What do you do when a country’s leadership no longer has their heart in it. Perhaps the correct path is to quietly resign and spend the rest of your life tending your garden. That is what was happened in Mongolia. So slip on your smoking jacket, fill your pipe, take your first sip of your adult beverage, and sit back in your most comfortable chair. Welcome to todays offering from The Philatelist.
This topical farm out stamp shows a Siberian musk deer. The genus name is used on the stamp to down play the Siberian. They do exist in Mongolia but the species is on the decline as it is heavily poached both for meat and for it’s musk glands. The world population is down to an estimated 230,000, about 40,000 in Mongolia.
Todays stamp is issue A419a, a 60 Mung stamp issued by the still barely People’s Republic of Mongolia on September 26th, 1990. It was a four stamp issue displaying different views of the Siberian musk deer. According to the Scott Catalog, the stamp is worth 35 cents cancelled to order.
I while back I did a stamp on the Sukibator, the axe hero of Mongolia, see https://the-philatelist.com/2019/01/11/mongolia-1932-remembering-sukhe-bator-the-axe-hero-of-mongolia/ . You don’t have the wildness af axe heroes unless the pro Soviet communists in charge are passionate about what they are doing. That passion continued under the long rule of Yumjaagiin Tsedenbal who sided decisively with the Soviets at the time of the split with China in 1960. A big Stalin guy who even had a Russian wife. His time had perhaps past when he was in Moscow lobbying the Soviets to take a harder line in the cold war. Instead the Soviets decided to keep Y. T. in Moscow and pass Mongolian leadership to technocrat Jambyn Batmonkh.
Batmonkh would tell you he accomplished much in his six years regarding power grids and coal mines and railways. He would be correct but he could also read the writing on the wall. The Soviets had pulled their troops out of Mongolia voluntarily and the anti communist protests that swept the world in 1989 hit Mongolia at the end of the year. Batmonck instructed that no force be used against the protestors. The demands of the protestors were however ignored and they began a large hunger strike.
The Politburo became concerned at Batmonkh’s inaction and wrote a decree for him to sign to crack down hard on the protestors. They called him in after hours to sign it and he flatly refused. Batmonkh stated that we few Mongols should not make each others noses bleed and he resigned on the spot and encouraged the Politburo to do the same. The technocrat had finally inspired and the Politburo indeed did resign. An election to chose a new government happened a few months later.
Batmonkh was done with politics and spent the rest of his life tending his garden. Him and the former first lady could often be spotted at the farmers market selling their produce. If asked, and only if asked, he would tell you that he thought he did a better job that those that came later. He definitely could have done worse.
Well my drink is empty and I will be happy to pour another to toast Jambyn Batmonkh. After all it is not just Mongols who desire their noses not to bleed. Come again soon for another story that can be learned from stamp collecting. First published in 2020.