A Weekend in Erdenet

Erdenet city, view from a hill.

Its been too busy in recent days. I wanted to write about a weekend trip to Erdenet, last month, but the tight schedule of classes and other activities have kept me away from this blog.

Erdenet is the second largest city of Mongolia after capital Ulaanbaatar, that’s what some say, while others put Darkhan after UB. I was there for two days of the weekend on invitation of a friend, an African anthropologist living in Mongolia for more than 10 years now. He lives in Erdenet, that was the first reason for me to visit, but I was also curious to see the second largest city of this country, while living in capital UB for more than a year now. There are train, bus and taxi that travel everyday between UB and Erdenet. Train is the cheapest, with 6800 MNT (Mongolian Tugrug). But it departs at 8pm in the evening from UB arriving there in the morning. Second option is bus costing 11000 MNT and it takes 7-8 hours. Taxi or mini-vans go every hour from in front of the Train Station for 20000 MNT. Since we had not much time, taxi was the best option. While getting out UB, it took us more than 30 minutes due to traffic jam and rush hour of the afternoon. Normally I prefer discussion while traveling because of the long distance as it make you feel less tiresome. But my friend was sitting on the front seat, and the taxi driver had put a Mongolian song on high volume, while fellow passengers sitting beside me were making loud laughter.  In such a situation, my second option is to do what i do when i travel alone–my iPod to ears listening to my favorite music. Contrary to what i had expected, the drive was long and tiresome. It took us more than 4 hours. But finally we were in the city around 11pm. I was impressed by the night-view of the wide and well-organized roads and buildings of the city. The taxi driver knew my friend very well and dropped us right on the door of his apartment. The contact with taxi driver was because he has been living in Erdenet for about 4 years and regularly come to UB almost every week. The apartment looked like the Soviet-style buildings, which i have seen many in UB. And my friend said probably the largest community of Russians live in Erdenet, since there was the join Mongolian-Russian Mining Corporation exploiting the largest cooper mine in Asia. I wanted to see the mine next morning. At this time, i was hungry after a tiresome drive. My friend made a good curry while talking to me about Erdenet and his life there. It took us two hours having dinner on table because of the interesting discussion about relationships. I would talk about it some other time. Right now, this post should be more specific about Erdenet. So we went to sleep after some drinks, discussions about Mongolia, people, culture and our planning to walk around the city and climb up the hills next to the cooper mine next day.

The heating system was very good there. Unlike the one in UB, it was very hot. And it was the blessing of mining in the city that people enjoyed good heating system and proper hot water supply. I had to keep a window open, despite the chilly wind outside, to keep the room normal, as it was too hot.

The next day we went out to see the city after breakfast and another long discussion on table. It was beautiful sunny day with clear sky. Though the weather was almost same like UB, very cold. But other than low population, Erdenet could be the cleanest town of Mongolia. During the walk on the main avenue, my friend told that the city was built in 1975 after the fourth largest cooper mine deposit in the world was found here. Since it was a commercial purpose, there were good planing and management of the city. Roads were wide, clean and organized, not like the zigzag broken narrow streets of UB. I could see tall trees on roadsides, which showed a good care by the local municipality.

There is another story too about Erdenet. I have heard, though not read anywhere, from some friends the story of Erdenet as a ‘secret city’ during the Soviet Union and cold war era. The story goes further that Erdenet was part of several secret cities the USSR would built for military purposes, and keep them hidden from maps and information. And with the strategic position, having the largest copper mine in Asia, it makes sense Erdenet was part of the secret cities of USSR.

