EAGLE HUNTERS OF WESTERN MONGOLIA: Including the Altai Kazakh Eagle Festival at Sagsai

MONGOLIA PHOTOGRAPHY TOURS: EAGLE HUNTERS OF WESTERN MONGOLIA WITH WILD IMAGES

Imagine a world that is wild, untouched, and so remote that it is one of the least inhabited areas of the least inhabited countries on earth. A world where cloud shadows dance with shards of sunlight across vast, treeless expanses. This is western Mongolia. A world home to a group of people who have developed a unique relationship with one of the world’s most revered birds of prey: the Golden Eagle. This is the world of the Kazakh Eagle Hunters, who not only survive in this amazing landscape but also have developed a relationship with eagles, hunting with them to take prey such as rabbits and even foxes.

The tradition of eagle hunting in Mongolia is believed to have originated in Central Asia more than 1,800 years ago. Since then, the lives and traditions of Mongolia’s eagle hunters have defied history, geography and dramatic political change. Only female Eagles are used to hunt, as they are considered more valuable due to their larger size and powerful hunting prowess. While the eagle is captive, an extraordinary bond forms between the hunter and his bird. However, the relationship is only temporary. After about ten years, a hunter takes his eagle far from home and into the mountains. There, he stays with the bird until sunset, then releases it and returns home in the dark so the eagle cannot follow. This separation allows the eagle to ‘re-wild’ and have chicks of its own.

Today, in Mongolia, about 250 eagle-hunter families remain, and the Sagsai region of the Bayan-Olgii (or Bayan-Ulgii) province serves as the heartland for these hardy nomadic people.

Wild Images offers a special journey to live alongside eagle hunter families and attend a Kazakh Altai Eagle Festival, where eagle hunters gather to compete in hunting competitions and games and show off their hunting skills.

Our Eagle Hunters of Western Mongolia photography tour will start in Mongolia’s capital, Ulaanbaatar. From 1924 until 1990, during which time Mongolia was a vassal of the former Soviet Union, Ulaanbaatar had most of its Mongolian lamaseries and shrines swept aside to make way for uniformly drab, Soviet-style boulevards and buildings. Modern-day Ulaanbaatar, or UB as it is affectionately known, with its grey facades and outlying ‘suburbs’ of gers (yurts) housing recent migrants, definitely has a very frontier-town feel, and it offers a stark contrast to the wild, empty, remote beauty of most of Mongolia.

On our first day in Ulaanbaatar, we will make our way to the beautiful monastery (or khiid) of Gandan. Its full name, ‘Gandantegchinlen ’, translates roughly to ‘the great place of complete joy ’, and this beautiful Tibetan-style monastery is one of the few of its kind that survived the Soviet-inspired religious purges of the 1930s. We will walk the squares and prayer halls of this wonderful monastery, taking photos before we move on to visit the gigantic Sukhbaatar Square, constructed in honour of Damdin Sukhbaatar, the hero of the revolution that secured Mongolia’s independence from China. We will then visit Zaisan Hill to get an overview of the city, the Tuul River valley, and the surrounding hills before returning to our hotel for a welcome dinner.

The following day we will transfer to the airport to take a morning flight to the remote town of Hovd, where our drivers will collect us and take us out to the Tsambagarav Mountain National Park, where we will continue into the region of Tavan Belchir, or the five pastures, where we will meet our host family of Kazakh Eagle hunters.

“Fast horses and fierce eagles are the wings of the Kazakh people” – an old Kazakh proverb.

Over the coming days, we will live alongside two separate families of Kazakh eagle hunters in large Kazakh gers. While living with an eagle-hunter family, we will learn how these incredible people survive in such a remote part of the most sparsely populated country on earth. From nearby hills, we will join hunters as they scan this incredible landscape with their birds, looking for prey. If their sharp-eyed eagle spots a hunting target, it signifies the sighting by calling out. The hunter then releases his eagle to fly off and capture the potential meal it has spotted.

At other times, we will join our host family in their yurt to photograph the everyday bucolic life of a Kazakh eagle-hunting family as we watch them prepare food, look after children, and enjoy family discussions as they have for generations. Typically, Kazakh families live together in a single ger, which holds items important to their nomadic lifestyle, including milk churns, meat mincers, bed frames, and family portraits. Beds and clothing are often made from yak or wolf skins. Horses are central to the nomadic Kazakh way of life. While living with families, we may be invited into a warm, beautifully decorated family yurt to drink fermented mare’s milk, or Airag, a staple of the Kazakh diet. For Kazakh people, daily life includes feeding and caring for their herds of yaks, goats, and horses, and all members of a Kazakh family are expected to help with chores that are vital to their traditional lifestyle.

If you ask even a Kazakh from Kazakhstan where the most traditional Kazakhs live, they will generally mention the Tsambagarav Mountains in far northwestern Mongolia, rather than anywhere in Kazakhstan itself. Living with a family of true Kazakh hunters for five nights will be an unforgettable experience as we learn about their lives in this incredible region first-hand.

From Tsambagarav, we will then transfer to Tsengel Soum, another homeland of eagle hunters, to experience life with another eagle hunter family.

Our Eagle Hunters of Western Mongolia photography tour will culminate in a visit to a spectacular Altai Kazakh Eagle Festival, where we will spend two days enjoying and photographing the festivities, including hunting and archery competitions, eagle-calling competitions, traditional dances, and the wild game of Buzkashi.

As a local initiative, the Sagsai region began celebrating Eagle Hunting culture with a festival over a decade ago. During the Eagle Festival, hunters are judged on their traditional attire, the equipment for the eagles, and the horses they use to hunt.

Festival competitions include the game of Kokbar, a tug-of-war played on horseback, using a goat pelt as the rope. Another game, the Tenge Alu, is a contest in which hunters attempt to pick up a token from the ground without dismounting their galloping horses. Women also get involved by racing their horses against men in a tournament called a Kyz kuu, a flirtatious event where, if the man wins, he gets a kiss. If the woman, however, beats her male rival, she turns and races him back down the field with a whip to strap him – a highly entertaining event for all of the festival guests!

At Wild Images, we stay with local people, and our stays help support the local economy, especially for nomadic hunter families, who can increase their income.

Important Note

The dates of the eagle festivals in western Mongolia are never confirmed far in advance, but typically within the final 12 months or less. In addition, internal flights in Mongolia are infrequent and subject to change. As a result, the tour dates may change by up to 5 days in either direction, so please do not make any other arrangements outside the published tour dates.

Accommodation, Food & Road Transport

The hotels in Ulaanbaatar and Olgii (Ulgii) are of a good standard. In western Mongolia, we will be staying in simple, stove-heated gers (yurts) with local families. Beds are stretcher-style with mattresses, pillows, and warm blankets. Washing and toilet facilities are basic. Food while staying with the eagle hunters will be simple but plentiful.

Road transport is by modern 4WD vehicles similar to Toyota Land Cruisers, as roads are often quite rough.

Walking

The walking effort on our Eagle Hunters of Western Mongolia photography tour is mostly easy. Still, there will be opportunities for short hikes in the areas where the eagle hunters live to capture special images of hunters and eagles on wild ridges or other great spots.

Climate

At this season, the weather conditions in both western and central Mongolia are usually cool, dry and sunny, with typical daily maxima being between 10-15°C (50-59°F). At night, conditions are fairly cold (between 5°C and 41°F and can drop to below freezing. Early snow may occur during the time of year our tour operates.