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Mondo Culture Updated on 2024-02-01

I arrived at the office on time at 10 a.m. every day, and the manuscript was neatly placed on my desk.

There are still a lot of manuscripts, there is a stack every day, I read and revise with them, the content of the manuscript is not particularly long, basically some news reports.

It was very helpful for me to keep abreast of the situation outside, and I found between the lines that something big could happen.

After revising the script, it will be fine to hand it over to the announcer, so I will go downstairs to the TV station and say hello to Director Sang.

The TV drama department still has no improvement, but the information department is lively, and several teams carry European-style cameras everywhere to find themes.

The TV news broadcast these days mainly focuses on two aspects, one is that there are fewer and fewer goods on the market, especially food. Another is the city of Ulaanbaatar and other provinces and cities, where the neighborhoods where the Soviets lived were empty.

In fact, it is not news that people are empty, it started as early as 1989. So far, they are reporting on the fact that the buildings have been vacant, and the infrastructure inside has been completely destroyed.

Windows were torn down, radiators and pipes were torn down, faucet pipes were torn down, house doors were removed, and there were doors without doorknobs. In short, all metal products have been dismantled to the finest light.

Because the things produced in the Soviet Union are not only very thick and solid, but most of them are made of high-quality steel or brass.

Looking at the TV screen, it was dismantled and miserable, and the eyes were full of broken concrete frames.

This naturally causes anger and disgust.

There was talk that it was because of the dissatisfaction of the Soviets that caused the destruction, but later it became known that it was not dismantled by the Soviets at all, but by the locals, as can be seen from the fact that the trains sold scrap copper and rotten iron to China one by one.

It is said that in the 50s, China and the Soviet Union built a communication cable from Beijing to Moscow, passing through Ulaanbaatar, Mongolia. Friends who know about the ** crash in Mongolia may know that the Chinese Embassy in Mongolia urgently opened this important line in order to report the situation to Beijing as soon as possible.

The locals also found and dug up the cables, and sold the copper wires inside as scrap.

Thinking about it later, those Soviet community buildings in the city are still useful, and those communities built outside the capital are themselves supporting military bases, and the bases are all abandoned, so what is the use of the buildings? Anyway, the local herdsmen won't go to live, so it's better to tear it down and sell it for some money!

In short, from the middle of '91 onwards, Mongolia got out of control, and by '92 it intensified, with all kinds of strikes, all kinds of demonstrations, one after another.

During this period, the former Soviet Union has completely cut off the supplies to Mongolia, and the biggest impact is gasoline and diesel, because this kind of materials are 100% dependent on the Soviet Union, and the supply will be completely cut off all of a sudden.

The news department of the TV station can only rely on horse-drawn carriages to go out to cover news.

It's a bit of a nondescript feeling to see a carriage pulling a bunch of people with modern cameras on their shoulders and interviewing people everywhere.

Soon the camera was focused on the store, where the value of Mongolian coins (tugrik) was greatly depreciated, and the goods in the store were greatly reduced, so that at the worst time, the store had only local salt, neatly arranged.

Outside the store, there was a crowd of people carrying large bags and small bags full of money, looking around, waiting for the arrival of the truck carrying the food.

In general, disappointment is greater than hope.

There really aren't any supplies left. Because for many years Mongolia did not create its own system of light industry and food industry, and wholeheartedly relied on the Soviet Union.

Mongolia has been involved since 1922, when the Soviet Union established a Soviet socialist republic.

By 1945, after the end of World War II, the Soviet Union established the "Council for Mutual Economic Assistance", referred to as the "Economic Mutual Assistance Council", and Mongolia was responsible for providing mineral resources and livestock products and food to the Soviet Union and Eastern Europe.

All of Mongolia's production and living materials are paid on credit by the Soviet Union**, and more than 80 percent of Mongolia's daily necessities are provided by the Soviet Union.

However, Mongolia pays for this with resources.

In the north of Ulaanbaatar there is a world-famous large-scale copper mine "Erdenet Copper-Gold Mine".

Its high copper content is world-famous, and it is also accompanied by "gold" and "molybdenum", so it is called "copper-gold mine".

This mine was explored and developed by Soviet specialists in the 70s, and a direct railway was built from the copper mine to the territory of the Soviet Union. That is to say, the excavated ore powder was directly shipped to the Soviet Union, and this transportation was more than ten years, until the collapse of the Soviet Union in 91.

Fur and meat for animal husbandry in Mongolia were to be supplied to the countries of the Soviet Union and the Eastern European Economic Association.

In addition, a large amount of land has been reclaimed along the "Selenga" River in northern Ulaanbaatar to grow food, which must be provided to the Economic and Economic Association in addition to domestic needs.

Mongolia had a population of more than 2 million at that time, so how much could we eat and how much could we use? It has never been clear who owes whom to the former Soviet Union, and it is a confused account.

Sang Dao's younger brother is a transport company driver who often travels long distances to deliver goods to western Mongolia.

After meeting in the old Eji yurt, I was quite able to chat, and often came to me for a drink.

One of the things I found in the market is that any item has a price printed on it. I don't know much about economics myself, so when I was drinking and chatting with him, I asked this question: "The price of the goods is printed on it, and you send it to the northwest, thousands of kilometers, how can this be sold?" ”

Sell for as much as you can," he looked at me strangely.

Does the store over there give you shipping? ”

Don't give! "Then your salary and the purchase of gasoline, the money comes out of the **?

He smiled: "It's all **give, give **gasoline to ** and pull it!" ”

I wondered: "What about the ** running out of gas?"

* If you don't have it, you will ask the Soviet Union, and you don't have to pay for it."

I'm so lonely that there is such a play!

It's too comfortable to be raised, isn't it?

No wonder this sudden weaning is completely blind!

At the end of the article, I would like to mention this little brother of Sang Dao, when I went to his house to see him a few years later, he lived on the first floor of a relatively good community, I could hear movement in the house, knocking on the door but not opening, I was anxious to twist the doorknob, the door opened, the empty hall, by the corner of the wall, two men leaning against the wall and half-lying on the floor, each holding a Coke bottle, the room was filled with the pungent smell of alcohol, it was obvious that he was drinking the inferior liquor that the Mongolians themselves mixed with alcohol.

I recognized Sang Dao's younger brother "Mulberry Dui" at a glance. I called out to him, but he just looked at me, raised the Coke bottle with a blank face, and stretched out his hand at me to "drink".

I slowly stepped back, closed the door, took a deep breath of fresh air, and let out a long sigh!

The empty room means that the daughter-in-law and children have left him.

Unbridled drinking shows that he has lost his job and broken the can.

Later, I will devote a special chapter to the "drunkards" in Ulaanbaatar.

This phenomenon is too common in Ulaanbaatar, many men who were excellent before, when their careers failed and their livelihoods were lost, they all ended up in the same end, broke the can, drank all day long, and ended their lives as if they had never been to this world.

End of this chapter

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