Friday 2 July 1993
Ulan Bator
Last night, at about 8 o’clock, there was a knock on my
door. I opened it and was greeted by a
very tall Mongolian woman with a very deep but soft voice. She looked over her shoulder, and then leant
in closer to me, as if she had a state secret to impart. “Would you like to buy a cashmere suit?” she
asked me. I politely declined and went
back to watch, of all things, a very early episode of Neighbours. Earlier in the evening I went for a walk to
Sukhbaatar Square. I was stopped by a
man who asked me if I had a shark tooth necklace! Obviously the ‘70s have finally reached
Mongolia.
Anyway, this morning I met Bambi (her name is something like
that, but I never did manage to get it right).
I told her I wanted to go to the Winter Palace of the Bogd Khan. She tried to talk me out of it, and
recommended the Friendship Department Store instead. I insisted on the Winter Palace, so we got on
a local bus for the five-minute trip (as I was her only client today we did not
have a driver). We arrived at the
palace, which appeared deserted. But
Bambi led the way to a little ticket booth.
It cost one US dollar to get in (which still leaves me with this giant
wad of 3,000 tugriks, about $10, that nobody seems to want). Bambi stayed at the ticket booth to chat
while I went into the palace by myself.
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| Winter Palace |
The palace was fantastic.
It is primarily a Buddhist temple and, in layout, reminded me of the
Imperial Palace in Beijing (in miniature that is). On one side, in the late nineteenth century,
a “palace” was attached. It looks like
the Russian style buildings I have noticed around Ulan Bator, with those pretty
wooden windows. It was two stories high
and contained the living quarters of the Bogd Khan and his consort of the Ekh Dagina. The floors were creaky
and uneven, and there was a musty smell about the place.
The last Bogd Khan was a bit of an amateur zookeeper, and
the ground floor contained a collection of stuffed animals. It was very bizarre, and a little bit
creepy. I was the only visitor, so it
was just these animals, mute and frozen in time and me. It is remarkable how life like, and
un-nerving, the gaze of glass eyes can be in dim light, and intense
silence.
Upstairs there was an exhibition of the clothes worn by the ruling
couple. They were an interesting mixture
of traditional Mongolian influenced by Imperial China and Buddhism. They were very vibrant, intricately woven
with gold thread and pearls. Nearby were
the colourful thrones of Bogd Khan and his consort, all covered in small
Buddhist carvings. On the wall were two
large portraits of Emperor Nicholas II and Empress Alexandra Feodorovna of
Russia. The bedrooms of the Bogd Khan
and the Ekh Dagina were fabulous. In the centre of
each room was a large carved bed, complete with canopy and silk hangings. The Ekh Dagina's bed had a magnificent clothe-of-gold counterpane.
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| Winter Palace - Residence of the Bogd Khan and the Ekh Dagina (and the stuffed animals) |
The temples were amazing, full of beautifully embroidered
Buddhist images and small gold statues.
In one temple I was surprised by a member of staff sitting quietly in a
corner, he was so still he could have been part of the stuffed animal
collection.
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| Winter Palace Temples |
After the palace we went to the Museum of Religion. It was really just an empty monastery, from
which the Communists evicted the monks years before. It was more run-down than the Winter Palace,
and really quite sad. In the central
temple there was a beautiful gold Buddha, to one side of which was the embalmed
body of a former Buddhist master, looking just like a statue. The poor lighting, the lingering smell of
incense, the lack of tourists, and general dilapidation created an otherworldly
atmosphere. The gardens were terribly
overgrown and sometimes it was not clear where the paths were.
The final temple we went to was amazing. It was circular with papier-mâché figures all
over the walls, painted in a rainbow of colours. In pride of place was a 1,000-year-old model
of an Indian stupa. The papier-mâché
made it look very strange, particularly with the almost cartoon style of the
paintings. Although it is official a
museum, there were signs of recent worship; some offerings of money and fruit
here and there. As we left I asked Bambi
if there had ever been reports of a reincarnation of the Bogd Khan. She said she there were rumours one had been
identified, but did not seem keen to talk about it.
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| Tomb of the Bogd Khan |
So that is nearly the end of my stay in Mongolia. It is only three years since the Mongolian
People’s Revolutionary Party started to loosen its iron grip on power. That probably explains the lingering
suspicion and distrust of some of the locals, and the requirement for all
foreign visitors to have an official guide.
It definitely explains the awful food and the empty shelves of the
Friendship Department Store (Bambi finally got me through the doors after the
Museum of Religion, but it was so pathetic I have nothing more to say about
it). I managed to spend some tugriks on
food for the train, but I still have a thick pile of notes left. Bambi has gone home to feed her baby. When she gets back we are going to the
Natural History Museum, then it’s onto the station for the train to Irkutsk.
