Nadaam Festival

This weekend was the Nadaam Festival - a nation-wide celebration of Mongolian independence and culture. The festival occurs annually and lasts 3 days. On the first day, the opening ceremony is held, which features traditional dances, songs and of course contortionists. The wrestling, horse racing, archery and ankle bone shooting competitions also begin on the first day after the opening ceremony. On the second day, the horse racing and wrestling continue and the winners are determined then announced at the closing ceremony later that evening. The third day is reserved strictly for celebration, so there are no stadium events.

Nadaam occurs all over Mongolia, but the main event takes place at the Central Stadium in Ulaan Baatar. The stadium itself is about at big as a large high school football stadium - with slightly more seating - and is not nearly as well maintained. Judging by the splatters of paint on the weeds growing next to the bright red railings, someone had recently repainted the seating area in quite a hurry. The grass on the field was long overdue for maintenance and the seats were coming apart right and left. It did, however, have a big tv screen installed so that the audience could watch live feed of the horse races taking place about 60 km away while simultaneously watching wrestling matches in the stadium. Though the stadium itself was a bit less than expected (considering it's the nation's best stadium), the actual event was a great time. The opening ceremony featured hundreds of dancers and contortionists all performing to live music performed on traditional instruments. Of course, Chinggis Khaan's peace banner was brought onto the field - and fiercely guarded by ornately dressed soldiers - and the Mongolian Olympic Team made an appearance.

Outside of the stadium were vendors selling cheap eats and expensive souvenirs. The city was packed with tourists for this event and pick-pocketing was rampant. (Being from Philly, I already knew not to put anything valuable where anyone else could reach, so anyone who opened my backpack would end up with a glorious bounty of Kleenex tissues and sunscreen.) I spent a few hours between the first two days of the festival exploring around the vendor tents and found everything from old women selling "priceless artifacts" to cell phone companies offering discounts to customers who signed up for a contract at the festival.

According to Namun, most locals skip town for the Nadaam Festival and celebrate with their families in the country, but the crowd at the stadium wasn't totally made up of tourists. There were teenagers hanging around everywhere dressed in their version of the latest western fashions, women carrying babies while wearing stiletto heals, children dressed in their favorite outfits (including Cinderella dresses and Batman costumes) and elderly men and women dressed in their traditional deels. I felt a little out of place in my ripped jeans and smelly tank top.

On the third day, none of us knew where any of the celebrations were taking place, and since we only had two more days until our final projects were due for class, most of us opted to hang out at the hotel to edit photos and compile our artist's statements.