bicyclemark

I Can Offer You a Job

“I can offer you a job, you should stay longer; for many foreigners Mongolia is very interesting right now.”

I tried hard to keep chewing my food, but in my head I was already calculating what life in UlaanBaatar would be like working for some government official. I quickly regained my focus, “Thank you, but I’m not seeking a job, I’ll return home tomorrow” I tell him, thanking him a few more times and trying to get back to the interview.

Bekhbat, grandson of P. Genden, the former Mongolian Prime Minister famous for having been the only man to slap Stalin, has a lot to tell me about Mongolia as we sit down for lunch at the Grand Khaan Irish pub. An extremely well spoken and modest gentleman, on his suit jacket lapel he wears a tiny pin that is familiar to me, rotary club. Among his many civil activities, he is an active member of the rotary club working hard to raise money for segments of the Mongolian population that fall through the cracks; the poor, the deaf, etc. It becomes clear that like his grandfather, Bekhbat is a man people know and trust. Even during the course of one lunch, there was rarely a 10 minute gap where someone (Mongolian or foreign) didn’t come up to him to shake his hand with a big smile.

“Mongolia will become a country the benefits from its extensive mineral wealth, like Venezuela or Russia, there will be a great influx of money and things here will improve.”

He goes on to talk about Copper, not only with Mongolia as a great source for Copper, but also that the nation would become a place where that Copper is processed as well. Uranium, with a great need in many nations for nuclear energy production, they will turn to Mongolia which has a great amount of it.

“My interest is public-private partnerships, to find the best way to improve Mongolia’s infrastructure.”

Indeed infrastructure is crying out for help in a nation where tap water is undrinkable and more than half the capital city, never mind the country, does not have running water or indoor plumbing. Where once you get outside the city limits of UlaanBaatar, you find roads almost non existent or un-drivable without the help of a very special 4 wheel drive vehicle. Say nothing of the nation’s primary energy source, coal, the exhaust from which creates a thick layer of pea-soup-like air that in the early winter morning if you open your mouth you almost choke on it.

Yes it was hard not to love Mongolia, where everyday I was there, with every passing hour, more adventures arose out of nowhere. Had I stayed another few days, there is no telling where I would ended up or who I would have found myself sitting with. Ready to come home? No, I was not.

Stay tuned for the podcasts…

bmtv108 Adventures in Tomsk (1 more time)

I set off from Tomsk in the direction of Kemerovo more than 2 weeks ago, yet memories of the adventures and encounters that I had there still dance in my head. In sorting through all the video I recorded during that time, I’ve put together one more video montage of my experience as a guest lecturer and overall visitor in Tomsk, a city which I found to be very interesting; where everyday I learned something new.

Remembering the 25th

It is the 25th of April, although I may be far from Portugal, here in some corner of Ulan Bataar, Mongolia, I still wanted to pause from the travel posts, videos and audios and pay my respects. To the countless who stood up to fascism and repression in the name of liberation and social justice. They marched and sang in the streets of Lisbon, after so many decades of suffering and war without end. They kicked out a tyrant and in doing so took great steps to improving the quality of people’s lives in Portugal. For all these reasons and more, today I pause and say thanks to all those who helped make it possible.

In searching for videos I know well and have never seen before I came across this recounting of that day, which includes photos and audio testimony. Its in Portuguese, but even if you can’t understand I think you can decipher the passion in the voices and the power of the images.

Post Trans-Siberian Irkutsk

Irkutsk, Russia: land of engineering, the trans-siberian railroad, an oil pipline to China, raw materials, and a whole lot of water. After 36 hours from Novosibirsk to Irkutsk I arrived tired of the cramped train cabin but well fed after two elderly Russian ladies felt it was their job to keep me fed and call me to the table every 4-5 hours.

The trans-siberian train is much less the tourist vehicle than I imagined, with April being the off-season, I found myself the lone non-Russian for several rail cars. As a result it seemed the notoriously cold train conductors memorized my name and would come over to explain little things about the train to me, where things are located and how to work knobs and buttons. My cabin mates seemed fascinated that I came to Russia and actually wanted to go such a long distance on THIS train. They also seemed fascinated by how skinny I am.

While this famous train might be a dream for alot of travellers from around the world, in Russia the train is still very much a way of life. Love it or hate it, they know exactly how to approach it, what to bring, what to wear, and ways to both take care of themselves and pass the time. Watching grandmothers and grandchildren, it became clear that this is a time-honored tradition being passed on generation to generation regardless of what kind of government is in place or how the world economy is doing.

Me, I’m on my way to Ulan Batar, but first I’d like to see this lake Baikal. So a brief pause with limited internet to test the waters, and then its on to the vast nation known as Mongolia!

Coal from Kemerovo

Many of you out there are hoping I’ll write more about Tomsk, and in time, I surely will. But one aspect of this trip that certainly overwhelms and makes it impossible to write much is the fact that I am nonstop on my way somewhere. A factor that I’m extremely thankful to great friends for keeping it that way. I suppose I’ll have plenty of time for writing and navel gazing once I get on the Trans-Siberian in the coming week.

I left Tomsk reluctantly as the more days I was there, the more interesting things kept happening. Yet it is good to stick with the plan and not overstay one’s welcome, so I hit the road via relatively modern bus en route to Kemerovo (pop. 485,000). Amazingly Kemerovo was no where on my list of places to go on this trip, but thanks to the magic of the internets, I received a warm invite from a Kemerovienne who heard I was in the region, had lived in the United States for a time, and suggested I come see this bustling city. And so like any good traveling journalist and curious mind, I said yes.

Kemerovo isn’t only an industrial town, but you wouldn’t know it as the bus crosses the bridge over the river Tom and directly in front of you three huge smokestacks from the coal powerplant pump out some dark smoke. Looking further up the river the power plant has plenty of friends, with different kinds of factories and smokestacks dotting the landscape as far as the eye can say. The industrial photographer in me says “this is heaven”, if heaven were a cold, grey, collection of old industrial buildings.

Coincidentally, with all the news over the past few weeks about the mining disaster in the US, Kemerovo is a coal mining city. When I heard this I asked if we could visit any type of mining shrine or museum, and to my great pleasure my wonderful hostess said “Of course!” – and off we went.

It is an odd reality in an era of so much talk about the need for energy alternatives and green technology, and all the possibilities that exist, coming to Kemerovo is a reminder that while green is good and green is needed, coal is still king for a huge part of the world. As the bus pulls past the coal plant, my eyes are fixed on the sagging tunnels and the never ending system of pipes. A giant poster on the side of the building features an image of a smiling toddler, although its in Russian, I know what the poster says – “making a clean world for your healthy children!”

bmtv107 Hello Tomsk

First video entry from me here in Siberia. Standing in a park in downtown Tomsk just assessing how the trip is going and what plans have been made for the next few days.