City of felt and concrete: Negotiating cultural hybridity in Mongolia's capital of Ulaanbaatar

Abstract

Capital cities play an integral role in the construction of national identity. This is particularly true when the capital is the country's only major urban center. Over the course of its history, Mongolia's capital of Ulaanbaatar has been periodically reshaped to reflect competing trajectories of national culture. This article examines the evolving symbolism of architecture, urban design, and public space in Ulaanbaatar as a means of exploring Mongolia's complex negotiation between its traditional culture (mobile pastoralism and Shamanism/Buddhism), its socialist legacy, and globalization. Amidst the rampant social change of the last two decades, rather ambiguous national narratives have emerged in Mongolia. Like the capital's cityscape, these narratives reflect aspects of both recent and distant pasts, as well as contemporary economic, political, and social realities. This article reveals how increasingly palpable global economic and cultural practices are fomenting material change in the current phase of Ulaanbaatar's evolution. A combination of secondary source research and observations drawn from several months of fieldwork provide the basis for a discussion of the city's role as a forum for cultural contestation and national reform.

Keywords:

• architecture
• peri-urbanism
• historical narrative
• Mongolia
• public space
• Ulaanbaatar
• urban planning
• nationalism

Notes

A strenuous debate exists relating to the appropriate transliteration of the name of Mongolia's capital city. This article uses Ulaanbaatar, but readers should be aware that alternative transliterations include Ulan Bator and Ulan-Bator.

“Marginal” as employed here refers to a broad category of subalternality. Those that may have held power and lost it may now be marginalized, or groups that have traditionally functioned as an “other” within a given society may be categorized as marginalized.

The notion of recent subjugation of Mongolia derives from its quasi-colonization by China's Ming and Qing Dynasties, its occupation by White Russian Forces under the leadership of Baron von Ungern-Sternberg, and its “liberation” and integration into the Soviet sphere of influence. Mongolia's current dependence on foreign aid could also be interpreted as an extension of this theme (Kotkin and Ellerman 1999).

Only 11.9% of Mongolia's roads are paved. In October of 1992, a meeting of international experts on the development of a Northern Route for the Asian Highway Network was held in Ulaanbaatar. This group calculated Mongolia's highway capacity (length of paved roads per square kilometer of territory) to be the world's lowest figure at 0.00082 (Ariunbold 1992, 4).

A dzud refers to various disasters leading to massive livestock losses. These most recent losses actually resulted from a combination of factors. First, lack of rainfall caused a severe summer “drought dzud,” which weakened herds as grass became scarce. A “white dzud” followed that winter as prolonged extreme cold and snow cover prevented animals from finding what little fodder remained (Belt 2011; Jacobs 2010).

Examples of such groups include the Noin-Ula Xiongnu (c. 209BCE–93CE), Xianbei (c. 93–fourth century CE), Rouran (c. 402–555CE), Gokturk (c. 555–745CE), Uighur (c. 745–840CE), Khitan (c. 907–1125CE), and Mongols (c. 1206–1368CE) – see Bregel 2005.

There is some debate as to the exact date of the city's founding. Sanjdorj asserts that the city was founded in 1641. Campi (2006, 37) notes that other references mention 1636, 1640, and 1649. Sanjdorj (1980) asserts that the city was founded in 1641. See also Dugersuren (1999).

Greater security in the region is asserted to have existed during the Mongol Khanate of the thirteenth and fourteenth centuries (Morgan 1991, 130–135).

Campi (2006, 37) notes that the city was nomadic for 139 years, moving some 25-40 times.

This settlement represents the rather odd occurrence of an icon predating the formation of the cityscape. In this case, a balbal, or ancient stone statue, was ceremoniously erected to mark the site of the city's founding (Zanabazar 2007). The spot is today commemorated by a modern stone turtle near the city's central square (Pozdneyev 1971, 44–45).

Prior examples of sedentarization driven by elites and the accumulation of wealth may be found in the city of Karakorum. Founded by Chingiss Khan in 1220 as a military center in the Orkhon river basin, the city evolved into a cultural and administrative center replete with opulent palaces for the Great Khan and his sons. In addition to a large ger-tereg, the city contained permanent structures that included a piping system for heat and, according to the descriptions of William of Rubruck, a silver fountain from which various kinds of alcoholic beverages emanated. This city along with proto-urban sites such as the Palace of Aurug near Kerulen and Kirhira and Kondui in the Trans-Baikal region could have been the initial phase of broad-scale Mongolian sedentarization had raids by Chinese forces during the late fourteenth century not stunted Mongolian socio-economic and political development. The insecurity of the period compelled most Mongolians to revert to traditional mobile pastoralist practices (Morgan 1991, 132–135). Buddhist funding continued to fuel the building of monasteries, however, which dotted the landscape with a combination of Chinese, Tibetan, Indian, and Mongolian stylistically-hybridized structures during the seventeenth and eighteenth centuries (Zanabazar 2007). For more detail on various modes of urban development in Mongolia, see Campi.

In Tibetan, the official language of the Lamaist church in Mongolia, the city was called Chonmo or Ribogejigandanshadublin khüree which is associated with the founding monastery now called Gandan (Campi 2006, 39; Pozdneyev 1971, 43).

