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Published: October 12th 2007
There's not much to be said about the Eagle Festival except that it was undoubtedly the best festival in the history of the universe and two of the best days of my time in Mongolia. Awesome, awesome, awesome. What follows is a brief outline of it's coolness.
We all woke up bright and early in Ulgii in anticipation of the festival. I think I was more keen than the others. Sam and John both seemed prepared to be disappointed but I had faith that nothing involving numerous golden eagles could be crap. We'd stayed the night in a shitty hotel but our room had a view of the town square, where the opening parade was due to start at 9am. By 9.30 we could see a small crowd gathering so we headed out to join it. There were several Eagle Hunters with their birds and beasts milling about in the square but it seemed like it'd be a while before the parade began. One very disturbing thing we noticed was that there were several live foxes strapped to some of the horses, behind the saddles. They were terrified almost to the point of catatonia and were destined for a quick
and inevitable death at the festival's conclusion, where they'd be released as live bait for the eagle hunting performance, by which point they'd be in no condition to make a run for it.
While John got a recreational hunter's gleam in his eye preceding blood lust, Sam, Cate and I were all thoroughly disturbed and felt our enthusiasm for the festival quickly waning. Luckily, we had the choice of two festivals; the main festival in Ulgii or a smaller festival in a neighbouring suum, Sagsai. We had intended to go to the Ulgii festival but the foxes changed our minds. We also had the bonus of a camel race at Sagsai festival. There were no camels at the Ulgii one. So we jumped in the furgon and zoomed out of town (at the usual 30kph) to arrive at the Sagsai festival just before lunch.
As luck would have it (and it often would, over the weekend), we arrived at the festival at the conclusion of the opening speeches, just in time for the parade. There were more eagle hunters at Sagsai this year - perhaps 30 or so - than at Ulgii and we felt confirmed in the
rightness of our choice.
After the parade the competitions began. The first day consisted almost entirely of eagle events. There was a competition to call the eagle where the hunter would ride down onto the plain while another person unhooded the eagle up on a neighbouring hill. The hunter would then attempt to call the eagle to his arm, while mounted, from a distance of about 300m. There were alot of failures, largely due to the crowd heckling and calling the eagle themselves and the fact that usually, an eagle would be alone in the mountains with it's human. Some just sat there, some flew away from the crowd - understandably, but some flew unerringly down to land perfectly on their human's outstretched arm. So really, they did pretty well. Another eagle competition was a hunting competition, using drag lures. It was lovely to see the birds fly but you could tell they knew there was no hurry in chasing a lure. They're not silly birds.
We spent the day mingling with the eagle hunters, admiring birds and taking photos, drinking suu-tei-tsai and eating khuur-shuur (flat mutton pancakes, actually not too bad). There was one particular Eagle Hunter
that I thought was amazing. He was dressed in quite basic black and riding a black horse and had a presence you could feel from across the festival grounds. I got a great portrait of him, which I'll post here. He was the coolest person I've ever seen.
When it looked like things were wrapping up for the day we headed off to find a campsite along the river where we spent the coldest night so far. I didn't sleep at all and my feet alternated between burning with cold and being completely numb lumps of meat. Every time Cate or I moved, a shower of ice crystals would fall on us from the tent roof. Bloody unpleasant night, that was. Never the less, we woke up bright and early and ready for another day at the festival. I didn't have such high hopes for this day, since it'd be an eagle-free day of competition, but I shouldn't have worried. It was just as exciting and ended up being more interactive. For me, at least.
The opening event was a weird one. Kazakh couples raced eachother down a clear area, in traditional costume, the woman slightly behind, beating
her husband with a horse whip. Wierd. I'm not sure what the point of it was, but they seemed to enjoy themselves.
After that was the camel race, which was hilarious. The top speed of a camel is only 20 kph but they look pretty funny when they're running full tilt. 24 camels started the race, only 12 finished. This was due to several factors. Some camels wouldn't run at all and just stood there, some ran in the wrong direction, but the funniest were a few who just sat down at the end of the first lap and refused to move.
The next event was a tug of war between two mounted riders, fighting over a dead goat. Despite it's grimness, I actually found this event to be the most compelling. There were over 40 competitors so it lasted for a few hours and I found myself absorbed for most of that time. The goat got progressively floppier and the competitors got steadily more skilled. Some of those guys were holding on while hanging off the saddle attatched only by their feet. Madness. A couple of times the horses decided they'd had enough of this dead goat
being flung about their heads and executed a coordinated bolt - once right through the car park area, nearly collecting one of the riders heads on a car (he was hanging off the side at the time) and once just bolting flat tack out across the plains. Both times the riders refused to let go of the goat. Seriously funny to watch.
I decided I needed to get a closer view toward the end of the competition so I went and joined the locals watching from horseback, pretty close to the action. I got some great photos and a few near misses as they thundered past me, intent on the goat carcass. I also had an exciting moment during the semi final where I didn't get out of the way fast enough and got pinned (not too hard) against a jeep by a competitors horse. No injuries, but a great adrenaline rush. The rider won that heat and went on to the final - he was the obvious favourite and had been showing off with a bit of trick riding during the competitions. To everyone's surprise and to some people's obvious delight, he was resoundingly beaten in the final
A Kazakh Motorbike
A photo just for Billy
when he was bucked off by his trusty steed - the same one that pinned me against the jeep - within seconds of the start of the final round.
I got the most awesome photo of him just before he hit the ground. Fair payment for being slammed by his horse, I thought. A couple of the locals nearest me heard me chortling in delight over the photo and asked to see it. This is how my minor celebrity status among the local kazakh guys came about. The word spread and pretty soon I was swamped by locals wanting to have a look at the photo. Everyone seemed pretty stoked with it and someone must have told the man himself because pretty soon he came trotting up to have a look. I wasn't sure how he was going to take it but he was really pleased and thanked me (they're very polite out there) and then went to get his mum and sisters to see it. Photos are pretty rare in the Mongolian wops and they love to see themselves, even if it's just on the back of a digital camera. With Amra's help I managed to get his
postal address and promised to send him a copy of the photo - which I have done from Ulaanbaatar; a big one of the photo in question and a few smaller prints of shots I took of him earlier in the day. I hope it gets there, the address of a horse nomad is understandably vague.
A couple more events took place that day. There was a mounted archery competition, which was farcical, really. If that's the standard today I don't think we need to fear the Mongol Hordes going on a rampage any time soon. They seemed to have a great time doing it, though. Another event was more a display of riding skill. The rider had to ride at a canter and swing down from the saddle to collect small silk flowers from the ground. It was clever, but after the excitement of the goat tug-of-war it was a little bit tame.
The finale was the end of the horse race. The horses run long distances - this race had started quietly about and hour and a half earlier. Young boys ride these horses bareback and very fast. When they come in they're dripping with sweat
and have to be walked until they're dry. Mongolians prize they're race horses over almost anything else. They're train them by running them wrapped in felt blankets to sweat off every ounce of sweat. Consequently they're incredibly lean, they don't look like Mongolian horses at all, and they have incredible stamina. It was timed beautifully and they came in half an hour after the last event had finished.
To wrap up the festival they had a prize-giving where the winners of each even received medals and prize money. My favourite eagle hunter won Best Eagle, so I guess I know how to pick them.
www.zavkhan.co.uk
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mirjam
non-member comment
yay!
Great pics, and indeed im just a few 100km away! made it into china, but heading south now. what gonna be next? hug