Golden Eagle Festival

The Golden Eagle annual festival celebrates the golden eagle and the traditional Kazakh culture of hunting with them in one of Mongolia’s most beautiful wilderness areas.  This festival was founded fairly recently, in 2000, to encourage young Kazakhs to maintain the tradition which has since been added to the UNESCO Representative List of the Intangible Cultural Heritage of Humanity, as an example of ‘living human heritage’. Head out to Ulgii, in the far reaches of Mongolia to see traditional games, dancing, and spectacular displays of hunting skills. Excitement mounts for the festival when Kazakh hunters come from near and far with their prized eagles to compete based on skill, speed and accuracy.