The Beverly Hills of Ulaanbaatar

We recently moved to Ulaanbaatar, Mongolia and are living in the Zaisen area, which I've been told is known as the Beverly Hills of Ulaanbaatar.  The apartment lives up to the billing, but the area is quite a bit different.  It's been decades since a resident of Beverly Hills, CA could stand on his or her balcony and see a cow grazing basically in the back yard or take a walk and run into a small herd of cows. Or walk into the hills behind the buildings and run into a small herd of goats and a few sheep moving in for the winter.


There is an incredible amount of building going on; and it goes on seven days a week as everyone takes advantage of the warm weather.  I leave at 7:30 am for work and it hasn't started then,  because the workers most likely take the bus from the other side of the city (Although a few, at times, live in small tents on site.) and arrive here around then.  At times they have worked as late as 8:00 pm.  But on the weekends, their hours are less.  Once winter hits, it will be too cold.  Some have been predicting an early winter this year which, I would think, makes the landscaping that's going on now somewhat futile.  Much of the building here and in the center of the city is expensive, luxury apartments that most residents of the city can't afford.  And as Nimaa, my housekeeper (and Sophie's new best friend), said when she came out to this area for the first time: "who will live?"  The finished buildings in the complex where I live are less than half full judging by the number of apartments showing lights at night.  Unless you are an ex-pat working here or one of the relatively few well-to-do Mongolians, these places will forever be out of reach.

The majority of people in Ulaanbaatar live in gers (above), small detached homes the size of gers (left), or small apartments (right). These pictures show homes in my "Beverly Hills" neighborhood.  In the less ritzy parts of the city, they are crowded one on top of the other.

Taking a walk in part of my neighborhood means catching the scent of outhouses. Most aren't connected to water or sewer or electricity.  Cooking and heating is often done with coal fires as in the rural areas; diesel fuel may power generators.  In the US Beverly Hills it's possible to forget that poverty exists; here in UB it isn't.