September 15th is a big day in Mongolia. It is the day the residential centralized heating is switched on. By centralized, I mean the whole city minus the ger districts. Huge pipes run through the city carrying heat (I'm guessing in the form of hot water?) and heat all the apartment blocks and other buildings. For commercial buildings, October 1st is the big day.
One of the volunteers here is a construction expert and he told me it's not a bad way to do things. They use the heat overflow from the city's power generators. So instead of having multiple cooling towers, the heat is sent through a system of pipes blanketing the city. Most of these are underground but sometimes you'll see the pipes peeking out in certain locations. A gift from Soviet engineering.
Our apartment has been pretty warm so far. We'll give you a status report when the temperature dips below zero.
mc
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