Алтайский вестник №1 (7), 2005

— Mr. Nyamdavaa, right after you became the governor of Hovdskiy aimak you visited the Altai territory and the Republic Altai. For Russian people it is a sign of friendly relations both between our territories and our countries. It is an honor for us that you spared your time to pay us a visit. How do you find your visit?

— I place high emphasis on the relations between Hovd aimak, the Altai territory and the Republic Altai. Russians are traditionally very congenial for Mongolians. My sympathy with Russian Altai is closely related to its beauty. I have been to the mountainous parts of the Republic Altai several times and I keep admiring them. That is why the first foreign country I visited as a governor was Russia. I’m really satisfied with the results of the visit. We signed a protocol on our further collaboration and discussed issues on economic, cultural, healthcare and educational cooperation.

— How are scientific contacts developing?

— I am a geographer and I realize the importance of scientific knowledge in effective steady development of the region and in preservation of its natural recourses. Mongolian scientists take part in different joint expeditions and scientific conferences annually. Since 1995 international conferences have been held every other year. There participate scientists from Mongolia, Russia, China, Kazakhstan, the USA, Germany, Japan and other countries. For example right now together with scientists from German Greifswald University we carry out a joint project aimed at estimating the changes in pasture grounds of Western Mongolia by the example of Hovd aimak.

— What is the mission of Scientific Documentation Center of western Mongolia that was opened in the beginning of March in Hovd?

— The center will work on scientific and economic grounds for expediency of various economic activities in Western Mongolia. For example Hovd aimak is more suitable for cultivating crops. Another very important project is building the so called “Millennium Road” that will connect the east and the west of Mongolia. Three very important parts if the road will meet in Hovd: the road from the eastern part of the country, the road to the Republic Altai and the road to Xinjiang Uygur autonomous region of China. One more promising way for the region to prosper lies in tourism development. All this opens up possibilities for cooperation with Russian tourist agencies that can invest in building up and running necessary infrastructure. The government of Hovd aimak is ready to give investors considerable tax and duty remissions. There is an airport in Hovd that is ready to be launched. It will be an international one and will receive flights from Urumshi and Novosibirsk at first.

— Mr. Governor, what is your view on the role of International Coordinating Counsel “Our Common Home Altai” in region’s development?

— Being a scientist, I strongly support this project and strongly believe that its work is of great importance. Altai is really our common home. The use of its natural resources in most cases results in nature degradation. That is why we should study each other’s experience and put only the most apt scientifically grounded decisions into practice. For example a state programme “One Thousand Solar Batteries” is being successfully realized in Mongolia. The lifestyle of most of Mongolians makes it a problem to provide them with permanent electricity supply. The only source of electricity for such families is portable solar batteries that are produced in Japan or China.

— Mr. Nyamdaava, our web-site material is accessible for the whole word. You have a perfect opportunity to address our readers.

— Your site is the most informative internet resource that covers the life in Western Mongolia. Being a governor of Hovd aimak I will do my best to develop more open relations in the region. If people have less communication barriers it will be easier for them to establish relations in the sphere of economics and culture. Teachers and amateur art groups should be able to travel abroad freely. It also concerns businessmen, as it is better for them to come to an agreement without extra middlemen. In this case everyone will win.

Euroasian Approach
and Geopolitical Processes
in Southern Siberia and Central Asia

On behalf of the editors

In this issue we publish a part of a work dedicated to Chingishan that was written in 1930s by prince N.S. Trubetskoi, an outstanding theorist in Eurasia. Though our views on personality and life of this great conqueror have considerably altered, we find it important to publish this fragment. It enlightens “eurasiality” of Chigishan’s image and his behavior motives, which made conquered nations support him.

N.S. Trubetskoi

Not Western but Eastern View on Russian History^1[57]

Chingishan was not only an outstanding conqueror but a great organizer. He took into consideration not only narrow practical issues of a particular moment but superior principles and ideas that were interwoven into harmonious system. He couldn’t formulate this system, but he felt it and had a perfect idea of it. Whatever he did logically followed this system.

