The Naadam Festival

 July 12, 2024

Naadam Festival

 What a remarkable couple of days!  Yesterday we went to the opening ceremony of the Festival, held at a large stadium.  The weather was hot and sunny; fortunately, our seats were in the shade.

 Prior to the opening ceremony was a shorter ceremony held in front of the Government Building with Genghis Khan looking on.  Called the White Banner (or Peace Banner) ceremony, it entailed lots of pomp and a speech by the president.  There was a brass band, military marchers, horses, and the like:

 Lots of local people came dressed in traditional clothing:

 

We then left for the stadium: 

There was a long procession to start the proceedings; here’s a part:

 

The National Anthem:

 

And then more horse riders with flags:

 

There were multiple kinds of music with associated dancers; here’s an example of dancing to throat singing:

 

There are three national sports which play out over the course of the festival: wrestling, horse racing, and archery.  In addition, there is a fourth “sport” called “Knuckleball Hitting” which has competitions at the same time.  We went to lunch, where one of the dishes we were served was a traditional goat intestine salad:

I tried some.  It was unusual.  Then to the beginnings of the archery competition, the only sport which includes women. 

 The archers line up in groups of four, and rotate turns among the four.  The target is a row of blocks on the ground, 75 meters away for men, 65 for women. 

 

We then went to see the knuckleball competition.  It was hard to understand.  The knuckles of sheep or goats are used and placed in a box with a springy backboard.  The competitors shoot a tile at the knuckles and score points in a fashion which is unclear amidst much cheering as well as a constant singing of one note.  Unusual.

 

This morning we drove about an hour out of town onto the steppe where there is an enormous collection of people, cars, horses, and gers (the Mongolian word for the round felt-covered home which is a yurt in Russian).

 

The racers are all children—the oldest are young adolescents.  Our guide interviewed this 10-year-old boy who has been riding since he was one, and racing since he was five.

 Note that his saddle is just a piece of leather.  The racers use wooden saddles and stand in the stirrups: 

There are grandstands set up, but hordes of people line up along the last half-mile or so of the race.  

The races are grouped by horse ages, from 2-year-olds up.  We were there for the five-year-old race.  The racers start at the finish line, and run, but not at top speed, 20 km. to the starting line.  They then race back, and we were told that the winner does the 20 km. in about 15-20 minutes.  That seems incredible.  While we were waiting, about a dozen water trucks came along and sprayed everything and everyone, nominally to keep the dust down.  It felt good!

Finally, the racers came, in a cloud of dust anyway:

 

On the way to our bus we passed a place for people to try the bow and arrows.  Leah did, and was very good:

 

After lunch we went back to the stadium for the wrestling.  Multiple pairs of wrestlers were on the field at once.  The goal is simple—get the opponent to the ground.  That’s it.  There’s a huge amount of what the women in our group called “hugging” as opponents spar for the best way to use power and leverage to take the other down.  The actual action lasts about two or three seconds.  I took many minutes of video, and only got the wrestlers trying for position.  I never did get a takedown:

 And, I cannot upload any more--I've hit my daily limit.

Exhausted, we all came back to the hotel both full from our late lunch and tired.  We all voted to skip dinner.

 Tomorrow we have a city tour, and then will leave the city.  More when I can.