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Gobi desert - 1993
Gobi desert - 1993
Jacek Pałkiewicz2006-06-17 16:28:50
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an old Mongol told me. This is what these people believe, even if a few days previously, in Ulan Bator, someone else had recounted another old saying to me: "It is better to be born an ox in the north than a man in the Gobi". This statement encapsulates the harshness of the nomads' life. That said, however, they do not suffer from stress, have no need of haste and do not need to chase money to make a living.
When I tried to buy a kumiss drinking cup, offering three times its value, its owner refused, saying that he had no need of money and that business did not interest him. At the end of the evening, with a princely gesture, he gave me the cup as a present. There, age-old values still have currency.
I was often aware I was witnessing scenes found in the pages of Marco Polo. I saw families of nomads moving with their flocks in search of new pastures. I realized how difficult and delicate a task changing this people's ingrained habits is bound to be for Mongolia's socialist, or as they prefer to say, neo-communist government. The communists are ashamed of the nomads' primitive way of life. But I can't understand why they have chosen the path of industrialization for the people of the steppes. The gers and kumiss do not seem to me to be great obstacles to socialism. The modernization of the country ought to begin with the development of its basic resources: animal husbandry, its traditional means of sustenance. What point is there in building steelworks on the steppe? My form of reasoning, however, cuts no ice with the country's leaders for whom technology is a synonym for progress.
Ancient ways are part of everyday life. The ger, for instance, has remained unchanged for centuries. The ger is a cylindrical cone tent whose diameter is about 5-6 meters. It is built on a frame of flexible wood covered by 6-8 layers of felt obtained from sheep or goat wool. The outside is covered by white canvas sheeting. There is aperture
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See photographs from:
Mongolia Gallery
