Naadam Festival Opening Ceremonies

A light rain sprinkled the opening ceremonies.

The entrance of the horse soldiers.

The Naadam flame.

Costumes...

and traditional transport.

The Trojan horse paraded out...

and the young wrestlers who poured out of it.

The acrobatic riders.

More costumes...

and traditional transport.

The wrestlers doing their dance.

Female archers.

 Can you see the people standing in the mane of the horse?

Chinggis as seen from the neck of his horse.

July 11

We left the hotel early and walked to the Chinggis Khaan Square where the bands and horse soldiers were set up again and the whole process from the previous evening was repeated. I could not discern any difference in the presentation. Then our group and many other people followed the horse soldiers through the streets of Ulaanbaatar to the arena for the opening ceremonies. Our seats were not the best as Tony and I were sitting behind the Trojan Horse. However, we could see most of the packed arena and we met everyone who came through our section as we were sitting on a corner position where everyone past us.

The Naadam festival which is called the 'eriin gurvan naadam' by locals, or the 'three games of men', is the biggest festival in Mongolia. The opening ceremony was very elaborate and featured dancers, athletes, musicians, trick riders, and lots of other people. There are only three million people in the country and I think a million of them were on that field. There were camels, oxen carts, reindeer and horses to honour their traditional nomadic history and marching groups of bankers, firemen, and other businesses to illustrate their growth in the modern world. The aforementioned Trojan Horse was wheeled out onto the track and when it got to a designated spot about two dozen young boy wrestlers climbed out and onto the field before joining the parade of all the others around the track. The whole ceremony lasted a couple of hours and although it might not have been as high tech as the Olympics, it had the same over all feel. The only downside was that there was a light drizzle all morning that made things, including us, wet, but did not dampen the enthusiasm of the participants or the throngs in the stands.

After the ceremony the competitions of Mongolia's three main sports begin. These are archery, wrestling, and horse racing. Our group stayed in the stadium to watch some of the early round of wrestling. The wrestlers come out in little shorts, a short shirt that covers their shoulders but not their chest, boots and a traditional hat from their province and perform a sort of dance before the competition. The wrestlers are not grouped by age or weight, each competitor gets whoever is next. There are about seven rounds in all and the first three are on day one. Our viewing vantage point was not great as the wrestlers face off in the centre circle of the soccer field which is a fair ways away. They are also surrounded closely by referees or umpires who closely scrutinize the match. Each wrestler uses their bulk and their legs to stabilize themselves while leaning on their opponent and grabbing him by his waist belt and trying to knock him off balance by pushing, lifting or tripping.

Later, we left the stadium and Buhuu found us a little restaurant stand in the melee of shops and stalls around the stadium where we had a small salad, two fried dumplings and a bowl of fruit salad. Walking around the area was an excellent way to see all the different outfits that the people were wearing.

After lunch we walked over to the archery stadium. Archery is for men and women. The men shoot from 75 metres and the women from 60. They don’t shoot at a traditional target, but rather a row of small blocks on the ground, the middle one of which is red. There were about six archers shooting at six targets and the judges stand on either side of the targets. My first thought was if an archer is wild a judge is dead. Buhuu informed me that the tips of the arrows are not metal but rather some soft material that would not kill them. Good to know. All the archers wear the traditional dress from their province. We watched both the men and then the women for a while.

Mid-afternoon we walked back to find our van and return to our hotel for an afternoon of free time. A few people stayed at the stadium but the rest of us wanted to go see the Chinggis Khaan statue in the national park outside of the city. This is a huge modern statue that is seen on any webpage talking about travel in Mongolia, including the GAdventure website, but for some reason is not on our itinerary. So, when we got to the hotel we loaded up in a van that Buhuu had organized for the ten of us and headed out in the crazy traffic and the drizzling rain. I think this is why it is not on the itinerary. It took us well over two hours to go the 53 kilometres to get there. The traffic was horrific and I could see, as I was sitting in the front passengers seat, how frustrated the driver was. He tried to weaving through the lanes and use the shoulders but it really didn’t help much. At one point he followed others through a field on a two-wheel rutted track to get around a bogged up intersection. A couple of people wondered if we should turn around and forget it, but thankfully we were more than half way and they got voted down. The only bright spot about the drive was that by the time we got there the sun was out which made for much better photos. The statute is enormous standing at forty metres. It depicts Chinggis astride his horse and is symbolically pointed east towards his birthplace. It sits atop the Chinggis Khan Statue Complex, a visitor centre, itself 10 metres tall, with 36 columns representing the 36 khaans from Chinggis Khaan (1206-1227) to Ligdan Khaan (1588-1634). It was designed and erected in 2008. Visitors can walk to the head of the horse through its chest and neck, where they have a closeup view of the face of the statue as well as a panoramic view of the area. We stayed for an hour and then had to the drive back again, but thankfully traffic in that direction was a little better.

When we finally arrived back at the hotel everyone seemed to be doing their own thing or in groups for dinner. I wasn’t particularly hungry, and Gwen had wanted to see the concert in the square and also expressed an interest in going to the cultural show I saw yesterday, so I took her for a walk and showed her the route to the show and then we walked to Chinggis Square to see the concert. It turned out to be a show of modern Mongolian pop and rock acts. We stayed for about a half hour watching the people, and then headed back to the hotel as we have a very early rise in the morning. We didn’t hang around for the eleven o’clock fireworks, but I could hear them from my room a couple of blocks away.