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Tsagaan Sar: Mongolia’s New Year This year, the Mongolian New Year festival, Tsagaan Sar (White Month) will be celebrated on Friday 12 February. Each New Year in a sixty-year cycle has a different name; the coming year will be called ‘Tsagaagchin Uher Jil’, literally ‘year of the White Cow’. The new year is calculated with the lunar calendar, and so it falls on a different date every time, generally at the end of January or in February. This festival is as important and popular as Christmas in Western countries. It is a national holiday when extended families gather to pay mutual respects.   According to historical tradition, this festival originated at the time of Chinggis Khaan. It is recorded that in 1207, on the first morning of the ‘Ulaagchin Tuulai Jil’ (year of the Red Hare), Chinggis began the day early by praying to the Eternal Blue Sky and his own holy mountain. He made offerings to his ancestors and then went to...

Since Mongolia registered its first confirmed COVID-19 case in November 2020, the number of cases has been gradually increasing by an average of 15 a day. As of 28 January 2021, Mongolia has reported 1692 cases (and only two deaths) to date which is still relatively low compared to other countries worldwide. The two main outbreak clusters remain the capital Ulaanbaatar and part of Selenge province with 861 and 217 confirmed cases respectively. The threat of COVID-19 spreading to other provinces remains high throughout the country. For this reason, movement out of Ulaanbaatar, already restricted, has been limited even more strictly from 23 January. Those who need to travel out of Ulaanbaatar now must get permission from their local province’s Emergency Commission as well as providing negative PCR results.  During this period of uncertainty, the State Emergency Commission (SEC) has met with significant public criticism, though they continue to defend their handling of the pandemic since it began in January 2020. Although the...

This opinion piece was published in The Linguist 59, 6 in December 2020. https://thelinguist.uberflip.com/the-linguist-archive/the-linguist-59-6-december-january-2021 ...

Recent policy changes in China limiting the use of Mongolian language and script in daily life are causing grave concern to Mongolian communities worldwide, as well as to scholars of Mongolian language and culture. Written from top to bottom and left to right, the classical Mongolian script dates back to the 13th century. It is the vehicle used to record Mongolia’s indigenous history and literature for centuries. In particular, the traditional script preserves ancient grammar and spellings, providing a common link to the past that connects all the different forms of modern spoken and written Mongolian. In 2013 traditional Mongolian calligraphy was included in the UNESCO list of Intangible Cultural Heritage in Need of Urgent Safeguarding, underlining its international importance. The need to protect the script is also recognised in projects such as the Atlas of Endangered Alphabets. Under the communist regime of the former People’s Republic of Mongolia, the Cyrillic alphabet was introduced from Russia and remains the official script in today’s...

Rural Polling Station, Bukhmuren soum, Uvs Province: Mongolia holds a Parliamentary Election every four years, to elect the 76 members of the National Parliament (Ulsyn Ikh Hural). This year’s election was the 8th since 1992 when a democratic election was first held. It will be remembered for having taken place under strict COVID-19 safety precautions. According to the General Election Committee (GEC), 1,475,895 voters cast their votes, out of 2,003,969 registered voters. The election day was extremely rainy, causing local flooding in Ulaanbaatar and many other places. Despite this, there was excellent turnout of 73.65% of the electorate. For this election Mongolia was divided into 29 electoral districts which each elected two or three MPs. Parties and Coalitions were allowed to field multiple candidates. The candidates who received the highest numbers of votes were elected as MPs. In this way all the elected MPs in a given district might well belong to the same party. This electoral system was reintroduced last year after...

It is nearly 5 months since Mongolia closed its borders in the face of the COVID-19 pandemic. Ever since, it has been clear that tough prevention measures taken at this stage were highly effective. The Health Ministry continues to provide detailed information about the health crisis at home and abroad as well as practical advice on keeping safe. As of 22 June, there have been only 213 confirmed cases in Mongolia, most of which are people who had returned from abroad, recently mainly from Russia. 153 of them have already recovered while 60 are currently under medical care. Most of these confirmed cases are reported to be younger people with comparatively milder symptoms. They are mainly students who had contracted infection while overseas. There are still no local fatalities nor confirmed cases of in-country transmission. Mongolia is continuing to repatriate its nationals stranded abroad in a controlled manner. The latest charter flights in June are reported to have brought home around 2300...

Ulaanbaatar’s population has nearly  tripled since 1990, and around half of Mongolia’s population now live in and around the capital. Industrial expansion in the same period has been centred on UB as well. More people and more industry both need increasing amounts of water. At the same time, the ground water reserves in the Tuul River basin that provide for UB’s needs have been dwindling, partly as a result of climate change. Visitors landing at Buyant Ukhaa airport in the 90s were often greeted in summer by wonderful views of the braided beds and tributaries of the Tuul meandering across the green valley towards the capital. This vision of plentiful water supplies is seen less often today. Though around half the population of UB live in ger districts and get by on around 10 litres of  often contaminated well water a day, the other half, living in flats, consume around 25 times as much purified water. As gers give way to apartment...

Since the first COVID-19 case was detected in Mongolia on 9 March, as of 2 April the total number of confirmed cases in the country has reached 14, after two Turkish nationals ( family members of Turkish Embassy staff in Mongolia) recently tested positive. Eleven of these cases are Mongolian nationals who returned home on charter flights from countries affected by the COVID-19 epidemic, as a result of the Mongolian government’s determination to repatriate its nationals from high-risk countries. It is reported that all these patients are currently in stable condition. Two COVID-19 patients who are the first to have made a recovery have now been discharged. They are required to self-isolate at home for two more weeks for further observation. The National Emergency Commission (NEC) reported that on 2 April, 2171 patients are under observation nationwide, since they are known contacts of people who have developed the infection. Marking World Doctors’ Day on 30 March, Mongolia’s Health Minister D. Sarangerel...

With China as its southern neighbour, Mongolia’s geographical location makes the country extremely vulnerable to the spread of COVID-19. Mongolia has just over 3 million citizens, half whom are based in the capital during the winter, living very close to each other. Movement of people and goods between the two countries is inevitable, given Mongolia’s dependency on China as the market for most of its exports in the form of natural resources, and imports of food and industrial products. However, Mongolia has extensive experience in dealing with sudden outbreaks of natural threats and disasters, including outbreaks of bubonic plague, foot and mouth disease, violent floods in summer and lethal ice and snowfalls in winter (known as ‘zud’). As a result, defensive actions by the authorities are generally firm, prompt and effective.  It is noteworthy that springtime in Mongolia, with its transition from bitter cold to milder temperatures and the birth of young livestock, is the most challenging time of all, especially for the herders. This combination of stresses depresses immune systems and scarcity of animal-based foods can occur....