Monday, June 06, 2011

The Wierdest Clock in the World...

... stands in in Ulan Bataar, Mongolia in front of a bank. I know that is a coelacanth on top (why??) but what are those... tentacles? I can't read Mongolian, only (some) Russian, but I have a vague recollection of shooting a slide of a plaque with an inscription on it.

You can see why we have come to refer to it as the "Cthulhu Clock" Is it part of a plot by Baron von Ungern- Sternberg to open a door for the Great Old ones?

4 comments:

sfox said...

I love that clock. First came across it on my second trip to Mongolia in 2006 and took a couple of pics of it.

A FB friend posted the link to your blog and asked me about it since she knows I'm "into" Mongolia.

Anonymous said...

Maybe the coelacanth was added later as a kind of guardian spirit, they prey on tentacled beasts.

Annie D said...

The 'tentacles' remind me more of the CZ rotunda roof, decorated by local pigeons.

Steve Bodio said...

sfox: Mongolia and Central Asia in general are among the most important themes here, not just for me but also in part for Cat. I have been on two long Mongolia trips which resulted in a book (Eagle Dreams) and another to Kazakhstan for dogs; Cat has also ridden with the eagle hunters.

Type "Mongolia", "Central Asia", Eagle", "Lauren" [McGough, friend who did a Fulbright in Olgii with the eagle hunters] or "tazi" among other subjects into the search bar of the blog.

Also try The Royal Vizsla blog-- though it is mostly about the Hungarian bird dog, Andrew is another Mongolophile traveller-- even stayed with the reindeer tribes in winter.

Annie, yeah, that too if a 40 year memory is right. We are gettin frickin OLD.