It is a small city that one can walk all around its main commercial part in 30 minutes. Unlike other towns or aimags, people were not surprised to see two strange foreigners walking on footpath since they had seen many in Erdenet because of the mining business. I could see two chain restaurants, Modern Nomads and another, besides one Chinese and one Korean restaurants, but there were many Russian ones. The main avenue looks like a slope from a hilltop coming down to the city. There ger area started at the end of the avenue in south. I saw a Church and thought it might be for Russians, or the Mongol converts. While walking on the sideways to see the grocery stores, my friend was saying people here are with stable income because of the mining. But, he added, the Government has started building plans for the time when the copper mine will be all extracted and there would be no tax revenue to run the government institutions, schools, hospital, or other services and operations after 20 years. According to statistics of 2006, the mine in Erdenet accounts for 13.5% of Mongolia’s GDP and 7% of tax revenue. For sure once it is all extracted, it would not only have a huge impact on the overall GDP of the country, but Erdenet city itself will need a big push to continue life creating jobs for people. My friend was saying until a couple of years ago, the mining corporation used to pay the expenses of schools in the city, which has stopped now creating new problems for city administration and Orkhon aimag, of which Erdenet is the capital. But there is a hope as some new mining sites have been explored there. In a city of about 80000 population i was impressed to see a big sports complex with indoor swimming pool, a cinema and a state department store. With such a vibrant view of this commercial part of the city where tall new apartment buildings showed the strength of people’s earning, i could also see the remnants of communist era–a Marx caricature on a building and Lenin’s on another. But what i liked most about Erdenet was the calm city life. I observed that people were not in hurry. Life was moving smoothly, there was not the problems of cities, like traffic jams, everyone in a rush to overtake others, and all in hurry. Something that surprised me was drivers following the traffic lights, which is very rare in UB. While walking towards the Government building, we crossed the junction right in the middle of the city. There were not many vehicles, but a car was waiting for the red light to go green. In UB, even its green and people are crossing the pedestrian lines, vehicles do not stop. It is something that really annoys me about UB. This was enough to show the discipline and calm-mindedness of the people in Erdenet. Young, old, children, couples, women many were walking on sideways in the evening and all were cheerful, not depressed-looking or drunk.

The Government building was down the avenue towards eastern part of the city. From there i could see the cooper mining place, which is an open site that you can visit. My friend told there is 24-hour shift of thousands of laborers working on the site. Buses from the mining corporation pick them from the ger district in different morning and evening shifts. People having a stable job and earning, we were discussing this is the place for new and small businesses like restaurants. Investors look for opportunities in UB, while Erdenet is a perfect less competitive place for starting a new business.  While passing from the site, i saw the Turkey-Mongolia School, which is supported by the Turkish Government in many countries, including Afghanistan and Pakistan, where i come from.

After having walked all around the city, we went to the mountain hill nearby. It was about sunset and chilly wind of the evening had started. We wanted to go to the top, but it was getting late and we were tired, so sat down on a hill in the middle of the mountain. From there, i could see all the city, it’s social and class divide. Towards north, near the mountain, there was the ger area, full of slum houses and gers, where most of the mining laborers lived.  Right in the middle of the city was the commercial area with beautiful new and fancy apartment buildings. While the Government office, Soviet-era official and community residential buildings were in southern part of the city. Behind the Government building, there was the posh small area of the big bosses and tycoons of mining. While some miles near that, it was the Russian residential area, who were living in an isolated part of the city with their own market, shops and schools. We were saying the Russians remained isolated wherever they went during the Soviet era. It is not the way to engage with colonized societies. Unless there is no interaction in the broad social life, it won’t last only with political and military power for long.  The discussion about Chinggis Khan, Mongol history, modern Mongolia, politics and such kept us enjoying the moment on the hill until the sun set down and we left for home. It was a weekend evening, and as expected, i saw drunk youngsters here and there. We preferred to go home for dinner, as my host friend had bought a fresh fish from river near the city. I had not eaten fresh fish for quite a time. We don’t have fresh fish in UB. Mostly its exported from China, which takes time to reach in restaurants and markets. I really enjoyed the fish with some drinks. We again sat down for our discussion to go for late night, and watched a movie meanwhile. The next day i wanted to take the 12am bus for UB. When we arrived there at 11, tickets were already sold. The next bus would go at 4pm, so i went to the Taxi station and reached UB in the afternoon. It was a great weekend to remember.

Erdenet city, view from a hill.