Do you miss the old days?

Day: 297

Sunrise:
05:27

Sunset:
21:09

Total kilometers:
1361

Soil condition:
Ice, snow

Temperature – Day (maximum):
10°C

Temperature – day (minimum):
3°C

Temperature – Night:
minus 3°C

Latitude:
51°39’155”

Longitude:
099°21’977”

Maximum height:
1858 m above sea level

While it has been snowing on and off for the last few days, today has been the first day of rain for nine months. Unbelievable but true. The ground soaks up the water gratefully and gives me a tart, earthy smell. I walk through the nearby forest and listen to the baby reindeer calling incessantly for their mothers. They are tied to roots and small trees. So the Tuwa are sure that the cows and their babies will not wander into the depths of the forest but stay with their children. This is also the reason why the Tuwa go into the mountains every day to collect lichen. They return in the evening to feed the reindeer cows.

Gray clouds push over the mountains from the northeast into our valley. The increasing rain forces me to hurry into our tipi as quickly as possible. It starts to rain in various places because of the terrible tent track. At first we laugh about it, but when the rivulets turn into small streams, I startle. “Oh no! A puddle has already formed on our mattress,” I curse and stick my finger through a small hole in the teepee skin. “Take the rubber glove. You can use it to seal the hole,” says Tanja and hands me the glove. Although I have already put two fingers of the glove into the hole, the wet flows unhindered onto our felt mat. I quickly place a thumb on the hole and remain in this position until Tanja brings me some waterproof tarpaulins from our tent, which is still standing next to the tipi. We immediately pull them through behind the tipi poles to prevent the rain from penetrating any further. “There will be some Tuwa who are no longer sitting in the dry,” I say and pull more tarpaulins behind the tipi poles. “It’s a good thing the rain didn’t catch us in the middle of the night,” says Tanja. “Life in the Tuwacamp remains exciting,” I reply.

Bilgee has been at his outdoor camp for days, feeding the horses and hunting with the small-caliber rifle he borrowed from Tso. Once he rode past briefly to stock up on fresh food. “Tuya is not well. He’s lying in the grass and getting thinner and thinner,” his message told us. Because Naraa is still lacking in energy and produces too little milk, her weakness has now spread to her foal. We can only hope that nature will finally provide us with fresh, green grass. This would give Naraa strength and perhaps stimulate the milk flow.

The small stream that used to flow merrily through our valley has completely dried up in places. Ultsan explains that it is fed exclusively by meltwater. This means that when the snow in the surrounding mountains has melted away, there will be no more water in our valley. We have to move on by then at the latest. We can only hope for more rain or snow, even though I long for sunshine and dry weather. Tanja uses the little water we have to wash our clothes. It was sorely needed as we last had the opportunity six weeks ago.

In the evening we visit Gamba and Purvee in their tipi, which is one of the last on the mountainside. We receive a friendly welcome and are served a bowl of tea with reindeer milk. We get chatting and because Tsaya is also present, we take the opportunity to ask Purvee a few questions. “When we first visited you in November last year and asked if we could spend a winter with you, you were very open and friendly. We’ll never forget that,” says Tanja. “That was a matter of course,” replies Purvee cheerfully. “We had a long chat with Puntsel recently. She told us her Tuvan name. Is Purvee your taiga name?” My Taiganame is Huwä and my real Mongolian name is Hurlee. My father didn’t speak Mongolian very well back then. When he enrolled me in school for the first time, he had difficulty pronouncing my Mongolian name and said Purvee by mistake. I have been called Purvee ever since. My mother didn’t speak Mongolian at the time. It was difficult because we couldn’t communicate with the Mongolians.” “We can well imagine that. It’s not easy to live in a country without speaking the language of its inhabitants,” Tanja confirms.

“How many children do you have?” she wants to know next. I have two boys and two girls. My youngest son did his military service until recently. He was released at the beginning of May. It is a great pleasure to see him again after such a long time. “We believe that.” “My eldest daughter has been married since last year and lives in Tsagaan Nuur and my youngest is studying veterinary medicine in Ulan Bator. You know Sansar, my eldest son. He lives with us in the taiga and is mom’s boyfriend.” “When your sons are called up for a year’s military service, aren’t they allowed to visit the family from time to time?” I wonder. “Ügüj.” (“No”) “Oh, that’s hard.” “Tijmee. (Yes) I missed my boy very much. In Mongolia, the youngest is always our favorite.” “I see,” Tanja replies and wants to know what the biggest change was for her between the old and the new times.

