Dorjsüren
Basic information
Interviewee ID: 990030
Name: Dorjsüren
Parent's name: Galsan
Ovog: Huatsai
Sex: m
Year of Birth: 1945
Ethnicity: Buriad
Additional Information
Education: higher
Notes on education:
Work: retired
Belief: Buddhist
Born in: Dadal sum, Hentii aimag
Lives in: Dadal sum (or part of UB), Hentii aimag
Mother's profession: [blank]
Father's profession: [blank]
Themes for this interview are:
(Please click on a theme to see more interviews on that topic)
work
family
environment
travel
democracy
Alternative keywords suggested by readers for this interview are: (Please click on a keyword to see more interviews, if any, on that topic)
childhood
education
parents
Dadal sum
collective farm
bureaucracy
Buryat wedding
To read a full interview with Dorjsüren please click on the Interview ID below.
Summary of Interview 080708B with Dorjsüren
In this interview Dorjsüren tells about his childhood: how he cut hay, the school where he studied, when he first saw a motorcycle and a lorry, what his parents did, and what Dadal sum was like then. When he was in the fourth grade the whole class participated in the construction of a new school building. When the construction work was completed in 1964, the then leader of Mongolia, Tsedenbal, visited the new school building. Dorjsüren says that in his childhood he read not only Mongolian writers but foreigners as well, including Jack London and Jules Verne. He also tells that in the socialist period Dadal sum was a prosperous and good place to live in. In the 1950s Dadal had electricity and radio, whereas many sums in the vicinity had none. The famous sanatorium Gurvan Nuur was opened in Dadal in 1949.
Although Dorjsüren has a positive memory of state socialism (for instance, education and health care were free, and life in general was better), two things that he most resents about that time are bureaucracy and the fact that the state restricted people’s freedom of movement. He himself was affected many times. For example, in 1987 when his wife entered the Medical University in Ulaanbaatar, he was not allowed to join her in Ulaanbaatar. It took him two years to obtain a special permission to settle in Ulaanbaatar. It is no wonder then that he actively supported the democratic movement from the beginning. In his view, democracy brought freedom to people. As a result, today people can live wherever they like and do whatever job they choose to. Democracy is however without its back draws. It is difficult to live on salary alone. To supplement his income and help his children with their tuition fees, Dorjsüren runs a small vegetable farm and keeps a guesthouse for foreign tourists.
In 1974, at the age of thirty-one he married his wife in accordance with Buryat traditions. He tells about the wedding.
