Ulaanbaatar
Spring Golden Eagle Festival taking place
Society
Ulaanbaatar /MONTSAME/ An event ‘Spring Golden Eagle Festival 2018’ is taking place on March 4-5 at 'Chinggisiin Khuree' Tour Camp in Ulaanbaatar, with aims to revive eagle hunting tradition and custom of Kazakh nation, to pass the culture to younger generation and to promote it the world.
Eagle Festival has been celebrated in Bayan-Ulgii province since 1999. A unique tradition of Kazakh people or practice of eagle hunting also known as Falconry was inscribed on UNESCO Representative List of the Intangible Heritage of Humanity in 2010. “The festival is hugely contributing to the development of tourism in the province while increasing income of small and medium enterprises operating in services, handicraft, souvenirs and embroidery, emphasized Governor of Bayan-Ulgii province in his opening remarks.
The festival opened with a parade of 20 eagle hunters on horses wearing their traditional clothes, sitting their trained eagle on their arms. Three eagle huntresses were among the participants including N.Aisholpan, who became famous for ‘Eagle Huntress’ film to the world. She won in the Eagle Festival 2014 and since then number of girls who are interested in eagle hunting increased, reaching 11 eagle huntresses by now in Bayan-Ulgii province.
During the festival attracting events and competitions are being held and winners of eagle hunting competition, Bushkashi-goat skin tug of war on horseback as well as the best participants who dressed in full eagle hunting regalia, mounted on groomed decorated horse and in best national custom will be selected today.
Number of tourists coming to the festival is increasing year by year, said the organizers. Particularly, the Festival which took place in October, 2017 in Bayan-Ulgii province had about 1200 tourists from more than 20 countries, up by two times compared to 2016. Also this time tourists from countries such as Australia, Russia, China, Japan and England have visited the festival.
Citizen of Australia George Mcnie shared his impression saying “Mongolia is a beautiful country. Today’s festival is the first exciting event of my stay in Mongolia. Hunters sit their trained eagle on their arms looks stately and actual eagle hunting is so interesting. I really want to study how to train powerful bird-eagle and broaden my knowledge about Mongolian history and culture.
“I have had imagination on eagle hunting from ‘Eagle huntress’ documentary film. I am happy that I have experienced the festival in real today,” said Anne Morris, citizen of New Zealand.
B.Batchimeg
