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Naadam – the festival of manly sports

Naadam is an annual festival in Mongolia – the biggest festivity of the year.  The reason is that winter festivities like New Year fall when most nomadic communities are cut-off by the heavy snow that closes-down all of rural Mongolia for the winter months – so family get-togethers are impossible.  So when mid-summer comes, the great competition of Naadam takes places.  Naadam consisted originally of many Buddhist ceremonies and dances, but these were banned during the Communist era – some element of them has been reintroduced into the present-day Naadam.  The main activities, though, are archery, wrestling, and horse-racing – sports in which there is fierce competition and great local national interest.  Alongside this there are more low-key events that happen alongside.  What needs mentioning, however, is that the organisation of Naadam isn’t always, well, entirely smooth.  It’s even happened that the horse-racing was rescheduled earlier in the day (“hot weather – bad for horses”) and when the Presidential motorcade arrived for the start, it had actually all finished.  So bring a sense of humour and a flexible attitude when you come to Naadam, and you’ll enjoy it in all its strange and exotic glory.

Journeys stopping at Naadam Festival

Trans-Siberian Railway
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Golden Eagle – Trans-Mongolian Express
Moscow to Ulaanbaatar

13 Days
Naadam is the one and only Big Event in Mongolia – a spectacularly colourful national festival, held every year. Naadam literally means...


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Trans-Siberian Railway
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Golden Eagle – Trans-Mongolian Express
Ulaanbaatar to Moscow

13 Days
Naadam is the one and only Big Event in Mongolia – a spectacularly colourful national festival, held every year. Naadam literally means ‘three...


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Mongolia Facts

National Capital:

Ulaanbaatar (the soviet-era spelling “Ulan-Bator” is now considered incorrect, although most Mongolians will use the slang term “youbee” (ie “U.B”) for their capital city).

Area:

1.56 million sq km (603,909 sq miles)

Population:

2.7 million (UN, 2007)

Major Religion:

Buddhism

Major Language:

Mongolian

Life expectancy:

Men 64 and women 70

Currency:

1 Togrog (tugrik) = 100 mongos

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