Zinamidar
Basic information
Interviewee ID: 990301
Name: Zinamidar
Parent's name: Jamsran
Ovog: Taij
Sex: f
Year of Birth: 1934
Ethnicity: Halh
Additional Information
Education: secondary
Notes on education: büren dund
Work: retired
Belief: Buddhist
Born in: Otgon 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:
(Please click on a theme to see more interviews on that topic)
herding / livestock
education / cultural production
travel
politics / politicians
privatization
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 Zinamidar please click on the Interview ID below.
Summary of Interview 090749A with Zinamidar
In the 1940s the sum administration forced each family to send one child to the school, and that is why Zinamidar guai went to elementary school in 1942. Beginning with her class Cyrillic started to be taught. The year she completed the fourth grade there was the monkey-year zud therefore she quit school. Each ‘ail’ of that time had to provide the children’s meal money, dried dung and firewood. A group was formed from people aged above 12 years old and the teachers and the schoolchildren taught classes to them in the summer time. The elementary school children used to eat bran. According to the first five-year plan named after Choibalsan livestock hair, cashmere, meat and milk were taxed. Many people who couldn’t fully pay the tax were imprisoned. The cooperatives took only rams and the people started to become poor. This plan had began after the war and it continued almost until the collectivization movement. The herders had a one tögrög salary monthly to graze one sheep in the cooperative. Therefore the majority of the ‘ails’ had money үцуб for meat and dairy products subtracted from the salary. Эху collectivization movement had a very good impact on the poor families. Choiblasan died in 1951 during Tsagaan Sar therefore the plates with the refreshments prepared for the Tsagaan Sar had been withdrawn. Since then the ‘ails’ have started to celebrate Tsagaan Sar secretly and from the 1990s it was allowed. Religion was prohibited, as well. The ‘ails’ kept their Buddhas behind the picture frames and there were cases when they lit the oil lamp inside the chest.
Zinamidar guai came to the city at the age of twenty and at that time there were only two buildings, the Green Bömbögör (the Central Theatre / government building) and the State Department Store. The city was very small then. There were many Chinese in the city and they speculated in goods. The ‘ails’ near Uliastai and Zaisan had livestock and it was prohibited to have livestock in the city center. The people rode post trucks and passed through the checkpoints to come to the city. Before that there used to be horse relay stations and the ‘ails’ worked there for 21 days a time.
During the repressions horsemen came to arrest the lamas of their home land in the evenings and they took them away. The arrested people were sent to Uliastai prison and all the high-ranking lamas were executed. The children of people arrested counter-revolutionary remnants weren’t allowed to go to school.
During the cultural campaign many visits were made to the ‘ails’ for a inspection and the ’ails’ that had met the requirements were given the Cultured Household certificate.
With the coming of democracy we have obtained the right to speak freely and visit the city and the aimags, said Zinamidar guai. She considers it was wrong to demolish the factories during the privatization process. The state hasn’t been able to conduct an even and fair privatization, and the people did understand well the significance of the blue and the pink coupons.
