To Find The Future, Turn Left At The Dead Cat 

Eric Ellis Ulan Bator 

04/24/1996 

PROGRESS in Mongolia may well be measured by the removal of a frozen cat.

For a year, an unfortunate puss with a severe case of rigor mortis has provided Ulan Bator residents with a macabre landmark.

The cat became such a fixture that directions were often given by the proximity to the very obvious carcass lying near the official buildings around Suhbataar Square, Ulan Bator's answer to Moscow's Red Square.

But last week he was cleaned up, immediately becoming the topic of much discussion for the few that brave the many discomforts of the climatically challenged Mongolia.

Civic pride may not be a top priority for the country that was cast involuntarily from the Soviet embrace when Moscow's empire collapsed in 1991.

Desperately poor, Mongolia is having a tougher time than most former communist states in adjusting to the rigours of the post-Cold War world.

Wedged between a weakened Russian patron and a strengthening China presumed to covet its vast but untapped natural resources, Ulan Bator is eagerly looking for "third neighbours" to see it through these tough times.

"We want to take our place in the Asian ascendancy," says Mr Khumbagyn Olvoy, director of policy co-ordination at Mongolia's foreign ministry.

It's difficult to see how. Mongolia's economy is barely worth $1 billion, and a population of just 2.2 million people hardly make it a must for the international trader.

Since the Russians bailed out from their annual infusions, the Mongolian economy has contracted by as much as 30 per cent. Only in the past year has it begun turning around by 2.5 per cent. And that was helped in large part by foreign aid. The Coca-Cola trading culture that is a hallmark of developing Asia has yet to make its mark in Mongolia.

But there are silver linings. One might be Mr Luvsanvandan Bold, chairman of Bodi International Company Ltd and a member of Mongolia's new rich.

To get to Bodi's office, one goes left at the dead cat to the old Palace of Culture, now filling up with foreign company representative offices.

The animal theme continues, to step over entrails of indeterminate origin to the front door, past a stray cow munching the contents of an abandoned rubbish skip. The smell of boiling mutton, ubiquitous in Mongolia, which has a sheep-to human ratio double that of New Zealand, pervades the office right up to Mr Bold's door.

But inside, it's all high-tech. Mr Bold's business card says he can be contacted by e-mail and around the room, plans of what he hopes will soon be "the tallest building in Mongolia, Siberia and Manchuria" are posted on the walls.

He's working the mobile phones in four languages, adorned in a suit and haircut obviously sharper than most of his hirsute compatriots. The keys to a Mercedes lie on his desk.

"I am not rich," Mr Bold claims, "but I soon will be with this building."

East German-educated in "socialist business administration," 35-year-old Mr Bold owns 33 per cent of Bodi, which he claims has annual sales of $US10 million and profits of about $US2 million from mining, banking and financial services, construction and trading.

"There is a lot of potential in Mongolia," he says. Much of that potential is probably buried under a land that geologists reckon is as much as 90 per cent unexplored.

The Erdenet copper mine north of Ulan Bator provides 64 per cent of Mongolia's foreign exchange reserves but a spokesman for the US oil group Nescor reckons if its prospect in the Gobi Desert bears fruit, "Mongolia's economy will double overnight".

The State mining company Erdes has a mine in the Bayangol (it means rich river) region in central Mongolia, and director general Mr Myataviyn Damdinsuren says the 1.5 metre thick seam sits just 15 metres beneath the surface.

"We need modern excavators, trucks that a foreigner could pay for. There is $US6 million profit a year for 20 years for a foreign partner here." If it sounds alluring, Mongolia's hardships are something to consider.

Temperatures get as low as 40 below zero and people have perished from frostbite in June, Mongolia's summer.

Entertainment consists largely of the occasional opera and a few restaurants. The big night for expatriates is a Friday night at the British Embassy's bar before kicking on to the Green Club, so named because everything about its decor is slime-green.

The sizeable foreign aid community raved about the Green Club as a place where one could get a good meal. Turned out it was microwaved frozen pizza from Australia, washed down with beer or vodka.