Tsognii
Basic information
Interviewee ID: 990213
Name: Tsognii
Parent's name: Baasan
Ovog: Didn't want to say
Sex: m
Year of Birth: 1958
Ethnicity: Halh
Additional Information
Education: incomplete secondary
Notes on education: This most likely means 7 years of schooling.
Work: herder
Belief: Buddhist
Born in: Bayantsagaan sum, Bayanhongor aimag
Lives in: Bayantsagaan sum (or part of UB), Bayanhongor aimag
Mother's profession: herder
Father's profession: [blank]
Themes for this interview are:
(Please click on a theme to see more interviews on that topic)
education / cultural production
herding / livestock
privatization
collectivization
travel
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Summary of Interview 090608A with Tsognii
Tsognii guai was born in 1958. Two or three of them rode the same horse to school. Ink was vey rare at that time. The school had two dormitories. The sum children lived in a collective dorm and the children from other sums lived in the so-called school dorm. Tsognii guai was forced to take an assignment to go to the countryside and tend livestock after having completed the seventh grade. If you didn't lose any livestock, you were given a salary of one tögrög daily. 'To base' meant to pasture 1200 young animals and one ‘ail’ used to get one base. Tsognii guai had looked after the collective's livestock until privatization. In 1982 he had 18 young animals die therefore as a punishment he had to drive livestock together with his wife, even though she had just given birth. The livestock had been driven separately like the goats, the sheep, female and male. The hair, cashmere and milk of the collective livestock all had standard norms and in case the norms weren’t fulfilled, they had to pay double the price. They got around 100 tögrögs monthly. The price of food was low then therefore it was sufficient. The collective livestock had a separate brand therefore it was impossible to exchange it with the private livestock. The people who lived in the sum center and had no work were mobilized to do the industrial work assisting the cooperative.
Vehicles were very rare at that time. The collective had only two vehicles. The collective dargas were appointed directly from the aimag. The ‘ails’ used to get information from the brigade meetings and the radio.
During privatization there were some people who couldn’t get the share because they were busy tending the livestock, for it was said they had to give 200 tögrögs within a month to get the share. Even the collective hashaa was divided among the people who had got the share. Due to a lack of knowledge and information some ‘ails’ couldn’t get anything.
Last year, the Khan Bank (apparently in 2008) confiscated livestock from the herders for their indebtedness, estimating sheep at 15000 tögrögs, goats, 10000, and the lambs and young goats at 5000 tögrögs.
