Mongolia | Dönön Ükhiin Ever Khöldöne | Killer Winter

The Fourth of the Nine-Nines, known as Dönön Ükhiin Ever Khöldöne—Time When Four Year-Old Cows’ Horns Freeze—began on Monday, January 18. This is supposed to be the coldest of the Nine-Nines, periods of nine days each, each period marked by some description of winter weather. On Monday, however, it was an incredibly balmy 14ºF / Minus 10ºC at three in the afternoon, probably the highest temperature of 2010. This morning things are back to normal:  Minus 33°F / -36 °C at 6:00 a.m.

This is turning out to be a Killer Winter. The UB Post:

Official figures indicate that approximately 90 percent of the country is suffering from zud  conditions, with snowfall reaching between 20-120 centimeters. The average temperature in northern Mongolia has dropped to -35 degrees Celsius, with temperatures in the rest of country ranging between-17 to -22 degrees Celsius. So far, the coldest temperature of -47 degrees was recorded in Uvs Province. As of 16 January 2010, a total of 198 sums in 19 provinces are suffering from severe weather.

According to estimates by the Emergency Management Agency (NEMA), a total of 786,639 heads of livestock have perished, 89 percent of which belong to the ten worst affected provinces. The total loss of livestock is approximately 17 per cent of the estimated 43.6 million heads of livestock in the country. Some five people died during a recent snowstorm.

Xinjiang Province of China, just south of western Mongolia, has also been hammered, According to the NYT:

Closed roads and delayed flights left thousands of travelers stranded Tuesday following blizzards and extreme cold that killed four people and affected 1.6 million others in northwestern China, a government spokesman said. Snowstorms delayed 122 flights in Urumqi, capital of Xinjiang region, on Monday, leaving more than 4,000 passengers stranded, and blocked roads from nine avalanches stranded more than 1,000 passengers in the region, according to a Urumqi government spokesman surnamed Wang. Like many Chinese officials he declined to give his full name. Four people had died because of the bad weather, Wang said Tuesday. He did not give details.Rescue workers were evacuating thousands of rural residents to safer ground at lower altitudes because of the latest storm front, expected to last through Wednesday and plunge temperatures to minus 45 degrees (minus 43 Celsius), Wang said.

In neighboring Mongolia, an official appealed for help from the international community as his country battles the most severe winter it has seen in three decades.

I have several friends in Urumqi but I have not heard from any of them for months, since internet access Remains Cut Off to Xinjiang following the Upheavals there last July. The last I heard all internet cafes were closed and all common email services like hotmail.com were blocked.

Mongolia | 3rd of the Nine Nines | Gurvan Ükhrii Ever Khöldönö | Earthquake

The Third of The Nine-Nines began on January 9. Gurvan Ükhrii Ever Khöldönö is the nine-day period of Winter when the horns of three year-old cows freeze. This period is supposed to be colder than the First of the Nine Nines and the Second of the Nine Nines. So far this has not been the case. A couple days ago it was Minus 20ºF / –28ºC at 7:00 a.m. and this morning  Minus 31°F / -35 °C at 7:00 a.m. On January 3rd, during the Second of the Nine Nines, temperatures fell to a marrow-chilling Minus 44ºF / –42ºC. But there is a New Moon in two days, on the 15th, so we can expect colder weather.

On the First Day of the 3rd of the Nine-Nines, January 9, there was  also an earthquake in Mongolia. In Dundgov Aimag the quake measured 5.6 on the Richter Scale. In Ulaan Baatar it measured 3.5. Most people I talked to in Ulaan Baatar itself claimed not to have felt it. In Zaisan Tolgoi I definitely felt it while sitting in my Scriptorium. It was not a sharp jolt-type quake but rather the shaking bowl-full-of-jello variety, lasting six or seven seconds. I was just about to bolt for the door when it finally stopped. A book or two may have wobbled on the shelves.

Earthquakes are not common in Mongolia—at least compared to places like Alaska, for instance, where bars serve a free round after every trembler—but when they do occur they tend to be monsters. The Gobi-Altai Quake, also known as the Ikh Bogd Uul Quake, of December 4, 1957,  was  “one of the world's largest recorded intracontinental earthquakes,”  according to the USGS.

When I visited Ikh Bogd Uul in 1998 I was told by local herdsmen that a day or two prior to the quake marmots which should have been soundly hibernating at that time of the year suddenly emerged from their holes and starting running around in a panic. Then the quake hit.

Ikh Bogd Uul (mountain) in Bayankhongor Aimag. An immense landslide caused by the quake can be seen just right of center. The sheared-off side of the mountain can be seen above the landslide.

