Here’s a photo of Tuvshinbayar with his gold:

WIsh I had photos of the match, but here’s Tuvshinbayar against a South Korean guy in 2002.

From Ulaanbaatar to Dornod, celebrations erupted. Even the president and prime minister (looking a little rumpled and rather drunk) came out to UB’s main square to party.

Sure, you could sink a ship with the weight of China’s medals. But Asian Gypsy recommends a cool link: the hippie-ass Fair Medal Count. The list corrects for medals per GDP and per capita. In this ranking, Mongolian looks lei tei (very cool). We kick China’s butt, and that’s most important.

Is this merely due to the Law of Large Numbers, as a friend suggests? He argues you’ll see many small countries on top due to randomness and luck.

A lot of those small countries, however, belong to the former Soviet bloc. What about that legacy of crazy intense Iron Curtain sports programs? Along with the generally low population and GDP of ex-Soviet satellites? Seems like that may correlate with medals per capita.

Mongolia’s other medal belongs to Gundegmaa the gunner (above) who won silver. Here’s wishing the best to Mongolia’s boxers — Serdamba, Munkh-Erdene, Badar-Ugan — as they go into the medal rounds tonight.

Just to underline the coolness of Mongolian athletes, 2004 Olympic bronze judochin Tsagaanbaatar flips out:

That sourpuss author, Michael Kohn, must have received some vicious letters. Or, maybe he actually visited this place and realized his error. Now, in Lonely Planet Mongolia 2008, Dornod has become “one of the most beautiful areas of the country and relatively easy to get around.” It’s an “unspoilt ampitheatre of bounding gazelle, scurrying marmots, and jeep tracks that squiggle endlessly into the distance.”

Choibalsan itself gets props as a pleasant, peaceful city — full of delicious food and historical artifacts. We even saw some jinkin (genuine) tourists here last week.

Here’s a glance at my home. I took these photos last August, when I first arrived. The photos come from a leisurely hike to the abandoned Soviet army base.

A gathering storm whips up dust.

Dr. Maarten and Rev. Boldsaikhan inspect one of the French volunteers’ community gardens. Yummy radishes.

Kenny and Cassandra, on the road to the old Soviet army base.

Socialist murals always cast Man as Industry and Woman as Agriculture.

Sarah marching with Mongolian soldiers. The mosaic commemorates Mongolia’s 1939 clash with Japan.

A dramatic monument to Mongolia’s Unknown Soldier.

My beloved creepy history museum; Choibalsan himself, the “Stalin of Mongolia,” stands in front. You can even see Cho’s gargantuan pajamas on display inside.

There is no way to convey the vastness of the Mongolian sky.

The Soviet army dormitory. A construction crane still hovers over one half-complete building.

Cassandra marches toward Lenin.

Lenin’s head is rather tiny.

Choibalsan is this flat all over.

Looking at the ruins of the base’s mess hall. I took this photo from inside the army auditorium. We hunted for treasure in the debris. Cassandra found insignia buttons and I found pretty glass flasks.

Our fellow travelers fashioned their seats out of leaky barrels, dingy towels, and a random box of pap-smear equipment. (Alas, each piece of said equipment was in shatters by the end of the trip).

The route crossed through six main points:
UB -> Darkhan -> Erdenet -> Murun -> Khatgal -> Jankhai, where you finally hit the lake shore

On the longest leg, returning from Murun to Darkhan, our van made a total of 28 stops. The 400 mile trip took 23 hours. Sometimes our two drivers wanted to grab more passengers. But sometimes they just wanted to buy blowtorched marmots.

15000 tugriks a pop:

Altanhuyag and Monkhjargal halted to chat with fellow travellers, help me frame photos, and explain the finer points of Mongolian legends about the camel. One of those photos:

Meanwhile, Yoomie and Dylan found ways to entertain themselves during the constant stops.

About one third of the stops happened when our drivers wanted to assist other vehicles in distress. Despite his bum leg, Altanhuyag didn’t hesitate to grab his tools — his nuts, bolts, and axe — and squiggle under a creaking bus to get it moving again.

It’s a Mongolian tradition to help out others on the road. And no one should argue.

When you’re on the path from Moron to Erdenet, six hours from either town, surrounded by puddles and broken bridges, and your van’s battery decides to explode at 3 am in the morning, what can you do?

Our drivers boasted mad skillz with tires and axles. But they couldn’t do much with the battery — aside from dousing the smoke with a bottle of Russian mineral water. Eventually a random driver wove into our field of vision. He bore a lighter in his teeth and wielded the all-important Scotch tape. Thirty minutes later, the headlights turned on; the tape deck fired up again with Abba’s “Happy New Year.” And our van rolled on.

The van’s final stop on the way home, next to the Darkhan river.

In the world’s least densely populated country, a trusty driver is a baatar: a hero.

You can see ten, twenty feet down with perfect clarity.

You can ride or hike up the encircling mountains and breathe in the fragrance of dozens of wildflowers.

Khovsgol Dalai Eej is home to Mongolia’s navy. (AKA: the ship Sukhbaatar, docked behind us in this photo).

Because of its remoteness, this gorgeous place doesn’t draw too many people. When I visited, I saw more yaks dotting the lake than foreigners. Here are my friend Tuya and I, two lasses from Mongolia’s far East, sitting in the northern sun with a new friend.

We met a bunch of government workers from a village in Ovorkhangai. All eight of them wanted to take photos with a “gadaa hun” (foreign person).

I felt like a movie starlet… until the next gadaa hun wandered along and they mobbed him for photos too.

Tuya and I wandered across a singing contest between a German tour group and their Mongolian guides. It took place next to a blazing bonfire. I played for the Mongolian side with my rendition of the popular song, “Mother’s boiled tea.”