Chingishan made high moral demands of his citizens. He mostly appraised and encouraged such virtues as faithfulness, loyalty and firmness. Betrayal, treason and cowardness were the vices that he mostly despised and hated. These virtues and vices were the features according to which he divided all people into two categories. People of one type valued wealth and security more than self-dignity and respect, that is why they are likely to be coward and to betray others. Chingishan despised such kind of people and grimly exterminated them. He had to dethrone a great number of tsars, princes and rulers. Very often among the trusted of such rulers there were betrayers, who contributed to Chingishan’s victory and success by their treason. But he never rewarded those betrayers for their favour, more over he ordered to execute all the grandees who betrayed their masters. On the other hand, those who remained loyal to their former masters were rewarded and favoured. Being faithful and firm those people formed such a psychological type, on the basis of which Chingishan wanted to build his state system.

People of this type value their dignity higher than their security and wealth. Kneeling before their internal moral law, they prove to be religious, as they perceive the world as a system where everything has its own place that greatly depends on duties and responsibilities. When a person of such type obeys to his immediate master he doesn’t obey to him personally, but to a part of divine hierarchy that he sees in him. He cannot admit treason and betrayal. Chingishan himself belonged to such people. Even after he had become an absolute ruler of an enormous state he still perceived himself as a tool in God’s hands.

This psychological division of people into two types was Chingishan’s main criteria in state construction. He controlled people of slave type by means of material wellbeing and fear, but he never let them rule. The whole military-administrative body included people of the second psychological type, who were arranged into harmonious hierarchy headed by Chigishan.

Another important feature of Chingishan’s state was the role of religion. Disciplined warriors, who could submit to their masters as well as rule over their subordinate and at the same time preserved their self-respect and consequently respected others, could be only under control of something immaterial, supernatural. Slaves, on the contrary, were subordinated to earthy fear, earthy wellbeing, and earthy vanity. Strongly believing in this idea Chingishan valued only sincerely religious people in his state. But Chingishan never imposed any particular religion on his people. It was important for him that all his loyal people were religious. That’s why he was not simply tolerant to different religions in his state, but actively supported all those faiths.

We tried to reveal Chingishan’s ideological essence of his theory of state so that to obliterate an absolutely wrong perception of Chingishan as a mere enslaver, conqueror and destroyer. Chingishan implemented a great and positive idea, and in his activities an aspiration to create and organize prevailed over destruction. We should be aware of this fact when acknowledging historical Russia as a successor of Chingishan’s state. It is absurd to write Russian history of the Tatar yoke period forgetting the fact that Russia of those times was a province of a big state. Meanwhile most Russian historians did it this very way. That’s why the influence of Mongolian State system remains absolutely obscure. It is recognized that Russia was engaged in Mongolian State’s fanatical system. Alongside with finance Tatars involved Russia into Mongolian national postal service net. It is clear that Russia must have also absorbed Mongolian State spirit. The Tatar State idea was unacceptable as it was alien and hostile. But it was a great idea that possessed an irresistible magnetic power. As a result the only way out was to detach its Mongolian character, to bind it with Orthodoxy and to declare it Russian. That was the way Mongolian idea of State system turned into Russian Orthodoxy one.



On behalf of the editors

We publish here a fragment of an essay written in 1935 by N.K. Roerich^1[58], an outstanding Russian painter, traveler, thinker and public man, who visited Altai in 1926. His love to Asia and the Altai Mountains as its heart was inspiring Roerich and his family while they were far away from their motherland. They especially cherished Mongolian sister nation, whose boundless steps and mountains stretched from Far-Eastern territories up to Altai, in whose nomads' camps the winds of long wanderings are blowing, and sands and Goby stones keep the heritage of ancient cultures. Nature purity and the purity of a seeking heart are those eternal values that Mongolians sacrifice to a new coming civilization.