Scarp just west of Ikh Bogd Uul created by the 1957 Quake

Mongolia | Turkey | Zaisan Tolgoi | Istanbul

Here’s a Shocker! Zaisan Tolgoi was not named by the New York Times as one of the  31 Places to Visit in 2010! But Istanbul was! Let’s look at the facts. Zaisan Tolgoi, in addition to being the terminus of bus routes #7, #33, and #12 and hosting a prison,  has a newly opened  restaurant, the Irish Palace (nothing  to do with Ireland; “Irish” is just synonymous with “restaurant” in Mongolia) with its own Coffee Corner and we now have a new mini-shop similar to a 7-11 except that is it only open twelve hours a day! So take that Istanbul, with all your ancient  Mosques and churches, Rococo Hotels, fancy Golden Horns, and whatnot. Don’t get me wrong, I love Istanbul—it is for sure on my list of 10 ten best places on the world—but let’s face it: it is not quite in the same league as Zaisan Tolgoi.

So here is what the ever-increasingly irrelevant and totally out-of-touch New York Times has to say about Istanbul:

19. Istanbul
The reputation of Istanbul’s contemporary art scene has been steadily growing in recent years, with the Web site ArtKnowledgeNews.com recently calling it “one of the most innovative in the world.” That reputation is bound to be burnished even more this year, now that Istanbul has been named the 2010 European Capital of Culture (a designation it shares with Essen, Germany, and Pecs, Hungary). There will be a series of events, gallery shows and stage performances throughout the city to mark the occasion. (A complete list of events can be found at en.istanbul2010.org/index.htm.) But one of the best ways to get a crash course in what Istanbul’s leading artists are up to right now is to spend some time wandering around the Misir Apartments (311/4 Istiklal Cadessi), right on the busy pedestrian thoroughfare that cuts through the trendy Beygolu neighborhood. Inside this elegant, early-20th-century building are some of the city’s most cutting-edge art venues, like Galerist (www.galerist.com.tr) and Gallerie Nev (www.galerinevistanbul.com) Afterward, head to the rooftop terrace and have a drink at 360 Istanbul, a stylish bar and restaurant that offers stunning views of the city’s skyline (360istanbul.com).

I was struck by the last line, because the Last Time I Was in Istanbul  my host Gunj and I did in fact pop by 360 Istanbul for a drink at the rooftop terrace (and when I say we had “a drink” I do not mean this as a euphemism for having twelve or fifteen drinks and then being shown the door by the bouncers; we had one drink each, OK?). In fact, the building is owned by the uncle of one of Gunj’s best friends, with whom we had dinner the night before. Small World! Amazingly enough, the NYT’s description is accurate; the rooftop terrace does indeed offer “stunning views of the city’s skyline.”

But since it mentioned the art scene in Istanbul why did the NYT leave out the Latest Show of Miniatures by Jahongir Ashurov? And why did the NYT fail to point out that George Gurdieff once Lived in An Apartment on Kumbaraci Sokak, not far from 360 Istanbul? Did I mention that the NYT is becoming increasingly irrelevant to say nothing of out-of touch?

Kumbaraci Sokak today

And why, in the name of all that’s Holy, no mention of the Tekke of the Whirling Dervishes, just down the street from 360 Istanbul? The tekke, which is now closed for renovation, has long been Rumored to be a Portal to Shambhala.

The Whirling Dervishes Tekke is supposedly closed for renovation. Or is this just a clever ruse for hiding a Portal to Shambhala?

Mongolia | Madame Blavatsky | Voice for the 2010s?

Madame Blavatsky is Back in the News:

Fantasist, fabulist, spiritualist, Theosophist and all-round bullshit artist, Madame Blavatsky was as savvy as L. Ron Hubbard and as batty as Anne Heche, circa 2001 . . . The next time you are downward dogging, give a thought to that ballsy broad from the Ukraine. Give her spirit a shout out or two.

 Madame  Blavatsky

Dubai | Boom | Bust | Schadenfreude

Dubai now hosts the tallest building in the world, which may or may not signal the coming of the Apocalypse and the Mahdi. See Is the World's Tallest Building a Monument or a Tombstone for Dubai? Dubai has now also become the Poster Child for Wretched Excess and an object lesson in everything that is wrong, so wrong, with the global economy.

The Khalifa Tower, the Tallest Building in the World. Photo courtesy of the Anarchists at Coming Anarchy. See also The World's Top Photo Opportunity.

