Zuunmod

Zuunmod grew up as an administrative centre on the steppe below the southern slopes of Bogd Khan mountain, a place long shaped by the monastery above it rather than by trade or industry. Manzushir Monastery was founded in 1733 in the wooded valley and grew into a substantial complex of temples and monks' quarters, with painted Buddhist figures on the granite boulders around it; pilgrims and herding families came up to it from the plain where the town now stands.

The mountain itself has been protected far longer than the town has existed. In 1709, under the Qing, Bogd Khan Uul was named one of twelve Mongolian mountains protected from hunting, cultivation and timber felling, and its status was confirmed again in the twentieth century, so the forests that fill the valley behind Zuunmod have never been cleared.

The communist period made and unmade the area in turn. The purges of 1937 fell on Manzushir as on monasteries across the country: the buildings were destroyed and the community dispersed, leaving the stone walls and foundations visible today. In 1942 the administration of Töv province, which rings the capital, was moved out of Ulaanbaatar and Zuunmod was established as its seat, with government offices, apartment blocks, a hospital and schools laid out on a grid. Since 1990 it has been shaped above all by Ulaanbaatar: close enough for commuting and weekend visits, and losing young people to the capital while gaining families who prefer cheaper land within reach of it.

Zuunmod is a provincial town whose culture is that of the Töv countryside around it. Most families have relatives herding sheep, goats, horses and cattle within a short drive, and the year is marked by the movements and work of the herds: shearing and combing cashmere in spring, making dairy foods in summer, slaughtering and preparing dried meat in late autumn. Horses matter here, and children learn to ride early, some of them racing at provincial Naadam meets.

The town's own social life centres on the provincial administration, the schools and the sports hall. Wrestling has a strong following, and local wrestlers who do well at Naadam in the capital are a source of pride. The mid-July holiday brings wrestling, archery and long-distance horse races to ground outside the town, on a smaller and more intimate scale than the state ceremony in Ulaanbaatar.

Buddhism remains part of daily life in a quiet way. Families go up to the monastery ruins to make offerings, tie blue prayer scarves and walk clockwise around the surviving temple, and drivers stop at the ovoo cairns on the pass over the mountain. Shamanic practice, never wholly absent, is visible in the same places. Hospitality follows rural rules: guests are fed without being asked whether they are hungry, cups are passed with the right hand, and an offer of tea is not refused outright.

Zuunmod had a population of about 17,000 at the 2017 census, small enough that much of the town knows one another. Employment turns on the provincial government, the hospital, schools, the police and the small businesses that serve them, along with herding households on the surrounding steppe who come in for supplies, paperwork and markets. A share of working-age residents commute or migrate to Ulaanbaatar, which is close enough for a day's business and near enough to draw away graduates for good.

Housing splits between Soviet-era apartment blocks near the centre and the fenced plots of the ger quarters, where families keep a ger or a small wooden house, a store shed and often a few animals. Water is drawn from standpipes in much of the ger area, and coal and wood stoves heat homes through the long winter. Power cuts and rough roads after rain are ordinary inconveniences.

The rhythm of the day is early and unhurried: school and offices start early, the market is busiest in the morning, and the streets empty in the cold months soon after dark. Summer changes the town, with weekend traffic from the capital heading for the ger camps and the monastery valley, families picnicking in the forest and herders selling airag and dairy by the roadside. The pressures felt here are the province's: hard dzud winters that kill livestock and push families towards the towns, and the steady pull of Ulaanbaatar.

Zuunmod eats the food of the Mongolian steppe with little embellishment. Mutton is the base of almost everything: buuz, dumplings steamed in tiers and eaten in great numbers at the lunar new year; khuushuur, the same filling in flat fried pasties, sold at fairs and Naadam grounds; tsuivan, thick noodles steamed over meat and then fried with a little cabbage, carrot and onion; and guriltai shöl, a plain mutton and noodle soup. Bansh, small boiled dumplings, go into soup or into tea. Potatoes, carrots, cabbage and turnips, much of it grown in the region, do the work of vegetables.

Dairy fills the summer. Households and herders nearby make aaruul, hard dried curd stacked to dry in the sun, urum, a thick scalded cream eaten with bread, and byaslag, a mild pressed cheese. Airag, lightly fermented mare's milk with a sharp taste and a little alcohol, is drunk through the warm months and sold from roadside stalls on the way to the capital. Suutei tsai, salted milk tea, is the constant drink in every household at any hour of the day.

Out at the camps in the Manzushir valley, the celebratory dish is khorkhog: mutton cooked with vegetables and fire-heated stones inside a sealed metal churn, served straight from the container, the hot stones passed around by hand beforehand. Late autumn is the season for borts, air-dried strips of meat kept for winter and crumbled into soups. Vodka is the usual strong drink, and the town's shops stock the same national brands sold in Ulaanbaatar.