Impressions from the desert: Nadaam Celebrations

Nadaam is the national celebration of Mongolia. Normally the Mongolians celebrate three days in a row, this year from Wednesday to Friday. On site people had to work during those three days, but there were a lot of activities in the evenings. It started on Tuesday evening with the awards for the sports contests that happend in the last days. Me and my Mongolian football teams were not under the best three teams. We had the two best teams in our group and missed the qualification. Anyway the football turnament was something of the most exciting things I did here. The pit is great, made on artifical turf and we played with two lines men and a refree. The Mongolian took it really serious and there were about 200 spectators on the games. On the same evening they awarded the winner of the "OT got talent" contest. The winner was a guy telling poetry about Mongolia. After that the hangar turned in to a disco, which is pretty funny in the desert on Tuesday night.

Body Builders at OT got talent

We had to work every day as usual, but in the evenings we could take part of the celebrations. On Wednesday they arranged a concert. It was also very nice, they played a lot of famous rock songs and a lot of Mongolian Music from Girl Groups to HipHop.

Saturday

Thursday and Friday were a little bit more quite, because everyone was waiting for Saturday: The Nadaam Celebration in the "big Ger". More or less everyone on site had the day off and went out to the desert, where the traditional Nadaam Celebration took place. The Mongolian celebrate their Nation with their typical sports: Horse riding, Archery, ankle bones shooting and Wrestling. There was no horse riding in the desert, but all other sports took place. Archery is classical game of hiting the target with the Arrow. Ankle bones shooting is also a game where you have to hit a target. The players try to hit other ankle bones in a distance of maybe 5m by just flip the bones with their fingers. Wrestling is same than we know it in Europe with the difference that they have some traditions to fulfill. After each fight they behave like a bird, run to the Mongolian flag, and beating their legs.