Mongolian Ways

24/12/2023

Happy Holidays everyone!

14/11/2023

Happy Mongol Pride Day!

Since 2012, Mongolia has been celebrating Chinggis Khaan's birthday on November 14th as a national holiday.
How did he celebrate his birthday over 800 years ago?
Share your thoughts in the comments 😄

05/11/2023

First snow in Ulaanbaatar, Mongolia. November 2023.

22/03/2022

To all our Kazakh friends, peers, and colleagues - Nauryz Kutty Bolsyn! Happy Nauryz!

01/02/2022

14/11/2021

🇲🇳 Visit Amarbayasgalant monastery and explore its 28 temples. Accompanied by monks, get unique insight on Mongolian Buddhism, and a glimpse into monastic life. This is a rare opportunity to understand another unique aspect of Mongolian culture and religious beliefs and practices.

https://www.mongolian-ways.com/trips/northern-mongolia-winter-tour

07/11/2021

The winter months of Mongolia, from November to February, are exceptionally beautiful time to see endless white steppes and Siberian borderlands.

www.mongolian-ways.com/themes/winter-adventures

31/10/2021

Travel to the snowy taiga of Northern Mongolia. Meet with powerful shamans, have conversations to shed some light on the secrets of Shamanism, the role of Shaman in society, and the way the Shaman interacts with other worlds.

Contact for detailed info - www.mongolian-ways.com/contact

24/10/2021

Experience dog sledding, hiking through the snow-covered forests, and enjoy the unique vista over the frozen lake. Our tours are all designed to put you in the center.

https://www.mongolian-ways.com/themes/winter-adventures

10/10/2021

🇲🇳 Mongolia in winter is a very different country from Mongolia in summer. It offers unique beauty to the scenery and the culture. Even though it doesn’t snow much in Mongolia, snow that fall sticks and stays almost until May as the temperature never increases above 0°C.



mongolian-ways.com

01/08/2021

🇲🇳 The Gobi Desert, covering nearly 1.3 million square km of total land area, is the largest desert in Asia and the fifth largest in the world, presiding both in China and Mongolia. The name simply translates into Waterless Place in Mongolian, while Chinese people occasionally refer to it as Han-hal, which means the Dry Sea.

https://www.mongolian-ways.com/destinations/gobi-desert-mongolia

29/07/2021

🇲🇳 From the largely Kazakh enclave of Ulgii we went out and spent some days as guests of eagle hunting families. Khairatkhan was a very experienced hunter and had an affectionate relationship with his eagle. Eagles are not given names, but are only known by the number of years they are. After about 7 years the owner, with much sadness, releases his eagle into the wild, to sustain the gene pool and repay it for the years in servitude, before training up another young eagle. Khairatkhan had won many eagle festivals and we rode into the mountains with him on a genuine hunt.

https://www.mongolian-ways.com/travel-blog/living-with-eagle-hunters

25/07/2021

🇲🇳 The horses, that are ridden daily, are mostly tied up to a hitching post. The rest of the horses roam freely on their own, without much supervision from a herdsman. As a matter of fact, stallions are normally entrusted with a task to lead the herd, sire foals, and protect the herd against wolves.

mongolian-ways.com

22/07/2021

🇲🇳 Finally, a wind of change after a difficult year and a half. For international travel, road to full recovery is still a long way, but we hope this is the first sign of good days we have been preparing for.

mongolian-ways.com

18/07/2021

🇲🇳 Opposing the typical desert image in our head, in the Gobi Desert, one can see mountains, grasslands, rivers, small lakes and most notably oasis, which is critical to its wildlife and plants.

mongolian-ways.com

15/07/2021

🇲🇳 Historically, the Mongols were known to be very tolerant towards different religions. It is said that at the court of the Mongol Khans, Buddhist, Muslim, Christian, Jewish, Confucian, Shamans and other religious leaders used to sit and exchange ideas with one another.

mongolian-ways.com

11/07/2021

🇲🇳 Mongolia is mountainous, with an average altitude of 1,580 meters above sea level. The principal mountains are concentrated in the west, with much of this region having elevations above 2,000 meters and the country's highest peaks permanently snow-capped and covered with glaciers.

mongolian-ways.com

08/07/2021

🇲🇳 Nature has shaped the religion and the philosophy of Mongolians. It has inspired a simplified and satisfying way of living. Through thousands of years, nomads have passed down their wisdom of worshipping, adapting, and living in harmony with nature instead of being frightened by it, or destroying it.

