Trip to taiga : flowers

Here are some flowers and plants from the mountain we visited.

Trip to taiga : the Tsaatan people

The Tsaatan people are ethnically tuvan and have been stuck in Mongolia during the second world war. They are quite few, about 300, still living nomadically in the taiga in winter or on higher places in summer. The summer camp we visited had about 25 families, spread sometime far from each other.


The summer tipi that our host family used is bigger than the winter one but some people still use the winter one in summer. The height of the winter's one is just enough to stand up in the middle.
The oven is always in the center. As the temperature was like winter in Switzerland or Japan, there was always a fire to heat the tipi.

Dried reindeer meat. In opposition to most of the reindeers herders in the world, the Tsaatan rarely eat their reindeers. They will sometime slaughter an old reindeer and dry its meat to keep it as long as possible.

The reindeer milk is very precious to make cheese (which tastes almost like Emmenthal !) or butter. We both liked it very much.

The boy of the host family was specially shy but very friendly with his reindeers.

Trip to taiga : the reindeers

The Tsaatan people are the only reindeers herders of Mongolian. They have about 50 reindeers for each family, which is actually a few to survive only from them. The families must move regularly to find new pasture fields for their animals, who eat mostly lichens.
The reindeers often stay around the tipies (the houses of Tsaatan people).

Even sometime, they want to enter the house !

Some of them had huge antlers !

This baby still has to wait a little bit for antlers.

Domestic deers are pretty familiar with humans, more than other domestic animals that we saw in Mongolia. For example, they love to lick your hands because they are a little bit salty. The Tsaatan also give them regularly salt this way.

Look at their strange feet ! The nails make a funny "clicking" sound when the reindeer walks. The voice of the reindeer is also strange. It sounds maybe like a depressive wild pig.

Trip to taiga : on the way

To reach the west camp of Tsaatan people, you must be really brave: after about 35 hours of car on bumpy roads, there's still 8 hours of horse, in a muddy and stony forest, mountains and cliffs. For second time on horse for us, it was a little bit intense !

But Kozy enjoyed it very much !

Tea break

Trip to taiga : Tsaagan Nuur (white lake)

Tsaagan Nuur is the last village before the taiga. It's the central village of lots of tsaatan people.

When we came back from the taiga, it was the last day of Nadam, the national sport festival. In every village and city, this is the occasion to make a huge party. Many people from countryside also come for this occasion, of course mostly by horse. So, we could see some horse-parking:

The wrestling "stadium" :

And lots of people selling anything to all those visitors. Looks like a drive-in system for horses.

Trip to taiga : Ulaan Uul (red mountain)

Ulan Uul is a small village in a protected area. It was also our last stop before Tsaaga Nuur and the Tsaatan people.The region is increadibly beautiful : pine forests, endless green steppes and many lakes. And far, huge mountains.


The region gets pretty a lot of rain. We have never seen so intense rainbow. It looked like more than seven colours !

Houses of the village are closer from Siberian type than Mongolian. Pretty colorful.

This house was specially interesting ! It was the working place of an old man.

And always, lots of kids who love to be on your fotos.

..and yaks. We knew later why lots of them were attached in tandem : it's easier to gather them quickly.

Trip to Bayan-Olgii : Khoton Nuur

Our final destination of this travel was a lake "Khoton Nuur" where is just to the border of China.The place could look like Leman lake 3000 years ago when there was nobody living around. The landscape was so familiar !

Since our Kazakh guide has family everywhere in Bayan Olgii, we could stay by her uncle and cousin's gher who were still in true nomadic life style.
They collaborate to herd 1000 sheeps with 2 other families. They produce mostly cheese and meat from their animal and actually, except fried bread, they don't eat other food. So when we offered an orange, they made big eyes !



When we met the oncle of our kazakh guide, we had a strong impression to be in Central Asia !

And always a lot of kids !

The kazakh people live in bigger ger than mongolian people. This family had a pretty dreamy place

...and inside, we could see the traditional kazakh embroideries. The bed was specially amazing.

Trip to Bayan-Olgii : Tsengel sum

Tsengel is the home of Kazakh and Tuvan people. Kozy could then meet a Tuvan khoomi singer.
Kozy used to listened Tuvan Khoomi more than Mongolian Khoomi in the recordings. So, he was really curious to listen the difference after spent 4 month with the Mongolian Khoomi singer Sengedorj in Khovd.

Tsengel was also the first village (sum) that we saw with wooden houses. As there's forests not far from the village, it explains these new materials and "colours" !

Trip to Bayan-Olgii : Kazakh music

The main reason Kozy wanted to visit Olgii was a female musician who plays Kazakh bowing string instrument "Qobïz". She also sometime sings while playing the instrument. It's pretty rare as a female player of this instrument.
She welcomed us very much with full of dishes on a table. We stayed at a night at her place, and made the recording of 30 songs!!
Her way of playing was like floating feathers but the sound reflects her deep spirituality as well.


Another incredible musician was a cousin of our translator (also a good friend since Khovd).
Even though she has known that Kozy is very interested in traditional music, she has never told about this cousin until actual meeting... Maybe it was just a part of her normal environment since childhood...
But his playing style of the flute "Sïbïzgï" was really special. Basically it's same as Mongolian flute "Zhool". They play this flute with a voice drone in the base note of the song. It gives rich overtone and texture in the sound.
Remarkably this flute doesn't have any reed. It just a tube with 3 holes for fingers!!
Although he plays Kazakh songs with this style, those songs are normally not played with voice drone in Kazakhstan.
He inherited the style from his grand father. But he has never seen other people who play like them.
So, in the meaning, his style was very original new traditional music of Kazakh-Mongolian.
I hope his son will inherit the style from him.

Another very famous Kazakh instrument is "Donbra". We could meet with people who play this instrument in everywhere in this area. So, it's real folk instrument of this area.
We were very glad to know that people still love their tradition. And it's deeply rooted in their life.
We've expected the "folk" music situation in whole Mongolia, but actually we could only see it in this Kazakh area.

Trip to Bayan-Olgii : Olgii

Olgii is the biggest city of Bayan Olgii. Most of habitants of this state are Kazakh.
Often people have blue or green eyes and even sometime blond hair! with Asian shape face. It makes strong impression of "central" Asia.
This city is 360゜surrounded by mountains. When you turn your head to see all those mountains, you will feel strange dizziness.

It was the peak of election campaign. This candidate made a election ger just in front of the name board of this city.
He was a precious muslim background candidate. So, he was so proud to be an ambassador of this city.

"Black market" : here, metal boxes are more popular than containers used in Khovd

And sometime funny old advertisements.

Japanesse - Swiss - Kazakh... in which direction??