Nomads no more: why Mongolian herders are moving to the city | World news | The Guardian
▻https://www.theguardian.com/world/2017/jan/05/mongolian-herders-moving-to-city-climate-change
Nomads no more: why Mongolian herders are moving to the city
Climate change and the end of Soviet state support have forced 600,000 to migrate to the capital, leaving it struggling to cope
by Patrick Kingsley in Mongolia, with photographs and videos by David Levene
Thursday 5 January 2017 07.00 GMT
In Altansukh Purev’s yurt, the trappings of a herder’s life lie in plain sight. In the corner are his saddle and bridle. By the door, he has left a milk pail. If you didn’t know better, you might think his horses and cattle were still grazing outside on the remote plains of outer Mongolia.
But they aren’t. Altansukh’s milk pail stands empty. There is no horse for him to saddle. His cattle are dead. And this tent, which once stood in the countryside, is now on the fringes of the Mongolian capital, Ulaanbaatar, surrounded by pylons, rubble and the husks of old cars. Altansukh, his wife and their four children may live among rural paraphernalia, but following a disastrously cold winter a few years ago, they were forced to move to the city to survive.