mongolian-ways.com

03/07/2021

Glittering snow, clear blue sky, frozen rivers and lakes are the image of Mongolian winter. Even though it doesn’t snow much in Mongolia, snow that fall sticks and stays almost until May as the temperature never increases above 0°C.

mongolian-ways.com

30/06/2021

🇲🇳 Mongolians use a rather "hands-off" method to care for their horses. In Mongolia, barns and stables are not common. Horses live outdoors all year, dealing with hot temperatures in summer, and cold in winter. Horses are not bathed or fed special foods like grain and vegetables. They graze on the steppes and dig through snow with their hooves to find grass to eat in winter. For water, they eat snow or drink from rivers and lakes. Since they cost little to nothing to raise, horses are not a luxury item like in Western culture.

mongolian-ways.com

24/06/2021

🇲🇳 In 1949, a railway was built from the east Siberian city of Ulan-Ude, east of Lake Baikal, via border town Naushki to Ulaanbaatar, the capital of Mongolia.

At present, the total length of the Mongolian railway is 1815 km, of which 1110 km is the Trans-Mongolian line. This international route remains highly significant to Mongolia. Every year, more than 23 million tons of cargo and 2.5 million passengers are transported through the railway in Mongolia and the great bulk of it is carried on the Trans-Mongolian line.

mongolian-ways.com

03/06/2021

The Gobi Desert, covering nearly 1.3 million square km of total land area, is the largest desert in Asia and the fifth-largest in the world, presiding both in China and Mongolia. The Gobi translates into Waterless Place in Mongolian, while Chinese people occasionally refer to it as Han-hal, which means the Dry Sea.

The desert became a world sensation in the 1920s when a paleontological expedition held by the American Museum of Natural History discovered the first confirmed dinosaur eggs in the world. In this article, we have included the less-known facts about this unparalleled creation of Mother Earth.

Most of the Gobi desert’s ground surface is not sandy but rather bare rock. The Gobi is a rain shadow desert formed by the Himalayan Mountains, which blocks the rain-causing monsoon winds from the Indian Ocean from reaching the area. Only 5% of the desert is covered by sand, while sedimentary rocks or dry grasslands cover the rest.

In the winter months, the Gobi Desert can get as cold as -40°C, while 45°C is the hottest temperature in summer. During winter, it snows effective enough to sustain its livestock and wild animals. Sand dunes can often be seen covered with snow, making it the only desert in the world to offer such conflicting scenery.

Opposing the typical desert image in our head, in the Gobi Desert, one can see mountains, grasslands, rivers, small lakes and most notably oasis, which is critical to its wildlife and plants. Since the 1960s, some oasis has been used for cultivation, mainly fruits such as mini apple, peach, and watermelon. In the Gobi, the growing season lasts for 6-7 months from April till October, twice longer than the rest of Mongolia.

https://www.mongolian-ways.com/trips/mysteries-of-the-gobi

30/05/2021

Snow leopard, the king of the north and central Asia's high mountains, is often referred to as the ghost of the mountains. Even if the leopard is sleeping on a rock slope right in front of you, you may not notice it is there until you step on it.

Within a mountain range stretching over 1,000 square km, the chances of seeing this majestic creature are small, although it is probably watching you trespassing its kingdom. The coloring of their coats blends them into the snowy environment they inhabit. Thus, snow leopards can walk past those who seek them without being noticed, only leaving behind their footprints.

The snow leopard is the least aggressive among big cats. Even if disturbed while feeding, it is more likely to run away than try to defend its food. There are only two recorded cases of a snow leopard attacking humans. Both took place in the valley near the city of Almaty in Kazakhstan. In the first case, a rabies-infected snow leopard attacked two locals, seriously injuring them. In the second case, an old, toothless snow leopard attacked a passerby, but the man escaped unharmed. Based on historical facts, we can conclude that humans are the ones threatening the snow leopards. There are now only around 5000 snow leopards in the wild, living in the high mountains of 12 countries, including China, Bhutan, Nepal, Russia, and Mongolia. Three factors are behind the decline of their population, all of which are caused by man.

1. Loss of habitat: As human settlements and infrastructure grow, the snow leopards lose their habitat and see it fragmented, making it difficult for the males to find a female to mate.

2. Loss of prey species: Snow leopard mainly hunts wild sheep (argali) and ibex, but it also feeds on smaller animals such as marmots, rabbits, and pikas. The population of these animals is shrinking due to mining activities and poaching.


3. Hunting: Its stunning fur and various organs used in traditional medicine make the snow leopard a poacher's target. Local herders also hunt the snow leopards to prevent the loss of their animals.