N.K. Roerich

Naran Obo^2[59]

In the country where people are quick-witted, entrails are preserved, where cattle-breeding, farming and different kinds of trades are likely to improve, is it possible that there are ones who would like these resources to be destroyed? Of course now the whole world witnesses unrest. Everything is as intense now as it is when completing a tower building or launching a huge vessel. The search of a new world, a new life, new happiness forces its way through unrest and uncertainty. Much has vanished, much has weakened and much needs to be rebuilt. There is intensive search of cooperation forms. People understand that any kind of isolation like imprisonment doesn’t give a way to expansion, light and the sun.

In such times each desire for peaceful culture structuring sounds appalling. Now Mongolia wants to develop. That very Mongolia that filled out so many fabulous pages in the history of mankind. It will be a pity if in the course of this construction original Mongolian roots would be forgotten and someone would forcibly intrude something alien. On the contrary it is of great importance to realize the true value of local material and to use all creative friendliness to erect a new building on a true expedient basis.

One should only hear that sincere delight with which each Mongolian pronounces a divine name of Chingishan, the way they recollect Timur, Ugdei, Kubilai and other constructors, who were both dreadful and peace loving, and drew attention of the whole world.

Generally it is Marco Polo who is quoted. But he wasn’t the only one who left a record of the country’s prosperity. I have already pointed out how precise and abundant Chinese travellor’s descriptions of present day deserts are. The described places were thriving at those times. Archeological excavations show that they really could have prospered. This makes it easy to realize that there will be a brighter dawn in new renascence.

Those who will point at severe conditions of the region should be reminded that these severe conditions often served as an impulse for construction. Scandinavian conditions are at times really inclement, but it was in that place where invincible Viking spirit was shaped. In spite of all terrible tornados and sand-spouts a high culture of Maya developed on both American continents. Human being is physically boundless.

New creations shouldn’t awake aspiration only for selfish attempts to make a fortune and to suppress personalities. On the contrary the idea of construction will always be a bright, collective and benevolent phenomenon. Mongolia is not going to build illusive Babylon tower. The country naturally wants to improve and strengthen. No miracles are required for such a construction. The riches of the country will guarantee its to-be wealth. Each educated person will be just glad to hear that one more construction and improvement takes place even in our hart times.



On behalf of the editors

V.V. Kozhinov (1930-2001) is one of the most outstanding Russian thinkers of the second part of the 20^th century. He was a brilliant literary critic and made a great contribution in popularization of Russian literature. Having taken the USSR collapse really hard and denying destructive western ideology V.V. Kozhinov made a tremendous attempt to reapprehend the history of Russia as the history of a great Eurasian power, to reveal the complexity of its relations with European countries that were always afraid of Russia and Asian territories. His investigations resulted in a series of historical works (“The History of Russia and Russian word”, “Russia. The XX century. 1917-1939”, “Russia. The XX century. 1939-1964”). Vadim Valerianovich highlighted his own key points in the understanding of Eurasia. We publish one of his articles on this problem.

V.V. Kozhinov

“My name will be mentioned in every language…”

… Let’s turn to the problem of Asia, a deep comprehension of which is a particularly hard, vital and urgent issue. The thing is that for 200 years of active “europenism” our awareness was influenced by European perception of Asia. Dostoevskii anxiously spoke about it before the death. It is distinctly reflected in Russian perception of Tatar-Mongolians that was formed in the 18-19^th centuries. Tatar-Mongolians were considered to be the core of Baty-khan Empire and his descendents, under vassal bondage of which Russia was from 13^th till 15^th century. As a matter of fact there is no distinct difference between this empire and Charles the Great Empire, who subordinated European territories from Pyrenean to Danube, people from Arabs to Czechs (the later Charles V Empire can also serve as an example). But according to Europeans’ opinion Asian Empire was something different, something fragrant, and what is more, disgraceful, just because it dealt with Asians.

Since 18^th century this perception of Asians has to a certain extend influenced Russian awareness. Russia had never before had such a specific attitude towards Asians, particularly towards Mongolians.