In Appetite for Destruction John Gravois offers a corrective to the “cheap metaphors, apocalyptic exaggeration, and schadenfreude that marks the Dubai backlash.” Excerpt:

Alas, singlemindedly obsessed with facades and underbellies, the backlash correspondents fell quickly into weird observational pathologies. Writers would lavish numerous punishing column-inches on The World, an unpopulated offshore development that few Dubai residents have ever laid eyes on, while insisting that Dubai’s ubiquitous manual labourers are somehow concealed from the public gaze. Meanwhile, the same writers actually did render invisible vast segments of the population: namely, pretty much anyone who is not a rich, boorish westerner, an Emirati, or an immiserated low-wage worker. Entirely missing from most accounts was the Dubai of Indian shopkeepers, Filipino professionals, Lebanese restaurateurs, Iranian artists, Keralite longshoremen, African gold traders, Palestinian bankers and Pakistani estate agents. Between the facade and the so-called underbelly, an entire city went missing.

On a recent Swing through the Mideast I had a ten-hour layover in Dubai. If you are in transit the mammoth Dubai airport has a cornucopia of coffee shops, cafes, up-scale restaurants, luxury goods outlets, etc, where you can while away your time, but once you pass through immigration the choices are a lot slimmer. I ended up sitting in a Burger King drinking coffee until the sun came up, whereupon I took a cab down the Perfume Souk to the old section of the city. Every time I pass through Dubai I make a point of stocking up on scents.

Water Taxi in Dubai

I arrived downtown at 7:30 a.m. only to discover that the stores in the Perfume Souk did not open until 9:00. I strolled over to the nearby Gold Souk. Here I took a seat on one of the benches in the covered-over passageway through the souk. Already a few shopkeepers were arriving for work, most of them carrying a small plastic cup of tea they had picked up on the way. Soon a short little guy dressed in patched shorts, strapped tee-shirt, and plastic flip-flops came and sat down beside me. He appeared to be his seventies. From the large plastic bag of detritus he had with him I assumed he was the local version of a street person. For fifteen minutes he just sat there. Then he turned to me and asked in passable English, “What country are you from?” I really did not want to talk to the guy—I assumed he would try to beg money—so I said “USA.” In this part of the world in years past if you said you were from the USA people would usually just get up and walk away. But we live in different times. Instead, this guy exclaimed “Obama!” I was tempted to point out that in some in circles Obama is Thought to Be the Mahdi, but it was too early in the morning for eschatological debates.

“Where are you from,” I asked. “Pakistan. In Dubai twenty-five years. Never go back to Pakistan. Good here. Lots of Pakistanis.” He pointed to three guys walking by, each holding a little plastic cup of tea: “Pakistanis. Shops on the Gold Souk. Pakistanis like gold!” A group of five guys slowly walked by, engaged in an animated discussion. “Pakistanis?” I wondered. “No!” he exclaimed, as if shocked by my ignorance. “Iranians!”

Then, unbidden, he called out the nationality of each man (there were no women) or group of men walking by. In addition to Pakistanis and Iranians here were Indians, Afghanis, Yemenis, Sudanese, Somalians, Syrians, Chinese, and a host of others. There seemed to be inordinate number of Chinese. All were people who worked in the Gold Souk and other nearby souks. “Where are the Dubai people?” I wonder. He did not seem to understand me. “People born here, the local people,” I explained. He shook his head. “No people from Dubai. They don’t work here.”

The merchants of the Gold Souk are people between the “facade and the so-called underbelly” mentioned above. As noted, these are the people you don’t hear much about, and who will no doubt remain in Dubai through its various booms and busts. Skyscapers may rise and fall but gold remains eternal. And oddly enough the old guy, despite all the information he imparted on me, never did ask for any money.

Gold necklaces in the Gold Souk — apparently just looted from the Tomb of Ur.

Nice solid gold necklace and earring set. Just the thing for Lady Ga Ga.

This little gold trinket cost 500,000 UAE dirhams — $136,147. Pick up a couple the  next time you swing by Dubai.

Dubai | Mahdi | Shambhala

Back in 2005 during a Visit to Dubai I wrote:

According to an alleged hadith (a saying of the Prophet Mohammad not included in the Koran), one of the signs of the approaching Apocalypse is that "you will see barefoot, naked, destitute bedouin shepherds competing among themselves in constructing tall buildings." According to some commentators, the bedouins who will build the buildings will come not from the Hijaz region of the Arabian Peninsula, that is the western part which contains Mecca, Medina, etc, but from the eastern part, which includes what is now Dubai and the other Emirates. In the days of the Prophet the people of what is now Dubai may have been barefoot, naked, and destitute. They are no longer. The city is awash in money from petroleum-related trade and tourism. And as if in fulfillment of the Prophet’s prophecy Dubai is now constructing the world’s tallest building, specifically designed to outclass every other skyscaper in the world. This is the building known as the Burj Dubai, tentatively scheduled for completion in 2009. It will reportedly be 160 stories—2213 feet— high.

