Froit Vander Harst has been living in Mongolia for 10 years. In 2006, he came to live in the Ulaanbaatar city and bought the house near Gandan monastery. Before he came here, he was living in a ger from 1997 in Holland.
Now he produces ger and sells it to the Europe that suits perfectly for the lifestyle of European customers.
-Why do you like living in a ger?
-Because it is nice to live in a ger, also in Holland. I lived in a ger for ten years. I was a first one, who lives in a ger in Holland. Because of socialism there were not many gers in the Western Europe.
Mongolian ger is difficult in the climate in Holland. Many people try to do it but after two or three years they give up. They could not fix Mongolian ger to make it waterproof. I have changed everything because we made our first ger in Holland, from Holland materials. People then start to learn the difference. I started in 1997 and everybody came to visit us.
First ten years was really nice in a ger. We develop completely new ger that looks same like a ger but it was made for European climate and made for European customer. Because people living in Europe have different lifestyle, they have different way of sleeping and different way of cooking, different way of work. It is totally different from Mongolia. So they use the ger, but they use it very different way.
This we did in the first ten years. Then we tried to move this production to Mongolia. Now we are making gers here.
-How do you find your customers?
-We only export to abroad and we do not sell in Mongolia. Because we make them very waterproof, they are super expensive compared to Mongolian gers. There is no reason to buy our ger in Mongolia even with very good Mongolian ger is cheaper than ours.
Mongolia have many tourism companies and tourists see the ger and they want to take back home.
First we tried to find a producer in Mongolia who wants to make what we want. It was not really success. Then in 2006 we decided to start our own factory here. We sell our gers to Europe, North America and other places.
Half of our customers are people who really live in the ger. But they are not herders and they do not live in the city. They live in the countryside in Holland, Germany, France, USA, Australia. They live ecological lifestyle. They do not care if the ger is from Mongolia or from South Africa. They want to live this lifestyle. That is about half of our customer.
Then 25 percent of our customers operate camps in Europe, which is kind of new fashion thing.
The last 25 percent of our customer are people who use the ger next to their house. They use the ger for extra room or for yoga classes. Because they like round and ground on the earth. They want to do yoga classes in nature.
Froit Vander Harst has been living in Mongolia for 10 years. In 2006, he came to live in the Ulaanbaatar city and bought the house near Gandan monastery. Before he came here, he was living in a ger from 1997 in Holland.
Now he produces ger and sells it to the Europe that suits perfectly for the lifestyle of European customers.
-Why do you like living in a ger?
-Because it is nice to live in a ger, also in Holland. I lived in a ger for ten years. I was a first one, who lives in a ger in Holland. Because of socialism there were not many gers in the Western Europe.
Mongolian ger is difficult in the climate in Holland. Many people try to do it but after two or three years they give up. They could not fix Mongolian ger to make it waterproof. I have changed everything because we made our first ger in Holland, from Holland materials. People then start to learn the difference. I started in 1997 and everybody came to visit us.
First ten years was really nice in a ger. We develop completely new ger that looks same like a ger but it was made for European climate and made for European customer. Because people living in Europe have different lifestyle, they have different way of sleeping and different way of cooking, different way of work. It is totally different from Mongolia. So they use the ger, but they use it very different way.
This we did in the first ten years. Then we tried to move this production to Mongolia. Now we are making gers here.
-How do you find your customers?
-We only export to abroad and we do not sell in Mongolia. Because we make them very waterproof, they are super expensive compared to Mongolian gers. There is no reason to buy our ger in Mongolia even with very good Mongolian ger is cheaper than ours.
Mongolia have many tourism companies and tourists see the ger and they want to take back home.
First we tried to find a producer in Mongolia who wants to make what we want. It was not really success. Then in 2006 we decided to start our own factory here. We sell our gers to Europe, North America and other places.
Half of our customers are people who really live in the ger. But they are not herders and they do not live in the city. They live in the countryside in Holland, Germany, France, USA, Australia. They live ecological lifestyle. They do not care if the ger is from Mongolia or from South Africa. They want to live this lifestyle. That is about half of our customer.
Then 25 percent of our customers operate camps in Europe, which is kind of new fashion thing.
The last 25 percent of our customer are people who use the ger next to their house. They use the ger for extra room or for yoga classes. Because they like round and ground on the earth. They want to do yoga classes in nature.
The next step is change all the Mongolian horse hair and camel skin, it gets soft in Europe. Rope on the outside, it must be acceptable for five to ten years, so we use marine-grade webbing. Tsagaan burees/the outer cover is made with very cheap polyester in Mongolia. Of course people in Europe wants tsagaan burees that works for 10 years. Because there is no market, it is not easy to buy new one every three years. The difference in Mongolia is we have Narantuul and we have big national production of gers. But in Europe there is no Narantuul. Everything has to come from Mongolia or be made in Europe, which is very expensive. European customers prefer to spend more money in the front so they do not have to spend money after.