Spend time with Mongolia’s eagle-hunter culture

In Bayan-Ölgii, the westernmost province of Mongolia, an ethnic Kazakh community keeps up a form of falconry that is thought to go back more than two thousand years: hunters, known as bürkitshi, ride out on horseback with a trained golden eagle to hunt foxes in winter. Eagle falconry was inscribed on UNESCO’s Representative List of the Intangible Cultural Heritage of Humanity in 2010.

What the experience is

The most rewarding version is a stay with a hunter’s family, in the mountains or the steppe around Ölgii, rather than a single festival day. It means a few days with a household: tea and food in the ger, time with the eagle, an introduction to how the birds are trained and cared for, and, in winter, a day on horseback when the animals are working. The rhythm is set by the family, the weather and the birds.

The best-known gathering is the Golden Eagle Festival, held every year in Ölgii and on the nearby steppe, organised by the Mongolian Eagle Hunters’ Association. It includes competitions in eagle handling, traditional dress and horsemanship, as well as horse racing, archery and bushkashi, a horseback tug-of-war using a goatskin. Smaller festivals, such as the one at Sagsai, have a similar structure with about forty participants.

A tradition under pressure

Researchers describe heritage tourism as a mixed blessing. Festivals have given the community pride and income, but real hunting has become rarer, and the old custom of releasing eagles back to the wild after several years has faded as birds are now bought and sold. The best experiences are those where the family still hunts, where the visit is paid for fairly, and where the eagle’s welfare comes first.

Why OKYTO recommends it

Because it is one of the few cultural encounters where the visitor can be a guest in a skilled, living practice, and because the honest version, a stay with a working hunting family, supports the people who keep it alive.