Dornogovi Province Map of Mongolia

The Dornogovi Province also known as the Dornogovi aimag is a massive land in the eastern part of Mongolia located in the Gobi desert. It is among the provinces in the country covering a total land area of about 109,472 km. Its population is sparse, by virtue of its size-it densely inhabited with approximately 68,000 to 70, 000 residents and Sainshand is, therefore, a vital original point of life and transportation.

Dornogovi is located on the Chinese frontier and since its foundation in 1931 has acted as strategic gateway; it borders Inner Mongolia and anchors significant stretches along the Trans-Mongolian Railway. The climate of the place is characterised by the contrast extremities of the desert steppe: hot summers, cold winters and the lack of surface water, except some of the rare hideaways and mineral springs.

History

Dornogovi Province, formed in 1931 as one of the first to be established in the early administrative reorganization of Mongolia. It was a region that has served as the gateway and a terrain of endurance in the southeastern end of the country. Located along the border with Chinese Inner Mongolia, this dry steppe region came about as a necessity-as a region that linked the growing cities with the expansiveness of the Gobi.

During the early periods, the province was not a very populated place with the nomadic herders adapting themselves to extremely harsh conditions of the desert. The cultural foundation of the land rested on its traditional lifestyles which revolved around camel and goat movements in search of water that was scarce in the areas.

Dornogovi became a transit hub in the 20th century as a result of the Trans-Mongolian Railway. Dornogovi was made a logistical crossroads with Sainshand as the provincial capital and contact with Ulaanbaatar as well as China, on this rail linkage.

The capital, Sainshand, emerged as a good centre of merchandise, culture, and government administration. Besides its role as an economic hub, it solidified this as a storeplace of museums like the Sainshand City Museum and the Danzanravjaa Museum- exemplifying the legacy of the region and the Mongolian spiritual and artistic culture outside and beyond it.

The province gained fame in archaeology as far as paleontological wealth was concerned. It was the Flaming Cliffs (Bayan Zag), near Sainshand, which proved to be a treasure-trove of dinosaur fossils and made Dornogovi a focus of scientists and explorers. Even this history is echoed in the symbolism of the province as a dinosaur shapes its flag.

Economically and politically, as industrialization was really not at all that powerful, Dornogovi started to gradually enjoy benefits of the mining industry, minor manufacturing, and improvements of the local infrastructure. Strategic pipeline plans expected to be built linking the province to eastern energy fields would lead to Dornogovi being pictured in the future in a different economic light.

Culture

Dornogovi Province: The culture of this province is associated with the long-standing traditions of the desert frontier of Mongolia, demonstrating the mixture of the nomadic countryside with spiritual power and the growth of modernity. Life in the Gobi desert has always necessitated endurance and this has been translated to the customs, values and practices of the people. Nomadic pastoralism is also the main activity as families rearing camel, goat, and sheep move across the arid steppes in pursuit of grazing grounds and water. Such a way of life creates a high sense of adaptability, hospitality and community that is an essence of local community.

Another factor that defines Dornogovos in terms of their culture is the spiritual traditions. Another attraction in the province is the Khamar Monastery which was founded by one of the most known monks and poet Danzanravjaa in the 19 th century. Not only was the monastery a religious center but it also became a center of education, theatre and literature, as it comprises a unique blend of Buddhism with the local artistic expressions. As a destination of pilgrimage, the site was ruined in the socialist purges but rebuilt later, deemed as a symbol of cultural survival.

Dornogovi values music, poetry and oral storytelling. Epic stories about nomadic heroism, accompanied by the throat-singing or the discordant tones of the horse-head fiddle (morin khuur) commemorate the past, and provide age-old entertainment amid desert nights. The contemporary artistic customs are bridged to centuries-old nomadic customs.

The modern elements can be traced in the culture of Sainshand, the capital of the province. Manuscripts, artifacts, and artworks that are significant to the spiritual and artistic tradition of the area are preserved in museums, such as the Danzanravjaa Museum. During public events and festivals, there is usually a celebration of the nomadic way of life as well as the relation of the province to the ecology of the Gobi.

Another such cultural feature in the Dornogovi culture is hospitality. Traditional food is offered in gers (yurts) to visiting guests and can include milk products, camel milk and meat dinners. Sharing not only food and shelter but a cultural mandate of extreme necessity arising due to the survival aspect of the vast desert is where cooperation becomes the key to survival.

Language

The center of the province's communication is Khalkha Mongolian as this is the national language of the majority. This variation is much closer to the Mongolian of Ulaanbaatar and all of Mongolia, and is used as the official language in the schools and government and in national media.

But Dornogovi also has some features of Gobi-steppe rhythm and speech cliches. Reflecting the nomadic history of the province, local language bears many metaphors, concerning desert survival, camel husbandry, and orientation by use of stars, and are transmitted across generations, particularly by the övgön (elders). These terms correspond to a civilization that learned how to obtain water in desolated lands and understand subliminal rhetoric of dune and wind.

There are few Chinese and Russian loan words in common use. Some Russian terms might still be familiar to older generations because of Soviet-era schooling, but in practice they are very little used, and Khalkha equivalents apply. Nor have the facilities of the province in connection with China, with the exception, perhaps, of a few cross-border traders and visitors, encouraging the use of Mandarin.

What really gives the province its desired linguistic panorama is the oral tradition Epic tales concerning the Gobi, such as Gobiin Magnai (or Gobi Harlaxui) (The Gobi Hero), are related by local storytellers in highly descriptive dialect forms. Animated by the khöömii (Gobi-style throat singing) and strangely exhaling morin khuur, these oral narratives place the vastness of the Gobi into a spoken performance.

In the more urbanized capital of Sainshand, Khalkha Mongolian is used most often in signs, school education, and official postings. Tourists should not have any problem with understanding Khalkha, with English and Russian knowledge being limited and mostly only in business, rather than common usage.

Geography

Dornogovi Province is geographically located in southeast Mongolia and it covers a huge area of the Gobi Desert. Being more than 109,000 square kilometers, it is one of the largest administrative units in the country but it is sparsely populated by the arid climate. It is dotted by broad gravel and dune surfaces, rocky hills, salt flats and oases are a feature used to provide essential resources.

The province is also a gateway between Mongolia and international trade routes since it borders China Inner Mongolia to the south. To north and west it borders with other Mongolian ones and forms a passage between the core of the steppe and the beginning of the Gobi. Its capital, Sainshand, is on the Trans-Mongolian Railway, the railroad linking Ulaanbaatar and Beijing.

Climatic conditions determine the bulk of the geographical features that exist in the province. Summers are terribly hot, and in winters there are sub-zero temperatures and chilling blast. Rainfall is extremely scanty, with rainfall of an average less than 200 millimeters a year; much of it comes in a few summer showers. Their habitat is largely covered in the above-mentioned hardy vegetation despite the scarcity of water sustaining herds of camels, goats, and sheep.

Wild life too has been able to cope with these extremes. The area is the habitation of the Mongolian gazelles, wild asses, ibex, and a variety of desert birds. The geographic isolation to some extent of the steppe and desert flatlands has maintained habitats but new environmental pressures are brought by modern mining and infrastructure construction.

The province is also internationally famous geologically in terms of having fossil deposits. There are sites found all over the desert that provide fossils of dinosaurs and their eggs and these attract paleontologists as well as adventure seekers. These finds suggest the prehistoric importance of Dornogovi, allowing us to look back in time into an ecosystem 1000 years ago that has long since been replaced by arid land.

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