Navrus Festival in the Altai

Navrus, or Nauryz, is the festival of the spring equinox. It began in ancient Persia, in Zoroastrian times, and its name simply means “new day”, the first day of the new year. Several countries still keep it, and in Mongolia it lives on among the Kazakhs of the Great Altai, a Muslim community in the far west, right where Mongolia meets Russia and China. Every 22 March the whole town of Ölgii, capital of Bayan-Ölgii province, comes out to celebrate it.

This is a short journey, and a Mongolia few visitors see. Winter is ending and life outdoors is starting again. Days are usually a little above zero and nights still freeze, but the air is so dry that the cold is easy to live with. Before the festival we spend most of the week in the mountains with the eagle hunters, then come back to town for the big day.

From Ulaanbaatar a long domestic flight takes us across the country to Ölgii (1,770 m). Our first outing is to Khatuu, where Bronze Age people carved animals and scenes of daily work into the rock. Nearby lies Tolbo Lake (2,210 m), still frozen at this time of year: we walk out on the ice and look at its many shades of blue and white.

Our base for the mountain days is a ger camp put up just for us near the village of Sagsai (1,713 m), in a sheltered valley along the river that catches the morning sun. At lunchtime Kazakh families open their simple, warm homes to us, and our cooks share their kitchens. Those who want to ride go out with the eagle hunters on calm horses, always beside experienced horsemen. Those who prefer not to ride follow in our sturdy UAZ vans and take short walks. The hunters also show us how they train their eagles. In the evening we sit around the stove in the kitchen ger with a cup of hot tea, swapping stories with the hunters and their families and learning about their customs.

Leaving the Turgen river area, the UAZ vans ford frozen rivers between mountains of every colour, with plenty of stops for photos. We meet yaks wrapped in bright blankets against the cold and drive up to the foothills of Tsengel Khairkhan, through valleys slowly waking from winter, under snow-covered peaks that reach 3,990 m.

Back in Ölgii it is festival time. In the morning we watch the preparations: women and children in traditional dress, hunters with their eagles and horses, long-haired Bactrian camels wandering among the gers set up in the square. The festival opens with songs and dances. Then the parade: every trade, decorated carts, singers and artists, athletes, schoolchildren and the different peoples of the province, all in costume. Last come the eagle hunters on horseback, in fur coats, fox-fur hats and thick leather gloves, the eagle perched on a wooden rest fixed to the saddle. There are archery contests, music and, if we are lucky, khöömii, the Mongolian throat singing.

After Navrus we fly back to Ulaanbaatar (1,350 m) for its Buddhist temples, museums and the Winter Palace of the Bogd Khan, and drive out to Khustain Nuruu National Park, where the takhi, the wild Przewalski’s horses, have been brought back to the steppe. Then it is time to go home, with Mongolia in your heart.