Naadam Festival

It is true that I already wanted to write earlier on Mongolia´s most important holiday. Nadaam (Наадам) festival is held from from July 11th to 13th and was originally a religious festival, but now also serves as a commemoration of the country's 1921 revolution. (that was when Mongolia declared itself a free country). In fact, Naadam also means "sports" or "games" (dont remember which one of the two). During Naadam three "manly sports" are being played, namely: wresting, archery and of course.... horse riding. I decided to visit the 801th festival in Ulan Baatar, as I was told that it was the best place to be.

Opening at UB´s Government Square

The opening ceremony was the most impressive part of the festival. The overture was done by motor cyclists (mainly Kawasaki´s), a lot of horses, the Mongolian President (completely dressed up in gold), the Japanese Crown Prince (who looked like a midget compared to the well-build Mongolians), Miss Mongolia (Mongolian women are definitely very beautiful) and a lot of other important Mongolian celebrities.

Mongolians are inseparable from their horses

The wresting was chaotic, very chaotic... The wrestling tournament took place in a knock-out system, with multiple fights going on at the same time. It was difficult to keep track of all what was happening (or choose a favourite fighter) with so many people on the battlefield. The crowd however was superb; a lot of shouting, booing and other emotions. Great fun :)!

Big guys fighting even bigger guys

The horse racing,? Well that was interesting too. There were, I believe, two horse races, one for 2-year old horses and one for 5-year old horses. Both races were about 25 K (some of them diie of exhaustion) long, which is indeed veeeeery long. The most fascinating part was that the horse riders themselves were not much older than the horses. Their ages ranged from 3 (!) to 7 years old... Unbelievable, is it not?

Young couple...

The archery was not really my favourite "thingin", so I decided to skip most of it. Seeing a guy shooting an arrow to a can, some 70 meters away, IS impressive, but not among the most excisting things to see.

In short, Naadam was great and I can recommend it to anyone visiting Mongolia!

Love,

Marijn