Gauck in Mongolia

One highlight that I haven’t mentioned in my last entry was the visit of the German president Joachim Gauck. It is a sign of the good relationship between Germany and Mongolia that there is an active exchange of high politicians by visiting each other’s countries. Angela Merkel was the first Chancellor that visited Mongolia in 2011, the Mongolian president was in Germany last March and now Joachim Gauck was here about 1 week ago. There has been a long partnership between our countries and it is very common to meet people here that speak German. According to die Welt, there are 30,000 Mongolians speaking German. Many of them learned it during a stay in the former DDR. But also today mongolian students like to study in Germany.

Of course there are strategic reasons for this partnership as well. On the one hand Germany has a strong demand for resources while Mongolia is one of the richest countries in the world in terms of the occurrence of mineral resources. These resources can lead to substantial growth and development of the country, but it lacks of know-how and technology to go that way on its own. However Germany has immense knowledge in the mining sector in terms of leading mining technology as well as structural development. Furthermore Mongolia as a land-locked country that is flanked between China and Russia seeks to lower the dependence towards the two superpowers and sees one way to do so by finding new markets. Germany again sees in Mongolia a reliable partner and one of the few real democracies in Asia, as Gauck pointed out during his visit.

Of course this is a very simplistic description – in reality it is obviously much more complex, but it displays some important key points.

Here are the pictures from the official reception on the main square. I’ve also seen Gauck arriving at the hotel, because we just had an event going on there at that time. But it was impossible to get closer and take pictures with him because there were plenty of security guards shielding him and even building up security checks for everybody entering the hotel, hours before he was arriving.

looks nice, doesn't it?

There is our president!

Soldiers start to march out

Proud soldiers being simple road users again

This week I had the opportunity to join a business trip to Arvaikheer (https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Arvaikheer), which is province capital roughly a 6 hours’ drive from Ulaanbaatar. The IMRI project from GIZ is working in 4 Aimags (provinces) to strengthen the sustainable location development in mining regions and there was a kickoff with the several stakeholders about the implementation of an integrated community development program. For me it was interesting to come out of UB and see the countryside. It was an amazing drive through the incredible Mongolian landscape. In Arvaikheer there live less than 25,000 people, many of them in Ger tents or small huts. The warm water is produced in small heating stations which are fired by coal. There is no filter and the black smoke produces distinctive smog in the morning and in the evening, which is remarkable for a town at that size. 

This was the view from my hotel room, when the heating stations were off

These are the heating stations

On the afternoon we visited a monument not far from the city, which was erected to express the peoples respect to their horses. It is a religious monument, where it is only allowed to go around clockwise, when I wanted to go around anticlockwise, people gave me unambiguous hints that I should go the other way round.
As you may see in this entry again, horses play a very important role in Mongolian life and culture.

These horse statues represent the winners of the very important Naadam game and are well known to many people all over the country

People bring their horse skulls of their best horses to let them rest at this special place to express their respect.

The next morning awaited me with a stunning sunrise, which was caused by the strong air pollution.

That was how the city when sun rised and all the heating plants were firing in the morning hours, producing a lot of smoke. Looks nice, but is probably not that healthy nd smells bad.

When the sunrise is over, it doesn't look that impressive anymore

If you drive trough the country you see cattle herds and other animals i.e. vultures all the time. And it is quite dangerous, because they seem to like crossing the street just when you want to drive by.

Camel!

Thats it, I hope you enjoyed the pictures and the short background information.

All the best!
Malte