It is significant that in “The Tale of Ryazan Devastation by Baty-khan” which is penetrated with piercing pain the image of Mongolian chief is not deprived of human features… nevertheless, it doesn’t mean that the conqueror is justified. “The Tale of Ryazan Devastation by Baty-khan” is permeated with endless struggle against conquerors, as well as other works of Russian literature of 13-15^th centuries that describe Mongolian invasion. But at the same time Russians didn’t divide nations into European and Asian; all the invaders were unacceptable, it didn’t matter whether they were German knights or Mongolian bagaturs. The attitude towards invaders was determined in Russian mind by the fact that they were invaders, but it didn’t lead to hostility or detachment of any nation and its representatives.

It is also remarkably revealed in the fate of Baty’s descendents in Russia. As we know Russia had become completely free from Tatar-Mongolian regime by 1480, after Ahmat, a Grand Khan of Golden Horde, escaped from the Ugra riverside. And just in 50 years Shah-Ala (Shigalei), who was the son of Ahmat’s nephew, became a prominent Russian commander of the whole army during Libonese and Lithuanian wars. Ahmat’s great-grandson Sain-Bulat (Simeon Bekbulatovich) was appointed the Head of Boyard Duma and obtained a title of “Grand Prince of Russia”. These are just two most vivid examples. Such fate is quite typical for representatives of non-Russian nations. Kabardinian prince Cherkasskii, for instance, practically ruled the country in the times of Mihail Fyodorovich. Nikita Minov, a Mordvinian, was Russian patriarchy Nikon, Yusupov, a Nogaien, was the Head of Russian Military Board at the beginning of 18th century. The fate of Russian bitterest enemies’ descendents vividly reveals the human nature of Russian character. <…>

Let’s turn to more considerable issue such as the interpretation of the greatest historical battle of Kulikovo in literature and publications. Quite often it is depicted as a fatal and inevitable feud between Russia and Asia, as “a battle between continents”. It is only recently that the historical importance of the impact and the true character of the battle have received a broad understanding.

In his excellent book “Dmitri Donskoi” (from a series “Life of outstanding People”) Yuri Loshin points out that the battle of the 8^th of September 1380 wasn’t a battle between two nations, but had a world-wide historical importance. It was a struggle of already multinational Russia against aggressive cosmopolitan armada that had no right to act on behalf of any Russian neighbouring nations... We shouldn’t forget that commanding officers of two out of six regiments were Andrei Cherkizovich and Semyon Melik, Tatars who served Dmitri Donskoi and heroically fell in action.

L.N. Gumiliov also made an attempt to solve various problems that are somehow connected with the battle of Kulikovo. He reveals that Horde’s policy was based on “the patronage of slavery and merchants of different races…. and the principle of pure profit”, that Mamai was practically guided not by the Golden Horde’s upper ten but “by merchant civilization, to put it bluntly, by international profiteers who established trade routes to deliver slaves to intermediary Genoese offices”. First of all it concerns “Genoese colony Kafe (todays Feodosia), a gigantic slave-trade centre of those times, that hosted thousands of slaves. It is quite reasonable why Mamai escaped to Kafe after he was devastated. But he was robbed and annihilated by his own inspirers and creditors, who had no moral values.

To sum up, the battle of Kulikovo, which is usually considered to be a Russian resistance to a specifically Asian attack, was primarily the struggle of Russian people against the world-wide cosmopolitan aggression. The aggressive Mamai’s policy was greatly determined by interests and policy of “international profiteers” from Genoa and Kafe (who as we know didn’t send their high quality mercenary infantry to support Mamai).

So there is no reason to view the battle of 1380 as a fight against Mongolians. The battle of Kulikovo was not against a certain nation, but against “dark” powers of those times.

Novosibirsk

In 1999 members of ethnosocial research branch of Philosophy and Law Institute (Siberian department) together with colleagues from Siberian republics launched a megaproject “Eurasian nations in the Context of Present-days Reforms”.

Siberia reflects Russian Eurasian character in full measure. That is why the results of research on social changes, which take place in the region due to present-day market reforms that involve ethnosocial development, can be considered to represent the situation in the whole country.

The development of Russia for the past 13 years can be on the whole estimated as “westernasation”, to be more precise “americanisation” of the country. Meanwhile ethnosocial processes in Siberia are of a destructive character.

