The Recent History of Hobogsair

Abstract

My name is Orlomjav, people call me Onia. I was born in the Argaltu Mountain in 1940, among the Shabinar Sum. When I was five years old, my parents, along with other Torghuts, took me to the Soviet Union for one year to avoid prevalent Kazakh bandits and the arbitrary Nationalist Party in Hobogsair. Unfortunately, although my family managed to return to our homeland, I lived with my mother and brothers after my father suddenly passed away the following year. Regarding the number of migrating people, I learned from elders that about 70 households reached the Mangarag Mountain, which used to belong to Hobogsair but later was lost to Soviet Russians. They stayed for approximately a year, migrated back to Tsastu Shil the following summer, and eventually returned to Hobogsair. These Torghuts were led by the renowned hero of Hobogsair, Shalhani Zongorov, along with others – Khiilagtu, Khar Baljai from Wang Banner, and Badgar from Jurgan Sum Banner. All my memories of the Soviets revolve around the stone hut we lived in. Later, I learned from my mother that the majority of people in the place we lived were women who herded livestock for the Soviet commune, with only a small number of men, most of whom had lost their hands or legs. Occasionally, these female herders would visit us to check if we had adapted to life on that land. When the Torghuts decided to return to Hobogsair, Soviet soldiers conducted a count of all people and livestock, a process similar to when they had moved to the Soviet pasture a year earlier. Unfortunately, two individuals had passed away during this time – an elder and a disabled young child. Upon their return to their homeland, they were met with the unfortunate reality of the pneumonia, an infectious disease that claimed many lives in Hobogsair. Onia vividly recalls that, upon arriving back to Aman Tsagan Tungu, numerous households collectively succumbed within their yurts, with their livestock enclosed in the sheepfold, until lamas came to bury them and took their livestock to the monastery’s herds. Upon our return from the Soviet pasture, we took up residence in Bayanoboo, and I engaged in ploughing land with a cow and cultivating barley until I was seventeen. Our survival hinged on a modest herd of a few cows, which provided milk for dairy products during summer. In autumn, we lent our hands to farmers in harvesting and thrashing barley, earning some sustenance to endure the rest of the year. This period stands out as the most challenging in my memory. I recall my mother securing her cow by tying it close to her at night, safeguarding it from potential theft. Sometimes, even fellow Torghuts would come to steal our sheep right before our eyes, asserting that we a group of vulnerable women without any defenders. When I reached the age of sixteen in 1956, my mother insisted that I marry a herder. She argued that having observed the Soviet way of life during her time there, it would soon come to our society. Hence, "You’d better marry before it arrives,” she advised. The following year, the Golden Light (Altan Gerel) commune was established in Bayanoboo, which confiscated our few cows for the commune, and we toiled for the commune as a collective labour in return for subsistence. Although most communes were set up using livestock from every household, people were too impoverished to make them thrive. Consequently, individuals predominantly engaged in agricultural work – ploughing, seeding, and harvesting. In 1959, recognizing the agricultural challenges in Bayanoboo, the government relocated most commune members to Shaajgat, the southernmost part of Hobogsair, where these labourers cleared shrubs, such as willows, to open up new farmland and started the initiation of cultivation in recent history. Four years later, in 1961, we were once again transferred back to Bayanoboo, and joined the state-owned pasture (Guoying Muchang) in 1963. Life in Shaajgat left us with limited sustenance, relying solely on the government’s communal pot. Our meals consisted of either boiled cabbage or spoiled cereal that had long been stored for the military use. In Hobogsair, three state-owned pastures were established during the collectivisation officially established in 1958. Pastures one and three were established by affluent herders in Hobogsair, while pasture number two originated from livestock provided by monasteries. The state-owned pasture (Guoying Muchang) to which I belong differed from other communes. It originated from livestock donations made by wealthy individuals in Tarbagatai for the North Korean war effort. Notably, Bashbai, believed to have contributed livestock equivalent to the cost of two aeroplanes, made a significant donation. Subsequently, this livestock was transferred to Hobogsair along with numerous Kazakhs during the during the collectivisation period. This is the reason why the state-owned pasture still exists today, with its population predominantly consisting of Kazakhs. In addition to these four large-scale state-owned pastures, there were five smaller communes – Odaag, Ulaan Tug, Ulaan Od, Shaajgat, and Hoshtolgai commune. They transformed into Xiang after the privatisation policy introduced in Hobogsair in 1983. The Shabinar Sum, to which I belong, traces its lineage to individuals who served in monasteries in the Volga region prior to the great westward migration in1771. However, after the successful return of the Torghuts to Hobogsair, the numbers of these individuals dwindled significantly due to the prevailing instability. Consequently, the Shabinar Sum recruited a small number of new members under the name of “Örhet Shabinar” and often merged with Namidaikhin Sum to collectively pay tax to the Noyan. Upon their arrival in Hobogsair, the Shabinars established and venerated their Buddha and other religious artefacts in the monastery at Bayanoboo, the most esteemed among the five monasteries in Hobogsair at that time. During the Great Leap Forward movement in 1958, it was claimed that those religious itemswere relocated to Labrang monastery and seemingly vanished there. Five years later, in 1963, many Kazakhs residing on the border of Hobogsair-Kazakhstan were compelled to relocate to Bayanoboo due to their clandestine plan to escape to the Soviet region. Consequently, Mongols in Bayanoboo were resettled elsewhere to clear the pasture for those Kazakhs, and the construction crops stationed in Bustungu were moved to the border where Kazakhs had previously lived.