DK Orchard

Tim, our interpreter, and his brother Bolt, who is the Mayors aide, picked Dr. Larsen an me up this morning and took us on a tour of the city.  They are very kind young men and seem so anxious to please.  Tim is 21 and studied languages at the university.  He speaks Mongolian of course, Russian, Chinese and English.  His dream is to become a dancer in L.A.  He showed me a video of his groups hip hop dancing and they were very good.  Bolt studied psychology in school and speaks Russian, a little bit of English and Chinese besides his native Mongolian.

They took us to the highest place in the city so we could get a good view.  This Buddhist shrine was built here as a protection to the city, to keep the evil away.  From here we could see a shrine on the far side of the city dedicated to fallen Russian soldiers who helped protect Choibalsan from invading Japanese troops and kept Mongolia from falling under Japanese rule.  Since then the people here have had a good relationship with Russia.

This is a view of the city from the shrine.  The smokestack is the powerplant that produces electricity for the city.  Huge pipes come from the plant.  The steam from the plant used to produce electricity is used to heat water which is then piped into the city to heat the homes and water.  That is for the people within the city.  50% of the people live outside the power grid and have no heat or running water.  They get their water from water stations which they visit 2 or 3 times a day carts and lrge plastic containers.  These are tough people.

Most people in the city live in apartment buildings like these.  No grass and very few trees.  Lots of kids playing around town on dirt mounds and in the street who are laughing and having fun like they don't know what grass is. There is a central football (soccer) field which has artificial turf.  Not enough rain or lawnmowers to maintain a grass field.

Lots of motorcycles around.  Think what Chingass Khan (their preferred spelling) could have done with a bunch of these!