Adiya
Basic information
Interviewee ID: 990075
Name: Adiya
Parent's name: Sangarav
Ovog: Borjigon
Sex: m
Year of Birth: 1958
Ethnicity: Halh
Additional Information
Education: higher
Notes on education:
Work: not working
Belief: Buddhist
Born in: Sant sum, Övörhangai aimag
Lives in: Arvaiheer sum (or part of UB), Övörhangai aimag
Mother's profession: died, herder
Father's profession: died, herder
Themes for this interview are:
(Please click on a theme to see more interviews on that topic)
privatization
work
education / cultural production
childhood
democracy
Alternative keywords suggested by readers for this interview are: (Please click on a keyword to see more interviews, if any, on that topic)
cultural campaigns
education
socialism
Loohuuz
privatization
To read a full interview with Adiya please click on the Interview ID below.
Summary of Interview 081204A with Adiya
Adiya was born in Sant sum, Övörhangai aimag, on 10 March 1958. His father, Sangarav, was a camel herder. In 1974, after finishing the local eight-year-secondary school in Sant sum, Adiya was sent to Arvaiheer to resume the remaining two years of his studies in a ten-year-secondary school. After completing his secondary education he got admission in a technical school where he was trained as an accountant. Then he served in the army, worked in a trade union, and in 1988 was sent to study economics at the Institute of Trade Union in Moscow. In 1991, when the Soviet Union collapsed he left the Institute and returned to Mongolia to work as an inspector of social insurance in Övörhangai aimag. At the beginning of the privatisation he was sent by the administration of the aimag to Ulaanbaatar to attend a two-months-course on privatisation and stock exchange. In 1992, Adiya set up a share broker company in Övörhangai aimag and headed it until 1998.
Adiya has a vague recollection of what he had heard about the ‘cultural campaigns’ in his childhood. From what he has heard, he remembers that there were cultural inspections taking place, and that people were told to use blankets and sheets. Another memory from his childhood is connected with a man called Loohuuz, a high profile government official who was denounced and exiled to Övörhangai aimag. Adiya’s father made friends with that man. According to Adiya, privatisation was initiated in Mongolia with the idea that all people should be able to become property owners without any restriction. This stays in sharp contrast with the practices in the socialist period when in the Gobi area the maximum number of private livestock that was allowed for each household was seventy-five, whereas this number was fifty-five in the Hangai area. The privatisation was carried out in two steps: the ‘big privatisation’ and the ‘small privatisation’. During the ‘big privatisation’ people could purchase with their vouchers worth 7,000 tӧgrӧgs only company shares. But during the ‘small privatisation’ people were allowed to buy with their vouchers worth 3,000 tӧgrӧgs anything they wanted, including livestock. Not all people benefitted from the privatisation equally. Those people who had initial capital as well as vigilance gained from the privatisation.
Adiya has supported the democratic movement from its beginning, though recently became more critical of its methods. The movement has the correct ideas, he argues, but the ways of implementing them are wrong.