“After my parents’ generation, our entire lives changed. Coming to Mongolia changed everything. Hungon is the only thing that remains of our culture. We bake the round bread in the embers of our oven.” “The only thing?” I ask, startled. “Tijmee. Everything else has been forgotten.” “Isn’t it a painful feeling when your own culture no longer exists?” I ask. “When I’m out herding my reindeer, I always come across old campsites where my ancestors lived. Every time I think to myself how much everything has changed. Sometimes it depresses me a lot. Our bags were made of leather from wild animals and today we hardly have any of them.” “Were the old days better than today?” I ask. “There are many things that make our lives easier now. We used to have no light. Today we have batteries and solar panels with which we can charge our devices and also produce light. We are also able to go to Tsagaan Nuur from time to time to buy something. That’s good.” “Okay, I understand that. But compared to the old days. Which do you like better? Today or yesterday?” “Everything has changed since I was a child. Meanwhile, I’m used to modern life. I’d rather live in the present than in the past.” “Do you ever think that life in Tsagaan Nuur would be easier than out here in the taiga?” asks Tanja. “Oh, when we are very old and can no longer herd reindeer, we will have to live in Tsagaan Nuur near the hospital. The time will come when we have to leave the taiga.” “But right now it’s nice for you to live here in the forest?” “When you’re young and healthy, I can’t imagine a better life. But once I have to live in Tsagaan Nuur, I will be very bored and miss the taiga life.”

“Was there vodka in the Tuwacamp in the old days?” I ask. “Ügüj. There was no alcohol in those days. Nobody drank vodka.” “We noticed that people were dying relatively early on average. Did people get older earlier?” I want to know. “Tijmee. People used to live to be 70 years old on average.” “So people of today’s generation die earlier?” “We have very, very short lives. Even young people are dying. In the old days, people rarely died early. Only old age took away our loved ones.” “So even though you supposedly had simpler food back then, you got older?” I interject. “Tijmee.” “Did you actually have flour?” “Tijmee. We had Russian flour and hunted wild animals.” “That means that although life was much harder back then than it is today, you grew older. That’s very interesting,” I ponder. “In the old days, we didn’t eat much flour, we didn’t have oil, salt, alcohol and things like that, but we drank a lot of reindeer milk. The bad food and vodka made us die earlier.”

“How do you see your future?” asks Tanja. “Our children will go on.” “Will they own reindeer too? Or will that stop one day?” “Sometimes I think our children like life in civilization more than out here in the taiga. If this continues to increase, there will be no more reindeer nomads. Everything is changing and developing so fast these days.” “That sounds very sad,” I say.

“What was it like during the time of the communist government?” asks Tanja. “At that time, we had almost nothing. We had candles and days without food. Today, we cook with light and are able to watch the news every day.” “Why do you use fewer reindeer products today than you did back then?” I ask. “Back then, one family owned over 200 reindeer. Today, East Taiga families own 10 to 15 animals. That’s why we had a lot of milk back then, a lot of cheese, everything.” “Why do you have so few animals today? Is it still due to the catastrophe in the 90s?” “Tijmee, the terrible disease destroyed a large part of our herds. This epidemic came from Russia. Before this epidemic, we were able to slaughter many of the reindeer for meat.” “Surely reindeer meat is good?” I ask. “Tijmee. That was the reason why we rarely had to buy flour and rice. We made shoes and our deels from the leather. There were no bad deels made in the factory.” “A deel made from reindeer hide must have been very good?” “Oh, very good. We sewed it ourselves. They were very nice. Today there isn’t a single reindeer skin deel left.”

