By Julian Dierkes
I’ve been keeping a list of things that are arriving to/disappearing from central Ulaanbaatar: May 2016 | December 2015 | May 2015 | May 2014 | October 2013. More informal versions of these observations also appear in the /ulaanbaatar/change/ category.
I’ve copied the 2014-16 lists here and am adding to it. New items since previous posts appear in italics.
What has arrived?
- sadly: Louis Vuitton, KFC, Burberry Kids, Ugg and a Porsche dealership (under construction)
- Mini, Bentley
- child seats
- sidewalks
- parks
- farmers’ markets
- yoga
- dogs on leashes
- Sunday morning joggers and bikers
- burgeoning coffee culture
- river walkway along the Dund River (under construction in May 2015 but looking very promising)
- city park along the Tuul
- sports cars
- organic shopping
- gated communities (virtually all the new developments towards and in Zaisan)
- wheelchair accessibility (moved from “What Will Appear” category as ministries are now (meant to be) wheelchair-accessible
- the “#замчөлөөл” hastag, a city campaign to shame property owners about their infringement of public space. Seems – quietly – very successful when you look at many photos posted.
- large-scale BBQ extravaganza on the banks of the Tuul river, particularly near the ASEM Road. On summer weekends, so many cars parked right on the riverside, BBQs planted right next to them, families camping out, some literally
- Harley-Davidson
- drive-home service for drivers who have been drinking. You call the service, they drop off a driver who drives you home in your car and is then picked up again. Given – fortunately – much stricter enforcement of drunk driving laws, a great service!
- bike lanes
Bike paths have arrived in central #Ulaanbaatar! Unthinkable five years ago. pic.twitter.com/XG22TBENtA
— Julian Dierkes (@jdierkes) June 8, 2017
- street names and signs in the city
What has disappeared, or at least nearly?
- stationary 80s-office-phone-looking old-granny cell phone booth
- for-pay scales (actually, they seem to be hanging on)
- free WiFi on Sukhbaatar, er Chinggis Khaan, er, Sukhbaatar Square, er, Chinggis Khaan Square
- open gullys/missing manholes
- street kids (they seem to come and go. In summer 2017 there were very few of them again.)
- packs of dogs
- smoking
- the sixth-floor souvenir shop at the State Department Store (though perhaps seasonal)
oversized sunglasses for women that were so popular across Asia (?) some years ago - Nescafé (see above on coffee culture)
- surprise at seeing bicycles
- hillside Chinggis visible from the city centre
What will appear in the future
- navigation systems
- mental maps shifting to street names/addresses instead of landmarks
- bike lanes
- new airport, apparently opening in 2018. I drove by there recently. Oh my, it far from the city!
- subway (really, I wish they had selected light rail instead)
- urban renewal and historical restorations embracing district north of government house (National University of Mongolia, German embassy, etc.)
- road signs in the countryside (and not just the very random, very occasional ones that can be found now)
- network of cross-country riding trails (though not in central Ulaanbaatar)
- parking (meters)
- Combined Heat and Power Plant #5 (yeah, right!)
- hipsters discovering УАЗ (minivan and jeep)
- Canada Goose, Arc’teryx.
What will disappear in the near future
I’m going out on a predictive limb here… 2-3 years is what I mean by “near future”.
- stray dogs (very few in the city centre in this election year)
- stretched-out hand to signal for a car ride
- that awkward extra half-step on most stairs
- whitening make-up.
What will disappear in the medium-term future
I mean around 7 years or so.
- new (to Mongolia) cars that are right-hand drive
- the neo-classical Ministry of Foreign Affairs building, with its Stalinist (if that’s an architectural style) spire [Tough call to make as the MFA building is now dwarfed by its own annex]
- deels in the city
- some of the downtown university campuses
- buildings of 4 floors or less in the urban core
- Russian minivans (УАЗ452) but see above.
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