The Russian Cemetery

The Russian Cemetery is about an hour's walk from my house, behind the hill with the ovoo on it. For over 70 years there was a Russian military base a few miles to the west of Choibalsan. The Russians used Mongolia as a buffer between themselves and China, but in 1990 (I think) the order came from Moscow to pull out, and overnight, with literally no warning at all, the whole base, with a population of about 70,000 was evacuated. So sudden was their departure, that even children who were staying with Mongolian friends were left behind.

The town now has a large population of stray dogs who are quite friendly if wary of people. I have seen lots of people throwing scraps to the dogs. Many of them appear to be "almost" an actual breed - we often spot "almost a labrador", or "almost an alsatian". This, I now know, is because very recently in their genetic history they actually were pure breeds -these are offspring of the pets that the Russian people had to leave behind.

The cemetery is very small, for such a large population, but I am guessing that the population was relatively young, with troops stationed here for a few years and then went back home to live. When the ground is not covered in snow, you can see the graves - circles of white stones laid out very carefully in rows and columns. Presumably at one point there were grave markers with names and dates, but these have long since been recycled as firewood or building materials, though the actual graves are perfectly untouched. In fact, there is one grave half dug - presumably they had begun digging it one day, then that night the order for evacuation came ....

Yann and I went for a walk there last weekend, to take photographs of the winter sunset in the snow. It really was spectacular - perfect blue skies, all the pinks and oranges of the sunset reflected in the snow .... until the sun dipped below the horizon and the temperature absolutely plummeted. We were walking home as fast as we could in the short twilight, and I could feel my body getting colder : my head felt as if someone was pressing as hard as they could on either side of my skull. My hands were stinging. I couldn't feel my feet at all, and my legs were banging together as I walked. Just when I was about to start crying (I could really imagine dying of cold about half a mile from my house), a jeep stopped - a Mongolian friend of Yann's. He invited us back to his ger, and we thawed out round his stove, eating dried cheese and pickles and drinking warm milky tea. It was really lovely, really cosy. His three girls were watching cartoons on TV as his wife showed us their photo album - lots of snaps of the girls in dancing competitions at K#12, and a few of her husband in his army uniform. He had served in Iraq (he said it was not a bad place to be!), and also in Africa. I asked him where, and he thought for a moment before remembering "Siralone? Seralone?" ....