Print

Mail

wiki links

Mongolian goldrush town may miss out on voting

The goldrush town of Ogoomor Baga is the richest place in Mongolia, but you won't find it on any map.

It doesn't officially exist as a town and many of its workers won't be able to vote in this month's elections.

It sits aside the Tuul river in the dusty, central Mongolian steppe where day and night miners dredge, sift, dig and pan for gold, producing some four tonnes a year, according to official figures.

And then there are the "ninjas" -- illegal miners who follow in the others' footsteps, picking up the leftovers, and named after the green, turtle-like pans they wear on their backs.

Ogoomor Baga is laid out in the style of any gold rush town the world over -- shoddy camps and houses, treacherous mud roads, a cheap hotel with women living upstairs and even a sauna out back.

But one trapping of urban life many of the miners cannot enjoy is a vote. They have to go back to their hometown to register for the election, and it's just not worth it.

"It would cost me 20,000 togrogs (US$17) to get back home to register and I can't afford that," one ninja said yesterday as he pulled gold-bearing soil from a 30m shaft.

Many in Ogoomor Baga and other remote parts of the vast, windswept country won't go to polling stations at all, put off by the hurdle of registering.

About half of Mongolia's 2.7 million population are Nomads who tend cattle, sheep, horses and camels on the vast meadows that blanket most of the country.

Gonkhor, a worker at the local MPRP office, said many people had shown an interest in party policies.

"But obviously there are people who haven't registered like the ninjas and they can't vote," she said.
This story has been viewed 2795 times.