Shiremmes
Basic information
Interviewee ID: 990042
Name: Shiremmes
Parent's name: Batbayar
Ovog: Malynhan
Sex: f
Year of Birth: 1951
Ethnicity: Halh
Additional Information
Education: higher
Notes on education:
Work: retired
Belief: Buddhist
Born in: Lün sum, Töv aimag
Lives in: Lün sum (or part of UB), Töv 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)
environment
democracy
collectivization
privatization
new technologies
Alternative keywords suggested by readers for this interview are: (Please click on a keyword to see more interviews, if any, on that topic)
Ulaanbaatar
Central Post Office
desertification
democracy
collective farm
To read a full interview with Shiremmes please click on the Interview ID below.
Summary of Interview 080711B with Shiremmes
In this interview Shiremmes discusses the following topics: the Ulaanbaatar of her childhood, her job as a telephonist, democracy, and desertification. She recalls that when she first came to Ulaanbaatar there was not much traffic, apart from official cars and red commuter busses. Trolleybuses appeared only later. The State Department Store was housed in what is today the Museum of Art. She saw many new houses and districts rise in Ulaanbaatar. Shiremmes does not like today’s Ulaanbaatar though, for she finds the city too crowded, with terrible air pollution. Her account of her job at the Central Post Office in the 1970s is interesting. She says that the telephonists had access to secret government conversations. In terms of service priority telephone calls coming from dargas were graded as the most important. ‘Urgent calls’ and ‘ordinary calls’ were dealt with later.
Shiremmes thinks that desertification spreads because people treat nature wrongly: they cut trees and bushes, which renders the soil less fertile. As a result the level of underground water drops. Another contributor to the desertification is the mining companies. Shiremmes says that democracy has both positive and negative sides. Democracy gave a lot to people (livestock was given to herders, people became property owners), but at the same destroyed many industries. She thinks that privatisation was carried out too early.