So why would we name the cat “Putrid Destiny?”

In Mongolia, if a child has suffered sickness or bad luck, the parents might take the child to a Buddhist lama. The lama will give the child a new name. Sometimes a “bad name” can ward off wicked spirits. So children might go by Nergui (No name), Bibish (Not me), or Muunohoi (Bad Dog!)

And our poor little Omhee had a tough early life. We found her in the Anna home, a home for former street children. But most Mongolian kids don’t know how to care for kittens. So they threw her around and caught her like a Koosh ball. So, when we “rescued” the cat, we gave her a funny name. Putrid? It’s love. We want to ensure only good luck will come her way from now on.

In a testament to Mongolians’ eager participation in elections, during the July 2000 parliamentary election, officials in some rural areas rode on horseback, carrying ballot boxes from ger to ger, some of which served as official polling stations. (From the aforementioned PCV Politics guide.)

June 29, 2008 — Will we see poll boxes in gers? Not in a city like Darkhan. But Mongolia’s favorite nomadic national symbol still plays a big part in elections here. The inexpensive, easily movable ger makes an ideal campaign HQ. Like gigantic mushrooms, the campaign gers pop up every six apartment blocks. By day, they blare out Mongolian folk tunes from Chinese-imported CD players. By night, the gers glow with red neon. Ponytailed girls, in garish orange jerseys, wander out of the painted doors to press glossy calendars into the hands of passersby.

True, I’ve only run across gers from the Democratic party. (Perhaps the Dems can’t afford office space like the MPRP. Or is it because the Dems seek the rural herder vote this time around)?

One Democratic Party candidate has stolen my heart – Kh. Temuujin.

Like his namesake, Temuujin kicks ass… well, at least he did on a “Development Debates” reality TV show. Moreover, this Temuujin has sublime taste in political cartoons.

(Yes, Mongolia does have reality TV shows about development. Imagine Mongolian Idol, complete with viewers’ real-time text-messaged votes. But instead of warbling “Country Roads,” contestants argue over things like disability education. It’s quite suspenseful. When squaring off against two distinguished authorities, young Temuujin started off shaky – but he shot from 15% of the vote to 60% within the course of an hour.)

Here’s the MPRP’s “Ardiin Khuu” (Son of the People). J. Sukhbaatar. Lots of billboards show him clowning around with these two Olympic wrestling heroes, Kh. Tsagaanbaatar and B. Naranbaatar. Despite my protests that I can’t vote, I still got this cool calendar from his twelve-year-old minions.

But who knows who to trust? As we say here, “Snake has spots on the outside, human has spots on the inside.”

We geeks feel especially alive — Mongolia will hold a parliamentary election on June 29. Back in 1990, the Mongolian Politburo resigned in a bloodless revolution. Ever since then, Mongolians have participated in free, fair, contested elections.

In 18 years of democracy, though, the MPRP – aka Old Commies – have tenaciously clung to both the parliament and presidency. While the Democrats held the presidency in 1993-97, and Parliament in 1996-2000, their shock therapy economic policies spooked people out dreadfully.

On that election day in 1997, a 62-year-old voter, Baljinnyam told the Associated Press: “I cherish the democracy that we now have, but I voted for Bagabandi [the MPRP candidate] because capitalism is coming too fast to Mongolia and leaving too many people without jobs. (Quote borrowed from an excellent guide to Mongolian politics written by a team of current PCV’s.)

But today, one week before the parliamentary election, only a knife’s edge of a margin separates the two main parties; the MPRP polls at 38%, and the Democratic Party clocks in at 37%.

In honor of pre-service training, let me post a funny Naadam photo from last summer.

That’s me guzzling the airag, Ulaaka doing bunny ears, Chris LP, Margaret, and Brie.

Tertee Moskvagiin tsetserlegees Orosyn hus duulna
Tergel sartai dornoos orgen Sibir duulna
The Russian birch sings from a Moscow park
Wide Siberia sings from the East where there is full moon

And Temur also offered this interesting comment.

Javkhlan is from Uvs which is the reddest aimag in MGL. The MPRP gets 80-90% of votes there. Almost every Uvs person is proud that both Tsedenbal (ruled Mongolia during 1953-1981) and Batmunkh (ruled Mongolia in 1981 – 1990) are from Uvs aimag.

The MPRP, or “Huvsgalt Nam,” is the party of the former communists. 

My USSR-born friends have asked me some interesting questions about Mongolia’s relationship with Russia. Like, “Does Mongolia still really love Russia that much?”

Well, no. As my copy-machine-shop friend Zulaa told me, “Amerikand hairtai, Orosond dund zereg durtai. Hyatadand uzen yaddag.” (We love the Americans, we medium-like the Russians, and we frickin’ hate the Chinese.)

I mean, what have Russians done for Mongolia lately? Nothing. According to Youtube comments — “The Russians were damn thieves and they’re still grabbing our treasures from our mines.” “If Javhlan didn’t sing this, it would never play so much on TV.”

But the video just shows you how deeply years and years of Soviet propaganda wormed into Mongolians’ heads. Now those songs and brotherhood images have become part of Mongolia’s cultural vocabulary. People will happily belt out the familiar “little brother” song, even though they only kinda like the Russians.

I think a good analogy would be the way Americans see the 1950′s. Some people want to bring the USA back to the 50′s, just like some Mongolians wish they could go back to Russian domination. In both cases they’re the minority. Still, practically all Americans enjoy 50′s diners and oldies music. Putting footage of Lenin parades on TV is the Mongolian equivalent of showing girls in poodle skirts doing the twist.