Ulaanbaatar
Winter Wonderland of Blue Pearl festival to take place in March
PoliticsUlaanbaatar /MONTSAME/ “Khukh Suvd-2017”, (Blue Pearl-2017) the XVIII annual international ice festival will take place in Dood Modon Bulan of Hatgal town, Khuvsgul aimag between March 2 and 5.
Khuvsgul Lake freezes around November with 1-1.5 meter layer of ice and the ice festival has became a tradition for the natives which is held in March every year. The festival has been taking place since 2000 with an aim to develop Mongolian winter tourism, to extend tourist season, to create income opportunities for the local community and to promote magnificent landscape of Khuvsgul Lake, one of the largest clean water source of Asia.
The festival is being organized by the collaboration between the Community of Khuvsgul Tourism, Ministry of Environment and Green Development and the Governor’s office of Khuvsgul aimag.
The Ice Festival will open up with a parade of skaters, horse and dog sleds, as well as Russian figure skating performance. During the event, horse sled race, introductory bonfire party of shamanist ritual, ice archery, figure skating contest, sumo-wrestling on ice and other fun games will be hosted.
The guests are able to visit ice huts, drink cold beverages from a frozen cup, ride horse sleds, skate on the crystallized ice of Khuvsgul Lake and enter the ice sculpturing contest. Also for your entertainment, the glittering ice town will welcome you upon your arrival where you can find reindeers and shaman huts. Inside the town, even the household instruments will be made out of ice and a trade fair of the native handcrafters will be open for business.
The number of incomers are increasing each year and about 1200 vehicles, 70 handcraft traders and 100-200 foreign tourists have came to the last year’s festival, totaling 6 thousand people.
Photo by: Munkhnasan.O
