UFO Info Week-End

In the times of Chinggis formerly known as Genghis Khan unifier of dwellers in

In the times of Chinggis (formerly known as Genghis) Khan, unifier of “dwellers in felt-walled tents”, gers were carried on wheeled platforms and pulled by teams of oxen Today, they are firmly set in the ground. Step into a ger and you enter a Tardis – but not just any old Tardis. If the precursor of the dog-on-a-string vagabond crusty is the nomad, then the prototype of the hippie bus is the nomad’s tent, which in Mongolia is called a ger. In the times of Chinggis (formerly known as Genghis) Khan, unifier of “dwellers in felt-walled tents”, gers were carried on wheeled platforms and pulled by teams of oxen Today, they are firmly set in the ground.

Step into a ger and you enter a Tardis – but not just any old Tardis.
The felt and canvas-covered skeleton of the ger feels like a womb. It envelops you in a muffled embrace, sheathing you from the steppe’s Siberian winters and the searing summer sun. Its profile punctures the mythically unending, undulating plains of this lost country Turned on its side, it even looks like a pregnant belly. There are no windows, only a dwarf door, and a cartwheel-sized opening in the roof, the tonoo Its two supporting posts symbolise a link with heaven.

Assembled in less than three hours, and able to rebuff the buran, the white winds of winter that course the plains of Central Asia, this perfect tent offers a lesson in design to sodden New Age festival-goers in Britain.In fact, today’s travellers would find much to learn from the inhabitants of this vast, underpopulated land Their self-reliance and animal husbandry are legendary. I saw little boys as young as three riding horses with their older brothers.Living in scattered family units, nomads migrate with the seasons; their language boasts no fewer than 40 words for “pasture”. They move on cyclical journeys determined by the elements, and believe that ploughing and planting defile the earth spirit. When the Soviets set about collectivising farms in the 1930s, many fiercely independent herdsmen chose to slaughter their animals rather than hand them over to the state.

Now, a decade since the fall of Communism, the nomads are coming to terms with the market economy.In the dim penumbra, a shiny kettle wheezes on a battered stove. My hostess, Ayurza, on the Zimmer side of 70, squats on a small chair. She counts the names of her grandchildren on her fingers, looking up to the tonoo now and again for inspiration. “Sixteen,” she finally concludes with a chuckle.A good number of her clan smile out from the two large photo frames that take pride of place on the dresser to my left Next to them lies an array of Buddhist paraphernalia. Around the wooden trellis walls are reins and bridles, household implements, the odd piece of clothing and a plastic pink toothbrush holder. Everything wooden is painted in garish orange, blue, red, pink and green The tent was a wedding present from Ayurza’s brother. Its paint has faded and worn as, I imagine, has her love for her husband.