The quality of population has decreased as a result of high sickness rate, alcoholism, drug addiction, tuberculosis, nervous and psychological disorders. Suicide rate is also high. A family crisis has arisen. We witness more divorces, illegitimate births, the number of one parent families has increased. More mentally or physically disabled children are born. The number of work places has been considerably reduces, which resulted in unemployment increase. The variety of employment fields narrowed up to such traditional economic activities as gathering wild plants, stocking up raw materials, hunting, fishing and cattle breeding. In socio-cultural development alongside with the growth of national consciousness, reinforcement of national concern in national languages, culture and nation history, one can observe the display of nationalism and separatism, ethno phobias and ethnocentrism, national nihilism and intolerance.

It influenced not only financial and social position of inhabitants but the public awareness state, its system of values and mental structures. Research workers’ opinions on the correlation between different types of values in the public awareness structure differ. For instance V. N. Tishkov, Ethnology and Anthropology Institute of Russian Academy of Science Director, considers that now individualistic and liberal values are dominating in Russian national awareness. Analyzing the results of certain investigations, V.E. Semionov comes to the conclusion that individualistic values take only 3% in the mentality of present-day Russian youth.

The results of our investigation also show that individualistic values do not prevail nowadays. The majority of the population place collectivism above individualism. They prefer community property to private one, sense of collectivism and mutual aid as a factor of nation development to individualism and personal private business, public order to extension of personal liberties. Representatives of inquired nations prefer government’s interest in public welfare to personal enterprise, constancy and stability to changes and novelty, controlled market to unrestricted competition and planned economy. Entrepreneurship and business were marked as an ethnic separation factor.

 

The Perspectives

Hovd State University, Mongolia

In July 2003 scientists and professors of Hovd State University organized a research expedition within a scientific and technical project “Ecological and Geographical Estimation of Mountain Mongolian Altai Region”. The following route was taken: Snow Tsambagarav (4193m) — mountain Sayr (3984m) — Huyten peak (4374m) — the Tabin-Bogdo-Ula mountains — Legendary Potanin glacier and the White river — mountain Bayan (3442m) — the Big Turgen mountain ridge (3507m) — Tsengel Hairhan (3943m) — Hag pass (3100m). All in all the expedition members overpassed 1500 km in Western Mongolia.

During our expedition we managed to explore ecological and climatic condition of the Altai mountain zone, to collect rich scientific and educational material on Mongolian Altai naturo-phisical and ecological processes.

Natural processes that are observed on Potanin glacier are of a particular interest nowadays. Having overpassed a difficult 15km way in mountain tundra zone on foot we managed to reach the glacier (3244m) that originates from Huyten peak of the Tabin-Bogdo-Ula Mountains (4374m). The glacier valley stretches for 20 km and turns into a river, the water of which is as white as snow. That might be the reason why it is called “White”.

Potanin glacier is being subjected to heavy erosion. Water is the main factor of erosion process. Showers and snow melting cause irreversible glacier erosion. The ice resembles a complicated architectural construction that can be seen only in the movies. I find glacier very much like a human being. Like man’s hair gets thinner in the course of time, glacier’s surface dissolves and as a result of enduring climatic effects it gradually turns into a sieve. The dust coverage of glacier surface is another interesting phenomenon. The glacier suffers from this dust coverage as the dust powder accumulates warmth that in its turn accelerates erosion process.

With the assistance of local Kazakh inhabitants we were lucky to view one of the most beautiful waterfalls on the river Malii Turgen (Tsengel samon territory, Bayan-Ulguy aymak). The water falls from 33m hight, making two-stage whirls. To be more precise it forms 2 waterfalls: a big one and a small one. The water shimmers in the air with the whole range of rainbow colours. The river Malii Turgen runs through a geologically unique rocky gorge, which is rich in various rare plants and animals. Malii Turgen falls are one of the biggest waterfalls in our country.

We are planning new interesting investigations and routes for new expeditions that are supposed to make incredible discoveries in such scantily explored and unique part of the world as Western Mogolia.