One might note, however, that an attempt to seize the Chingiss Khan shrine in the territory of Ordos (Inner Mongolia) was undertaken in 1913 by a faction of the Bogd Khan's Army. Apparently, at least some members of the Mongol elite saw value in the legacy of Chingiss Khan even in the earliest stages of their modern statehood. The failure of this expedition may have helped trigger this revision of state geopolitical policy (Onon and Pritchatt 1989, 20–22).

Sanders (Historical) suggests the city's name may also be translated as “Red Heroes' Town” – Ulaanbaatar Hot – in honor of all communist revolutionaries (Sanders 2003).

The statue was placed on a spot where Sukhbaatar's horse allegedly urinated during a rally in 1921. The good omen was marked and later used as a location for the statue that remains a debated centerpiece of the city today (Shinebayar 2010).

Kaplonski points out that “although ultimately guidance came from the Soviets, there was an active native Mongolian intelligentsia. While this intelligentsia…were the writers of the official histories, the histories they wrote often served double duty as evocative transcripts, and were amenable to multiple interpretations” (2004, 12). The same may be said for the landscape and its support for and contestation of particular discourses of Mongolian nationhood.

Surviving structures included a handful of monasteries or temples within former monastery grounds, whose purposes were altered to serve the new regime. Most became museums, others residences. Examples of pre-1930s Russian architecture also remain within the city in the form of the restored Russian Consulate building, the Teachers College, and the Bogd Khan's Winter Palace - though a ganjir or temple crest was added to the top of the building to give it a more “Asian” appearance during the period of Qing dominance.

Some 36,000 people of a population of around 800,000 were purged. In 1937 alone, some 22,000 were killed, of which 18,000 were Buddhist lamas (Kaplonski 2002, 156).

Kaplonski notes that the soyombo “dates back several centuries, but [was] only used as a national symbol since the early twentieth century” (2004, 82).

In the late 1940s and early 1950s, Japanese prisoners of war were forced to build a number of structures in Ulaanbaatar – stylistically one may still distinguish their work from that of other groups, e.g. walls nearly a foot thick, ornate wooden moldings within buildings, etc. (see Campi 2006, 40; Kaplonski 2004, 31).

Between 1956 and 1989, the number of apartments in the Soviet Union expanded from some 70 million to some 300 million. The average living space available to each urban dweller increased from 7.7 square meters to 15.8 square meters. By the late 1980s, 90% of the citizenry had running water, central heating, and indoor plumbing (Ruble 2003). These statistics do not hold true for Mongolia but similar attempts to improve urban dwelling were enacted during the same period.

At risk of painting the era too coldly, the construction of the Wedding Palace near the Choijim Lama monastery was considered an aesthetic success of the period (Tsultem 1988, 17).

All interviews were conducted by Alexander C. Diener in 2001–2002 under conditions of anonymity. Human Subject protocols allow for coded names or general reference to ethnicity and social status.

Kaplonski (2004, 82) offers a discussion of this discourse. See also Sabloff 2001 and 2002.

The Yasa was the codified law of Chingiss Khan, which has served as a standard of nomadic dispute resolution for 800 years. See Sabloff 2002, 91–118.

The MPP is the successor party to the socialist-era MPRP.

According to this discourse, the “Great Khan” handed down a series of principles upon which the Mongolian state should be built. These include: 1. Rule by law – the law should be just, fair, and strict; 2. All are equal before the law: meritocracy should prevail; 3. Leadership should emulate the Great Khan: Leaders should be strong, wise, and caring; 4. People should revere, respect, and obey the government and its law; 5. Participatory democracy should exist as it did in the “Wise Men's Council and Great Assembly;” 6. Personal freedoms should be honored – including pluralism (speech, religion) and human rights; 7. The state should be strong in reputation, responsibility, power, and influence – just and fair; 8. Different people can be united into one independent nation – following these principles; 9. The economy should operate under a free market principle (see Sabloff 2001, 91–118).

Bat-Erdene Batbayar has been quoted as referring to Mongolia as neither European nor Asian but a bridge between the two (see Tumursukh 2002, 143). Non-“Asian-ness” in Mongolia generally translates into efforts to articulate difference compared to surrounding states, both in terms of the sedentary basis of their culture and increasingly from their tendency towards authoritarian rule and only limited success in implementing democracy.

The MPRP/MPP retained power until it was defeated by a coalition of reform oriented parties (the Democratic Union) in 1996. The MPP regained a parliamentary majority in 2000, 2004, and 2008.

The construction of cities along the not yet completed 2400-kilometer east-west highway (the Millennium Road), envisioned as the prime artery of trade for the state's future, is hoped to impel urbanization of more than 90% of the state's population over the next thirty years (see Batbayar 2002, 328; Enkhbayar 2002, 5).

Ochirbatyn Dashbalbar provides his views in the article entitled “Dashiin Byambasuren Tansaa” (To Dashiin Byambasuren), 3 and Mendiin Zenee (1992) offers his views in “Mongol dah” ardchilal Fashist Shinjtei' (Democracy in Mongolia is Fascist in Nature) 4. Zenee was a conservative writer and Member of Parliament. Dashbalbar was a major public figure in Mongolia, often regarded as the “national poet.” He was a member of parliament and founded the rightist Traditional United Party and the even more “right-wing” Mongolian Party for Tradition and Justice. See also Dashbalbar (1996, 4).