Well, the Burj Khalifa, as the tallest building in the world is now known, was officially opened yesterday in Dubai amidst great fanfare.

Does this mean the the Apocalypse and/or the Appearance of the Mahdi will occur soon?

According to the Prophesy in the Kalachakra Tantra the Shambhala War will occur sometime after the appearance of eight teachers: Adam, Noah, Abraham, Moses, Jesus, The “White-Clad One,” (often identified as Mani), Muhammad, and the Mahdi. All have already appeared except the Mahdi, whose imminent arrival is Expected by President of Iran Mahmoud Ahmadinejad and many others in positions of authority.

Sources in Mongolia have been predicting for several years now that the Shambhala War will begin in 2012. Could the Mahdi possibly appear by then? Or Has the Mahdi Already Appeared?

General Hanuman on a Shambhala Thangka

According to Mongolian tradition the Last Bogd Gegeen of Mongolia will be reincarnated as General Hanuman in the army of the Raudra Chakra, the 25th King of Shambhala in the final war against the Barbarians.

Mongolia | Zaisan Tolgoi | Second of the Nine-Nines | Khorz Arkhi Khöldönö

Update 01/05/10 / 8:00 a.m.

Update 01/04/10 / 7:30 a.m.

Another Magical Moment! This is real Khorz Arkhi Khöldönö weather!

I mentioned earlier that the First of the Nine-Nines—the Nine-Nines being nine periods of nine days each, each period characterized by a certain type of winter weather—started on the day of the Winter Solstice, which occurred here in Mongolia on December 22. The Second of the Nine Nines, according to the admittedly outdated and outmoded Gregorian calendar which unfortunately seems to hold much of the world in its thrall (I prefer the Lunar Calendar myself), began on December 31. Known as Khorz Arkhi Khöldönö, this is the time when twice-distilled homemade Mongolian arkhi (vodka) freezes. As you will recall, the first of the Nine-Nines was the time when regular, or once distilled, arkhi freezes. As this indicates, the second period should be colder than the first, since twice distilled arkhi obviously has a much higher alcohol content. This morning at 7:30, however, it was a relatively balmy Minus 20°F / –29°C compared to Minus 40ºF / –40ºC back on December 25th. The Second of the Nine-Nines does not end until January 8th, however, and we could well have another cold snap before then. 

Turkey | Istanbul | Suleimaniye Mosque

During 2009 I wandered by the Suleimaniye Mosque in Istanbul. As you no doubt know the Suleimaniye Mosque was built by Sulieman The Magnificent (r. 1520-66), arguably the greatest of the Ottoman Sultans.

View of Suleimaniye Mosque (upper left) from near the Galata Bridge

View from the Golden Horn

Suleiman the Magnificent

Take a Take a Walking Tour of the Mosque

The Mosque was designed by Sinan (Ottoman Turkish: قوجو معمار سنان آغا), the greatest architect of Ottoman Turkey.

I have added this book to my Scriptorium and can recommend it most highly. By all means travel to Turkey yourself to see Sinan’s works, but if for some reason you cannot the breath-takingly luscious photos in this book are enough to make most people swoon.

Tomb of Suleiman, next door to the mosque

Suleiman the Magnificent

Tomb of Suleiman

Coffin of Suleiman. Although no longer in power, the Ottoman Family exists to this day.

Graves surrounding the tomb of Sulieiman

The grave sites host heart-stoppingly gorgeous roses

More graves

Graves and Roses

More Graves and Roses

Still more Graves and Roses

Mongolia | Zaisan Tolgoi | Season’s Greetings

Mongolia | Zaisan Tolgoi | Magical Moment | Nermel Arkhi Khöldönö

This morning at 7:34 a.m we reached that Magical Moment when the Fahrenheit and Celsius temperature scales coincide. It was Minus 40 degrees according to both. 

As you know, the Winter Solstice occurred on December 21-22 (December 22, 1:47 a.m. in Ulaan Baatar), marking the beginning of Winter. In Mongolia the Winter Solstice also marked the beginning of the so-called Nine-Nines: Nine periods of nine days each, each period marked by some description of winter weather. The first of the Nine-Day periods is Nermel Arkhi Khöldönö, the time when normally distilled Mongolian arkhi (vodka) freezes. It certainly would have frozen last Night. The next Nine-Day Period starts on December 31. Stayed tuned for updates.