Potemkin villages

In 1787, the Russian Empress Catherine II embarked on a long journey from Saint Petersburg to see the city of Novorossiysk in the Crimean Peninsula, which had been taken over from the Ottoman Empire. The Empress was accompanied by her court and foreign ambassadors who wanted to see life in the Russian countryside. In order to impress the travelling group and hide the true reality, poverty, and underdevelopment, Prince Potemkin came up with an unorthodox idea. He had frames of windmills placed on the horizon, and set up villages close to the road. Potemkin also gathered good-looking peasants and ordered them to pretend preparing hay, doing trade, and having celebrations. All these acts were used at all stops. As a result, the Empress’ group was thoroughly impressed. That is why the Russians now use the phrase ‘Potemkin village’ to describe any action that deceives others into believing a situation is better than it really is.

The phrase can also be applied to many things happening in Mongolia. We are currently too focused on our external appearance without being able to truly understand or pay attention to internal reasoning. Those who are looking for political gains have used this situation to their advantages, and are pushing harder to deceive others.

For instance this Summer, tens of thousands of people spent a whole day in the stadium finding the Chinggis Khaan. The Chinggis Khaan turned out to be a Member of Parliament, who was staying silent waiting for the right moment to be ‘acknowledged’. After the national Naadam, a Danshig Naadam was organised on two occasions. The one that was held in Uvurkhangai province was funded with 500 million MNT from the public budget and 100 million MNT from the local budget.The Danshig Naadam for Ulaanbaatar was supported with a funding of 600 million MNT from the budget for the city. There is nothing wrong to mark a historical anniversary and attract tourists. However, it would be more appropriate if it was done by tour operator associations, companies, and businesses.

It is time to think and question whether it is a top priority or not when funding is about to be drawn down from the public and local budgets. For example, one of the issues that must be resolved urgently is the availability of water and sanitation facilities. Installing a water curtain on a bridge in Ulaanbaatar and improving sanitation facilities in ger districts are two fundamentally different issues that indicate different priorities.

The WHO / UNICEF Joint Monitoring Programme report tells us where we are in water supply and sanitation compared to our neighboring countries and some Asian nations.

Figure 1. Regional comparison of water and sanitation coverage in Mongolia and Asian countries

(^[1]http://www.wssinfo.org/ Joint Monitoring Programme (WHO/UNICEF) 2015)

Sixty percent of Mongolia’s population have access to normal or improved sanitation facilities whereas 65 percent are drinking water after sanitation. The gap between the rural and urban lifestyles is growing bigger and bigger. Sixty seven percent of urban population and only 43 percent of rural population have access to improved sanitation facilities.In other words, one third of our urban population use pit latrines. It is a disappointing number, especially when you realise that it decreased by only three percent in the last 15 years. In these statistics, we are doing far worse than North Korea.

In Mongolia, almost all high earners (99.8 percent) and 42 percent of the poor, which comprises 20 percent of total population, have access to improved drinking-water source. This lack of drinking-water availability is causing the greatest challenge in eradicating sources of infectious diseases and boosting hygiene.

Although Mongolia’s infant mortality rate is going down, 21 in 1000 infants are dying before the age of one (80 percent before becoming one month old). A study done at the maternity centre this year says that 50 percent of infant mortalities are caused by respiratory infection and 20 percent are due to availability of water and sanitation facilities.

When half of Ulaanbaatar’s population do not have access to a shower and use a pit latrine outside their home, it does not make sense to expect high culture from every ger district resident.

Isn’t it the time to start assessing the performance of the managers of the city, districts, and micro-districts, by the number of people who have access to improved sanitation facilities (including ventilated improved pit latrines) and by the number of public bathhouses and showers per 100 persons?

According to a 2013 inspection jointly carried out by several organisations at city and district level, six districts of Ulaanbaatar have a total of 124 public bathhouses, 34 of which were out of use or not maintained. Out of 93 bathhouses that were inspected, 38 met more than 85 percent of standards and requirements while 55 failed to meet the standards. There are approximately 100 bathhouses that could be used by 700,000 ger district residents. That means only one bathhouse per 7,000 people. Doesn’t it ring alarm bells of sanitation and hygiene? This is the unpostponable, top priority job for the city and district management offices.

Isn’t it the time to do something about the open toilets that are emerging down the banks of Tuul River as people go and spend their leisure time there? Would we be able to receive thousands of foreign tourists without resolving the sanitation and hygiene issues that are the most fundamental? Being civilized and clean really boosts the development of the tourism industry. Dear managers and governors of the capital city and provinces, a public facility does not have to be luxurious, it just needs to be clean, functioning, and available. If we have such public facilities, we will not see dark corners being used as toilets.

Let us stop building a Potemkin village.