We spent most of the day on Thursday, July 11, 2013 observing the Mongolians celebrate their Nadaam. It kind of reminds me a Peach Days in Brigham but multiplied by a 1,000,000 people. There are street vendors selling their wares and just a lot of interesting things to see.
We started out the day by going to Sukhbaatar Square.
The Guards carry the Nine White Horse Hair Standards from Parliament to the Stadium where they are guarded during the competitions of Nadaam. These standards represent Chinggis and his eight generals who were united in conquering much of the world so many years ago.
We followed or ran ahead of the procession to the stadium and found what seemed like a million people all ready there. It was fun to wander and watch the people. We did not have tickets for the inside opening ceremonies but had fun anyway. We discovered that it was easier to watch the wrestling on TV than in the stadium. They just feel the field with wrestlers and they try to take down their opponents. Basically the one left standing after all is said and done is the winner. (It really is more complicated than that, I really do not know all of the rules)
The archers are amazing, the women can compete now days in both the horse racing and archery but not in wrestling.
The Mongolian people have been celebrating Naadam off and on for almost 2000 years.
We were tired by the end of the day. We probably walked 8 miles again.
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