Many local and international organizations are working to protect snow leopard populations through research, training, compensating herders who lost their livestock, establishing nature reserves, and fighting economic interests in the area.

The snow leopards are shy and solitary creatures, making it extremely hard for researchers to estimate their population accurately. A few years ago, wildlife conservation organizations began funding surveys to determine their population number. The latest study, published in March 2021, counted 953 snow leopards in Mongolia. The results confirmed that Mongolia has the second-largest snow leopard population after China, which has nearly 2,500 leopards. This new number seems to demonstrate the maximum number of snow leopards that Mongolian territory can support while also showing their population is recuperating in the wild.

About a quarter of Mongolia's snow leopard population live in the Gobi Desert, in a province known as Umnugovi. Unfortunately for the magnificent cat, this province is extremely rich in mineral deposits, including gold and copper. Snow leopards reside in two national parks at the southern tip of the Altai Mountains: Gobi Gurvan Saikhan and Great Gobi-A Strictly Protected Area. Gurvan Tes, an administrative unit considered one of the richest in gold, copper, and coal, separates the two nature reserves. In other words, about 52 mining licenses, a significant portion of which are owned by politicians, separate these two nature reserves.

Bayarjargal Agvaantseren, or Baira for short, is a 52-year-old English teacher from Khuvsgul Province in northern Mongolia. In 1997, she joined the first team of American researchers as an interpreter, studying the snow leopard population in Mongolia. Baira abandoned her teaching career to work in various organizations associated with the conservation and study of snow leopards. In 2009, the Mongolian mining industry boomed, following a historic agreement between Rio Tinto and the Mongolian government. The contract led to the construction of a massive gold-copper mine in the Umnugovi province. At that moment, Baira realized that the traditional factors that have threatened the snow leopard population till now – illegal hunting, increasing goat herds in the desert, or loss of prey species – will be nothing compared to the damage the mines will do. The blast-hole drills, heavy trucks traveling back and forth in the desert, and wasteful water use would cause irreversible damage. Due to her decade of collaboration with locals, including giving lectures on the importance of conservation and compensating herders who lost their animals to snow leopards, Baira successfully united the nomads of Gurvan Tes to fight against the Mongolian government. Although the group succeeded in persuading the governor of Gurvan Tes to declare the region a protected area, the authority of the local administration was limited compared to that of the government and mining companies.

Among those who joined Baira's group was Lkhagvasumberel Tumursukh, who was nicknamed Sumbee. He was the son of Tumursukh, a legendary ranger of a nature reserve in Khuvsgul Province. His father, Tumursukh, dedicated his whole life to protect the wildlife in Khuvsgul. I met him last summer and heard his stories about pursuing poachers and handling Dukha tribes, who occasionally hunt animals. His son, Sumbee, also dedicated his life to protect 20 snow leopards living in the Tost Toson Bumba Mountains in Umnugovi province, a region heavy in mining activities. Since 2009, Sumbee had been educating the nomads and their children on snow leopards' importance, installing surveillance cameras, and tracking the leopards. At the same time, he also kept the mining companies in check, who often extracted while only possessing a license to perform geological surveys.

In May 2014, Sumbee was attacked with a knife by a gang in Ulaanbaatar. Although slashed in the neck, the young man brushed the incident off as a failed robbery attempt and told his parents not to worry about it. In the winter of that year, a group of men abducted Sumbee. They took him to the countryside and told him that his life would be in danger if he didn't stay away from the Gobi Desert. They also threatened to kill his three younger brothers. Sumbee didn't tell his family about the event but reported it to the police, who didn't investigate much. However, they found his cell phone with a recording of the abduction, in which he told his kidnappers, "Do you expect me to beg for my life? Well, I won't!". Sumbee was attacked for the third time in April 2015 while tracking down snow leopards by a motorcycle. Two men on motorbikes wounded him with knives in a narrow mountain pass. Despite the severe injury, Sumbee managed to escape to the research center, from where he was evacuated by helicopter to Ulaanbaatar. Police found three cuts on him as deep as 2 and 4.5 cm. But since they didn't find any evidence of assault, they announced the case an attempted su***de.

Despite the continuous assaults and advice from his superiors to take a rest, Sumbee decided to return to the Tost Toson Bumba Mountains to continue his work. On November 5, 2015, Sumbee left his home in Ulaanbaatar a day earlier than planned to the Gobi Desert. A day or two passed without any news from him, so his family reported to the police. On November 11, his body was found floating in Lake Khuvsgul, in the province he was born, far from both the Gobi Desert and Ulaanbaatar. Police quickly announced his death as a su***de by drowning. Sumbee's family, colleagues, and friends argued that he had no reason to commit su***de. Sumbee was a rising star in the nature conservation field. He studied in the US on a full scholarship and was a valued researcher. He visited zoos worldwide to teach them about snow leopards' habitat to improve their conditions in captivity. He had his whole life ahead of him. In a country where power and money are everything, the mystery of Sumbee's death will probably never be solved.

