Enhtaivan
Basic information
Interviewee ID: 990069
Name: Enhtaivan
Parent's name: Bagsh
Ovog: Borjigon
Sex: f
Year of Birth: 1957
Ethnicity: Halh
Additional Information
Education: secondary
Notes on education: büren dund
Work: diesel engineer
Belief: Buddhist
Born in: Nalaih sum, Ulaanbaatar aimag
Lives in: Nalaih sum (or part of UB), Ulaanbaatar aimag
Mother's profession: none
Father's profession: Engineer
Themes for this interview are:
(Please click on a theme to see more interviews on that topic)
work
family
industrialization
military
democracy
Alternative keywords suggested by readers for this interview are: (Please click on a keyword to see more interviews, if any, on that topic)
To read a full interview with Enhtaivan please click on the Interview ID below.
Summary of Interview 081213A with Enhtaivan
Enhtaivan was born on 1 December 1957 in Nalaih. Her parents had ten children. Her father was the sole breadwinner of the family, while her mother was a housewife. Enhtaivan started school at the age of eight. In 1973, after finishing the eighth grade, she was assigned to study in a technical college specialising in construction in the USSR. Not wanting to send their daughter abroad, her parents arranged for her to study diesel engines in a technical college in Nalaih. After graduating from her college in 1975, Enhtaivan was assigned to the Ministry of Natural Resources and Energy to be sent to the Nalaih mines. From 1975 to 1978 she worked in her profession. In 1978, she started to work in the local branch of the Ulaanbaatar Confectionery Factory, because of better salary. However, in 1990 with the beginning of democracy the branch was closed. She worked as an accountant in a private company until 2002 when she decided to start her own business.
Enhtaivan was a member of the People’s Revolutionary Party. As the entry requirements for a Party membership were high, people had to prove that they were hardworking, had a normal personal life, were polite, and so forth. Enhtaivan thinks that in the past dargas were incorruptible patriots. In the Confectionary Factory, Enhtaivan received the following honours and medals: a ‘5-year-plan forward-worker’ medal, a honorary letter given by the Revolutionary Youth League in 1981, and the medal of ‘the hero of labour’ in 1982. For overfulfilling her quota, she received a bonus on her salary. The factory produced a variety of products from vodka, spaghetti, cakes, to bread. In the socialist period, besides food, Mongolia produced other products, such as high quality shoes and fur coats.
Since the beginning of democracy in 1990 life in Mongolia has changed dramatically. Enhtaivan recalls, ‘In the socialist period, if we, members of the Party, engaged in trade we would have been excluded from the Party. People seen in the black market were blackmailed. In 1990, the factories closed their doors, and people became unemployed. Apart from salt, there was nothing in shops’. In the 1990s Enhtaivan engaged in a petty trade.
