Naadam Festival – A Celebration of Manliness & Sports in Mongolia

I flew halfway around the world and was greeted by this… Right now the 3-day celebration that is the pinnacle of the Mongolian tourist season is in full swing. Naadam is a festival of merriment and machismo. A celebration of what it means to be a man. Athleticism and physical prowess is revered. And men get hot and sweaty. Dressed in naught but tiny vests and woolen underwear. Pink woolen underwear (usually).

  The spectacle that is Naadam is celebrated annually in Ulaanbaatar the 11-13th of August. Inscribed on the Representative List of the Intangible Cultural Heritage of Humanity of UNESCO in 2010, Naadam is an old Mongolian tradition that has seen revival along with the rise of Mongolian nationalism, at the start of the last century, and now celebrates Mongolian independence in 1921.

Naadam is the festival of the “three manly sports” – archery, (long distance) horse riding, and last but certainly not least, Mongolian wrestling.

There are differences to each of the sports to what you would be familiar with. Archery is not aiming at a bull’s-eye, but shooting an arrow in a parabolic path into what is essentially a tiny cylindrical target on the ground (similar in size to a hole on a golf course). Men and women compete separately, at difference target distances. While the competitor’s task seems impossible to me, they have been using a bow from a very early age. The bow are incredibly strong – speaking to a Swiss-Armenian archer on the flight out, he was saying his young son’s bow from Mongolia is equivalent to the strength of an adult’s Olympic bow, and so has to buy archery equipment on his trips to Mongolia.

It’s a serious sport – so serious that even the president and prime minister compete!
(Yes, seriously. I was literally spitting distance away from them at the time)

Horse riding is not like what you would see at Ascot or the other races of that sort. It is like the marathon of horse races; long distance, somewhere on the outskirts of the city. The riders are children (again, a skill that many Mongolians learn from an early age – as young as two years old!), as the aim of the race is to test the skill of the horse, not the rider. After the races (there are races for different ages of horse) the winners are celebrated by a song declaring their equine brilliance. And the loser in the youngest age group is honoured with what I guess is the the Mongolian equivalent of a limerick.

Authentic arrows 😉

Chinggis Khaan (aka Ghengis Khan) the embodiment of Mongolian manliness

How old do you think that kid is?

Because no festival is complete without a little dancing

Naadam in Ulaanbaatar at the National Sports Stadium

Finally, there is the wrestling. 3 days of wrestling. It’s a hard sport to break into – the previous year’s champion chooses his opponent (usually the weediest boy there), followed by the second winner etc. It results in an initial stage of David & Goliath bouts running simultaneously before the opponents become more evenly matched. This makes it very difficult to break into the sport of Mongolian wrestling. After each individual fight the winner does the traditional victory eagle dance – a somehow graceful movement after the tussling a few moments before. The winners are also awarded rank titles according to what stage of the competition they get to – there is a whole lot of tradition and ceremony attached to the whole event.

  I experienced Naadam in Ulaanbaatar at the National Sports Stadium. Smaller Naadam celebrations can be seen outside UB a few days before.

Like with the Olympics, the opening ceremony is actually the part most people watch – a huge, choreographed reenactment of a traditional story, along with a parade featuring Mongolia’s musical all stars (one of whom was on my return flight – no idea what his name is though!) as well as various members of the armed forces. Finally there is the singing of the national anthem – musically pretty good, not too pedestrian at all, melodious, lyrically inspirational (and with hints of propaganda in the style of the Communist era). Conveniently song sheets were distributed – all in the Cyrillic alphabet (which I fortunately knew after a failed attempt to teach myself Russian) – and I think I gave it a fair bash at singing along.

Aside from the opening ceremony, seeing a few rounds of wrestling, wandering over to the archery range, wandering around the festival grounds (mobbed by Americans touroids decked out in traditional Mongolian clothing they must have been shafted paying for), trying some khuushuur (greasy, fried mutton dumplings – perfect festival food), perhaps taking a taxi out to the horse race and then coming back for “Ode to a Horse”, there isn’t really all that much else to do, aside from watching endless rounds of wrestling at a distance (if you want to see it up close, maybe go to one of the wrestling rings that can be found in most big towns, or start an ad-hoc game after a few vodkas). There’s a lot of sitting around between brief moments of excitement (like many major sporting event such as the Olympics or big motor races). There are also fireworks in Suukhbataar square – the first night of Ulaanbaatar’s celebrations if I remember correctly.

Naadam is an interesting introduction to Mongolian culture, although it will be hard to gain a good understanding without a Mongolian to explain it to you – it certainly won’t feel as authentic. Aside from Naadam itself, UB is pretty cosmopolitan. There are a few interesting museums (like the Natural History Museum which has some really interesting dinosaur fossils, and also the National Museum of Mongolian history for further introduction to Mongolian culture), but once you’ve seen them, UB has nothing more to offer than international bars and an equally international crowd of people (even more so since Mongolia’s recent mining boom).

My Advice:   get out of Ulaanbaatar ASAP and experience the real, untamed Mongolia like the manly Mongolian I can only aspire to be.

  // amanderson pfassina otschir

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