“Nowadays, many people visit the Tuwacamp. Many out of sheer curiosity. Mongolian tradition demands hospitality. So you have to provide the many guests with tea, bread and food. None of the guests seem to think about how difficult it is for you to get water and how time-consuming and expensive it is to transport flour to the taiga, for example. Does that sometimes get a bit too much for you?” Tanja wants to know. “The visitors make our day interesting. It’s a welcome change for us.” “So it’s not a burden?” “Ügüj.” “Well, I could imagine more and more jade seekers coming to your winter camp in the future and using your camp as a stopover. That would also be an abuse of hospitality,” I point out. “Oh yes, of course. If it gets too bad then it will be a burden. As long as we have meat and flour, it’s not a problem, but if we run out, that would be worrying.” “But maybe the mine will be closed and the problem won’t affect you at all,” I wipe away the unpleasant scenario, to which Purvee laughs heartily.

“Do you use special plants from the taiga to make soap for washing your hair, chewing gum or glue?” asks Tanja. “Ha, ha, ha. When we were kids, there was no candy. Tree resin was like candy to us. We liked that. There are also plants that we used to make a kind of soap.” “But you don’t do that anymore?” I ask. “Yes, yes, we still chew tree resin.” “Is that healthy?” I ask. “They say the resin is good for toothache.” “And do you use detergent to wash your hair?” “Sometimes we collect plants to make soap or look for a bush that makes hair grow better and softens it. Especially when we’re out and about with the reindeer.” “That’s fascinating. Can you take me with you when you look for the plants?” asks Tanja. “I’d love to.” “I’m interested too,” I say, to which she laughs heartily. “If you rub it on your chest, you’ll get hair like a bear. Hi, hi, hi,” she replies again, laughing. “I have enough hair on my chest, but there’s less on my head. Ha, ha, ha,” I reply, after which we all laugh heartily. “When my parents were still alive, we children always had to wash our hair with this plant. It would make your hair much longer, Denis.” “Oh yes. When I come back to Germany, people will ask; what kind of strange woman is she?” I joke, to which we laugh heartily again. “Yes, you would make a beautiful woman,” she replies. “A beautiful woman with a beard. Ha, ha, ha.”

“Surviving in the taiga requires many tasks such as melting snow, chopping wood, baking bread and looking after the reindeer. Do you have any other tasks that we don’t know about?” asks Tanja. “Tijmee. We make cords from horsehair for our reindeer and process leather into bags. But the leather is very thick and the Chinese sewing needles don’t go through. That makes it difficult. The Chinese needles break all the time,” she complains.

“Do the Mongolians treat you differently because you are Tuwa? Is there some kind of racism against you?” asks Tanja. “Ügüj, we don’t feel anything like that.” “What’s your favorite food?” “Buuz.” “Buuz?” I ask. “Tijmee.” “Well then, let’s wait for the next Tsagaan Saar. Ha, ha, ha,” I laugh, whereupon we all laugh together again and remember the last big festival. “What is your greatest wish?” asks Tanja. Purvee thinks for a while and answers; “I wish that my children stay healthy, have a long life and don’t have to face many problems.” “That’s a good wish. A wish that many parents have for their children,” I reply.

“Do you have any questions for us? You can ask anything you like,” Tanja offers. “Do you have needles in your country?” “What kind of needles do you mean?” “Sewing needles?” “Yes, of course we have something like that. But our sewing machines are very modern. The needles certainly don’t fit in your machine.” “I can imagine. In a country with so much development, the old machines are forgotten.” “Yes, nobody needs or uses them anymore,” I reply. “Be glad you still have an old Russian sewing machine. If something breaks, you can still repair it. With modern machines, such as cars, kitchen appliances or other technical devices, this is often no longer possible,” explains Tanja. “That’s the problem with modern machines. In our society, many appliances are thrown away at the slightest damage because repairs are often very expensive. This development is helping to destroy our planet,” I explain.

We’ve asked you a lot of questions about your life. Don’t you have any questions about our lives?” I follow up. Purvee thinks again for a few minutes. Then she says, “If I think of a question, I’ll ask it.” “That’s a good answer,” I reply.

“Now that you’ve traveled back to your country, are you planning to visit us again?” “It’s a small world. There is a saying that you should meet at least twice in a lifetime. We will continue our journey in Mongolia on bicycles. Maybe we’ll manage to visit you again then. But we don’t know for sure,” I reply. “I’m convinced we’ll see each other again,” she says with a laugh.

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