Haltar
Basic information
Interviewee ID: 990249
Name: Haltar
Parent's name: Jigmed
Ovog: Huushaan
Sex: m
Year of Birth: 1933
Ethnicity: Ard Halh
Additional Information
Education: higher
Notes on education:
Work: retired
Belief: Buddhist
Born in: Naran sum, Zavhan aimag
Lives in: Sühbaatar sum (or part of UB), Selenge aimag
Mother's profession: herder
Father's profession: herder
Themes for this interview are:
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work
collectivization
cultural campaigns
privatization
democracy
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To read a full interview with Haltar please click on the Interview ID below.
Summary of Interview 090709A with Haltar
Haltar guai began his interview saying Mongolian history and social life had begun in 1911. The people all had self-sufficient lifestyle then and the population hadn’t reached a million. A stomach full of butter and a year-old lamb were given as a wage for being a servant in the ‘ail’. He talked very extensively about the history of the battle with the Chinese revolutionaries and the ‘whites’.
The Mongolian nation approved its Constitution in 1924 and since then it has started to develop with assistance from the Russian government. The marked events that have happened since then are the counter-revolutionaries’ movement of 1930 or repression and the Halh Gol war, he emphasized. There are four social and economic issues that cover the period beginning from 1930 to 2000 and they are: to improve the health of the population, develop the livestock husbandry, improve the industry and the infrastructure, and strengthen its independence, he concluded.
The state organized certain works like the five-year plan to develop Mongolia from the 1940s, and laying the foundation of socialism, which started from the 1950s. In 1959 the campaign for cultivating the virgin land flourished in Selenge for the first time and the people were sent on assignment and the People’s Army soldiers participated in it arm-in-arm. The soldiers used to return home having become tractor and combine drivers. In November the people worked in a mere tent (ie, made sacrifices and put up with harsh conditions). Selenge had many milk farms and state farms.
The cultural campaign improved the health the population, and they learned to improve hygiene which had its influence on the increase of the Mongolian population.
The Mongolian Revolutionary Youth League was in charge of many issues, such as people being sent on an assignment, the personnel issue and physical education. The people who had done wrong were discussed about at the League meeting. Also, the young people sent on an assignment often had marital problems. Six out of thirteen League cell dargas were men and the rest were women. The women were often promoted. In case the League member was involved in a crime, he was first discussed at the League members’ meeting, taking away his League membership certificate and then he went to court.
Haltar guai studied in Russia with a 90 ruble scholarship, and watches, pens and caps were often ordered from Mongolia, he said.
Democracy arose from among the social turbulence, and privatization had been carried out in the wrong way from the beginning, concluded Haltar guai.