However, shortly after his death, using the politicians' desire to please the public before the upcoming election, Baira managed to acquire an 80% vote in the parliament to declare Tost Toson Bumba Mountains a nature reserve. These mountains, located between Gobi Gurvan Saikhan Reserve and Great Gobi-A Strictly Protected Area, secured the future of the snow leopards in the Mongolian Gobi. In February 2019, in the Khurakh Mountains of the Great Gobi-A Strictly Protected Area, a snow leopard was photographed for the first time with her adult cub. It is rare to see two snow leopards together. It seems like despite the damage man continues to inflict, the snow leopard population is growing with the help of a few good people.

https://www.mongolian-ways.com/trips/mysteries-of-the-gobi

27/05/2021

From the Khangai Mountain Range, the Orkhon River runs all the way to Lake Baikal in Siberia.

A UNESCO World Heritage Cultural Landscape and one of Mongolian best attractions, the Orkhon valley has been at the center of several kingdoms and empires that have ruled much of Central Asia.

The UNESCO committee states: “Collectively the remains in the site reflect the symbiotic links between nomadic, pastoral societies and their administrative and religious centers, and the importance of the Orkhon valley in the history of central Asia.”

https://www.mongolian-ways.com/trips/the-jewels-of-mongolia

14/05/2021

One of the most interesting ethnic groups living near the lake is the Tsaatan or as they are better known – ‘The Reindeer People’.

A small tribe of Tsaatan consisting of about 40 families lives with its herds of reindeer in the forests around the lake.

These graceful animals provide the tribe with all its basic needs - milk, transportation, meat, skins and bones and antlers used as building materials and for tools.

https://www.mongolian-ways.com/trips/the-reindeer-people-adventure

09/05/2021

On June 5, 1992, a cargo plane landed in Ulaanbaatar, Mongolia, bringing 84 containers. The large crates were loaded onto trucks and set out to the countryside. Sixteen were transported to the Khustai Mountains, located in two-hour drive west of the capital Ulaanbaatar. There they released the Takhi, the world's last truly wild horses, back to the steppes once again after their extinction in the wild in the 1960s.

I remember the first time I witnessed those horses in Khustai National Park. I was highly excited to see them galloping in the steppes instead of sitting in the zoos. But as high as my expectations were, so was my disappointment. I was waiting to see majestic beasts trembling the land beneath their hooves, but I found myself watching some lazy horses walking sluggishly to the creek to drink some water. It was only in the evening when I met the chief biologist at the natural reserve visitor center that I realized how inspiring the story of these horses was.

Since the dawn of history, the Mongols knew about the existence of Takhi horses grazing in the steppes on the northern edge of the Gobi Desert. The nomads made sure to keep their herds far from the wild herds due to the aggressive and untameable nature of the Takhi. It is common for the male wild horses to wage wars that can lead to fatal injuries and even death. In 1878, Colonel Nikolaj Przewalski, a Russian Imperial geographer, returned to St. Petersburg after finishing his mission to gather information on Tibet. On his way, near the border between Mongolia and China, he obtained a skull and hides of an alleged wild horse. When experts from the Zoological Museum in St. Petersburg examined the bones, they concluded that it was a species of wild horse unknown to European science and named it after the colonel. Colonel Przewalski also described several other unknown species to science, including Przewalski's gazelle and the Wild Bactrian camel. He is celebrated for his substantial contribution to European knowledge of Central Asia. He is also rumored to be the biological father of Stalin, not just because of the physical resemblance between them.

Although the Przewalski's horses were unknown to the Europeans until the late 19th century, similar-looking wild horses appear in European cave art dating as far back as 20,000 years ago. Most researchers believe these horses were Tarpan (Equus ferus ferus), an extinct Eurasian subspecies of wild horses. The European and Mongolian wild horses have a common ancestor, the ancient American horses (Equus Ferus) that crossed the Bering land bridge from America to Asia. In America, the wild horse went extinct, but its descendants thrived in the Euroasian steppe, splitting into two species: the Tarpan and the Przewalski. One of its descendants, the Tarpan horses, went extinct after the last one died in captivity in Ukraine in 1918. The Przewalski horses, its other descendant, roamed freely in the Gobi Desert until the 1960s.

