals are left in the open in both winter and summer, even the thermometer falls -40 degrees. I even saw some grazing near the town and on patches of stony ground where there was hardly a blade of grass to be seen.
We travelled south on board an old Soviet Gaz, on an ondulationg track which reminded me of the path over the dunes in the Sahara. Each dip catapulted me out of my seat, banging my head. My eyes also suffered from the wind which was ceaseless and carried particles of sand and dust. Even the snow had been blown away. I quickly realized why the Mongols' eyes are mere slits in their faces.
The road was marked by animal skeletons, whose bones had been polished until they were shiny by wind-borne sand. The exceptionally dry air prevents these carcasses from spreading disease, along with the vultures and other scavengers who do a rapid clean-up job on any dead or dying animal. Seeing these bones, a shiver
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See photographs from:
Mongolia Gallery
