Arslan
Basic information
Interviewee ID: 990015
Name: Arslan
Parent's name: Molon
Ovog: [blank]
Sex: m
Year of Birth: 1930
Ethnicity: Halh
Additional Information
Education: higher
Notes on education:
Work: retired
Belief: Buddhist
Born in: Bayangol sum, Övörhangai aimag
Lives in: Bayangol sum (or part of UB), Ulaanbaatar aimag
Mother's profession: herder
Father's profession: herder
Themes for this interview are:
(Please click on a theme to see more interviews on that topic)
urban issues
work
education / cultural production
collectivization
belief
Alternative keywords suggested by readers for this interview are: (Please click on a keyword to see more interviews, if any, on that topic)
childhood
schoolchildren's life
secondary school
student life
repression
urbanization
cultural campaigns
privatization
belief
collectivization
industrialization
democracy
funeral rituals
nature and environment
To read a full interview with Arslan please click on the Interview ID below.
Summary of Interview 080306A with Arslan
I was born in 1930 in Öndör Önts sum of Övörhangai aimag. I went to school in 1940. At that time the school was open for the first time with four teachers and 40 schoolchildren. The school had 3 or 4 gers. We used to sit on the floor because we didn’t have tables and chairs. We copied what the teacher wrote on the board with paper and pencil. We had acquired tables and chairs starting the third year. Because it was war-time goods were very scarce. Initially, those who knew the four math methods and Mongolian script became the teachers. When I entered the third grade, one teacher came who had completed school in the city. From 1942 on, we were taught Cyrillic. The parents were reluctant to send their children to school and the children used to escape from the school. After completing elementary school I skipped a year, and in 1945 I came to the aimag centre to study in the secondary school. The aimag secondary school had a decent building and the class rooms were okay. It had a dormitory. I completed the seventh grade there and went to the city. My dad went along with his acquaintance and gave him a whole sheep with some money and said, “This kid is going to go to a school. Take him to Minister Soli. She knows which school he should go to.” Aunt Soli asked me, “What school you want to study at? Do you want to go to the Teacher’s school?” And I said, “yes’ and I entered the school. The teachers of the Teacher’s school were nice and we also were very active and disciplined. After graduating from the Teacher’s school I worked as a secondary school teacher and the director of the sum elementary school. At that time the school director’s work was much like providing the schoolchildren’s meals, meat and the firewood. Then I submitted a request to study at the Teacher’s Institute and I entered it. In 1965 I graduated from the Teacher’s Institute and I didn’t go to the countryside. I went to work at the Ministry of Foreign Affairs and retired from there.
There were many specialists from the Soviet Union in Mongolia. Initially there had been mostly physicians, trade specialists, veterinarians and Russian language teachers in our aimag. In the later days all kinds of specialists came. At that time, our nation developed with the power of the Soviets. We worshiped the Soviets because thanks to the victory of the USSR in the war we weren’t conquered by the Germans. In fact, the Russians are good-hearted people and so the Mongolian people were good to the Soviet people and they exalted them. During the war many horses were sent to the front to help the Soviet people. In 1967 the Soviet Union established Television for the first time.