After discovering the new species, Colonel Przewalski returned to Central Asia to capture the wild horses alive but failed. The Russian explorer returned home empty-handed. He wrote that "The wild horses are highly anxious and possess an extraordinary sense of smell, sight, and hearing. Their natural habitat is the desert, and they can survive without water for an extended period." Shortly after the discovery of new species was announced, exotic animal lovers across Europe wished to get their hands on the mysterious animal. Hunters occasionally returned with some young foals, but none survived captivity for more than a few months. Between 1897 and 1902, Carl Hagenbeck, a German dealer of wild animals, funded several delegations in Central Asia to catch Przewalski's horses. Hagenbeck was notorious for his cruel "Human Zoos," in which he displayed indigenous groups, including Sami people, Inuit people, and Samoans. In 1901, his hunters successfully captured 52 foals but wiped out entire harems and exterminated most of the stallions in the process.

These foals and a few others survived the journey to Europe and were scattered among various zoos. The remnant population in Mongolia was left fragile and went extinct in the 1960s due to a string of harsh winters, drought, and hunting by locals. The extinction of the wild herds made the captive population the sole representatives of Przewalski's horse. However, the captive population in Europe was barely hanging on after the two world wars. In 1945, only 31 horses remained in all of Europe at the Munich and Prague zoos. In 1950, only 12 individuals remained! Inbreeding among the captive population had also caused reduced fertility of the Przewalski horses. Thus, the zoos started to exchange breeding animals among facilities. In 1957, a wild-caught mare captured as a foal a decade earlier was brought to the Ukrainian zoo population. This was the last wild-caught horse and significantly boosted the genetic diversity. The spread of her bloodline through the in**ed captive groups led to increased reproductive success. From then on, more international collaborations took place, leading to substantial growth. By 1965, there were more than 130 horses spread among 32 zoos.

In 1972, two young Dutch newlyweds named Jan and Inge Bouman traveled to Czechoslovakia on their honeymoon. There they came across a dozen Przewalski's horses living in a crowded pen at the Prague Zoo. The couple, who possessed a deep affinity for horses, wished to free those poor animals from their miserable captivation and return them to their home. Rather than writing about feelings in a diary, the two decided to make their dream a reality. From then on, they flew between zoos around the world, trying to harness the horses to a breeding program, in which they would be swapped between the zoos to prevent further inbreeding and restore the species' genetic resilience. The couple, who have never had children, invested all their money and time to reach their goal. In 1977, they established the Foundation for the Preservation and Protection of the Przewalski Horse in Rotterdam, the Netherlands.

In 1990, together with the entire Eastern bloc, Mongolia ended the communist monopoly and opened itself to the West. The Bouman couple, who had previously established ties with Mongolian scholars, felt that the time had finally come for the Przewalski's horses to return home. A year after the democratic revolution in Mongolia, the new government chose two areas to rehabilitate the wild horses in nature. In 1992, exactly 20 years after the Bouman couple's first visit to the Prague Zoo, 84 wild horses returned to Mongolia from various zoos across Europe. Jan Bouman passed away in 1996, four years after seeing his dream come true. Inge, his widow, decided to stay away from the project a bit and enjoy the time she had left. Regardless, several organizations worldwide continued to support the sensational project of reintroducing the Przewalski's horses to their natural habitat. Each year, they brought a few more individuals in Mongolia and transferred them to three breeding centers: Western Mongolia, southern Gobi Desert, and Khustai, not far from the capital Ulaanbaatar.

The reintroduction project had to deal with many challenges. The wild horses are preyed upon by wolves and exposed to various diseases in nature. There is also a danger of mating with domesticated herds grazing not far (the Przewalski's horse or Takhi has 66 chromosomes, while the domestic horse has 64. They can mate with each other and produce fertile offspring with 65 chromosomes). Despite all these challenges, the reintroduction project became the first successful venture to restore species extinct in the wild back to nature. The reintroduced horses successfully reproduced, and the animal's status was changed from "extinct in the wild" to "endangered" in 2005. The change in status indicates, on the one hand, the glorious achievements of the project, and on the other hand, that there is still a long way to go to complete the project.

Today there are about 1900 Przewalski's horses in the world. Out of them, over 400 horses are roaming freely in the Mongolian steppes. If you look at their history, the Takhi horse is a symbol of hope. It is truly unique if you think that the horses once perished in the wild are now thriving in their native land again. In the late afternoon in Khustai National Park, you can easily find them drinking water from the springs in the summer heat.

https://www.mongolian-ways.com/trips/national-parks-excursion