The main impact of the museum for me, however, was it's pictorial history of all the historical drama that has happened here in the last 20 years. In 1990 the Soviet Union collapsed and Mongolia moved away from Communism. In 1991 the country privatized 20 million head of livestock. Then in 1997, twelve years ago, it privatized over 90% of the housing stock. The picture of the nine story apartment complex you see on this blog is a very typical scene you see all over Eastern Europe. There must be hundreds of these buildings here in Ulaanbaatar. These were built during the 69 years the Soviet Union controlled Mongolia.
When Russia pulled out of Mongolia and took their highly controlled social and economical system with them, there were some desperate years here in Mongolia as they coped with the radical change in everything. This very large country is now trying to make its way as a Democracy with a market driven economy. It was controlled for nearly 300 years by China and then for nearly 70 years by Russia. Now, it is trying its hand at Democracy and a new economical plan. It seems like Murphy's law is at work here as this new country, trying to make it economically, finds itself caught up in a global economic collapse and serious environmental issues.
Hopefully, CHF can help some of the small businesses find their way in this new game plan.
A few other stress points in this game change involves nearly half the population living in Ger communities in somewhat of a nomadic culture and they are now finding themselves being pressured with urbanization, globalization and the high tech phenomenon.
One of the very interesting things I find in all of this is that even though the Russians did some really bad things during their 69 years here, the people like the Russians. However, they don't seem to like the Chinese, even though they get nearly all of their vegetables from them in the winter months. Then in the middle of this mix, the language of choice to learn here is clearly English.
