12. Neighbours and their Ruins: Remembering Foreign Presences in Mongolia

This chapter addresses Mongolian people’s relationship with their two gigantic neighbours: the Federation of Russia and the People’s Republic of China, on the basis of two ethnographic situations. The first one, which will be the point of departure and form the core of this discussion, concerns the discourses and practices surrounding the abandoned Russian mining town of Mardai. The second one deals with a rumour regarding Chinese ghosts, reported to haunt the places where they used to live i...