Tserendolgor
Basic information
Interviewee ID: 990142
Name: Tserendolgor
Parent's name: Lodon
Ovog: Tsend
Sex: f
Year of Birth: 1938
Ethnicity: Halh
Additional Information
Education: higher
Notes on education: economist
Work: retired
Belief: Christian
Born in: Naran sum, Govi-Altai aimag
Lives in: Bayanzürh sum (or part of UB), Ulaanbaatar aimag
Mother's profession: herder
Father's profession: herder
Themes for this interview are:
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work
childhood
education / cultural production
cultural campaigns
new technologies
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Summary of Interview 090307A with Tserendolgor
L. Tserendolgor is a MPRP member. All her life she has been doing skillfully and reputably high level and leading work. She fully reflects the image of women leaders of the socialist society. She was born in 1938 into a herder’s family in Haliun sum of Gobi-Altai aimag. Her childhood years were spent together with her parents raising livestock. Her parents also did farming and they grew barley so she assisted her parents. She spoke of her childhood years, the lives of the people of that time, how the Mongolians processed the raw livestock materials and explained the traditional technology. She spoke extensively about the manual operations of farming. She recalled the hard life of the people in the postwar period.
She went to school at the age of ten and acquired a four-year education. She spoke of the notebooks and pencils they used in the school and the schooling conditions of that time. After completing elementary school she lived with her parents and then started her working career as an assistant of the raw materials collector; she collected guts. Then she worked as a club manager. In the evenings she showed films. She used to gather people in the evenings and organized parties in candle light. The sum amateurs used to gather to perform concerts. She made their clothes. The concert she has prepared for the aimag and the state was selected the best and she was rewarded with 1000 tögrögs. She has always been promoted and advanced in her work.
While she was working as a cook and a saleswoman in the aimag restaurant she went to the Soviet Union, to Novosibirsk, to attend a 40-day training in the trading field. The only wish she had was to follow very precisely what the others did for she had no education. She proudly recalled that she was the first one to go abroad from Gobi-Altai aimag at that time.
She has worked at the aimag party committee from 1965 to 1967. At that time she had four children. She started studying from the fifth grade in the evening secondary school of the aimag center. Having completed school, she submitted a request to study in the party school and she entered it. In 1967 she completed the party school.
From July of 1969 she was appointed a trade union darga of the aimag auto base trade union committee. While she worked there, she estimated the labor standard norm of the drivers and she initiated and implemented a ‘socialist competition’ in order to improve labor efficiency. The result was very effective and it was considered a best experience nationwide to be introduced into practice. People came from the aimags to study the best experience and she also went herself to promote it. She extensively spoke about striving for work like a horse. She also initiated the tribute of ‘millionaire driver’ among the transportation drivers in the socialist time.
In 1977 she was appointed the darga of the aimag theatre to improve the work there. While she worked there, she initiated the artistic workers’ independent performance (for the first time nationwide) and she organized performances and accompanied them to the countryside to perform. The theatres had plans for a certain amount of profit and in order to fulfill it various kinds of measures were taken. Along with doing such a great amount of state work she had a lot of elective work. She defined herself as the one who did not demolish but increased the work. She told in detail how she went through hardships, grief and happiness and how she raised her children.
In 1983 due to her husband’s work requirements they moved to Ulaanbaatar and settled there. By the order of the Ministry of Culture she was appointed the deputy director of the fine arts school in Ulaanbaatar. But she was dismissed from the work at her own request. Then she was employed to work at the Buyant-Uhaa restaurant doing a double duty of personnel in charge and the party cell darga. Then she retired on a pension.
She had no education, no foreign language and she lacked great many things while she worked. But she was able to overcome everything with both regular seminars and socialist competition. She recalled it with a pride about herself.
What has influenced her life the most was the realization that education was inevitably important for a person. Her visit to Russia in 1960, her admiration of the development, progress and the culture of that country later influenced her a great deal.
At the end of the interview she spoke in detail about the cultural campaign and the collectivization movement of 1959-1960s. The cultural campaign has civilized the households, the people have been taught to make fire not in the open fireplace but in a closed stove, to use white cover inside and outside the ger, and the people got rid of smoke dust and darkness inside of the ger. Also, the collectives were helpful in a way. It had a good structure and organization, she considers.
