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Ever since I began my model in 2002, I’ve been coming house to Mongolia to go to and spend time with the nomads who deal with the goats that give us cashmere yarns. A lot has modified through the years, however one factor has remained the identical, one thing that has been the identical for hundreds of years, is our nomads’ way of life and values. We worship and respect the land, sky, mountains and rivers via spoken phrases, Tibetan Buddhism, songs and dances.
My annual journeys have now began to deal with nomadic communities who’re working in direction of full sustainability and who’re enrolled in programmes, such because the Sustainable Fibre Alliance (SFA), which have a long-term technique of building full sustainability within the cashmere business. At the moment, the sustainability state of affairs in Mongolia just isn’t too unhealthy, but it surely might deteriorate if we don’t act on it. It can be crucial for me to help it, keep updated with the challenges it faces and share our nomads’ inspiring tales.
On this journey, the temperature was -6C by day and -16C at night time once I arrived in Ulaanbaatar, however the sky was clear blue, the air crisp and uplifting. We headed with my photographer Davaanyam, and videographer Khurlee, to Western Mongolia in a Jeep, armed with a fuel cooker, sufficient espresso and snacks. Because of Covid, we heard rumours that almost all petrol stations is perhaps shut within the distant areas, so we additionally introduced additional petrol. Our plan was to journey from the capital to the far western areas of Mongolia, travelling 1,500km alongside the southern route and making our means again alongside the northern route, assembly nomadic communities on the way in which, experiencing the great thing about our nation, travelling a complete of three,000km in seven days.
In Mongolia, you’ll be able to go to any nomadic household on the street; their welcome and hospitality are legendary. The idea throughout the nomadic group is that people face nature, so people are allies. In nomadic tradition, and never simply amongst Mongolian nomads, individuals are very hospitable and spending time with them turns into an natural course of.
This was the primary time that I interviewed nomads on digital camera and took skilled pictures of them. I requested them what earth and land means to them; what essentially the most tough factor and essentially the most stunning factor about being a nomad was; and what they felt was treasured. Their solutions ranged from household to land, to mountains and private values.
We additionally requested them in the event that they wish to ask one thing of our viewers within the UK and worldwide in reverse, as a result of I’m keen about connecting folks between the 2 ends of the cashmere manufacturing chain; the beginning being the nomads who’re an important half as they deal with these goats and the top being individuals who use cashmere merchandise. We actually wish to join them on a human stage.
Relying on the season, nomads typically wake with the solar, which in the summertime might be round 4am. The ladies often wake first, gentle the fireplace, and heat up the ger in order that it’s heat when the children get up. You possibly can think about in -30C it will get very chilly. (The little woman, Nominsuvd, we had been staying with was sitting in a T-shirt whereas we had been there in cashmere jumpers and jackets – they’re very robust.)
A ger, which means ‘house’ in Mongolian, is a yurt and is produced from wood lattices forming a wall and skinny wood poles branching out towards the spherical crown on the prime, that’s suspended by two columns. This wood base is roofed in thick handmade wool-felt and cotton canvas and it’s all held along with hand-spun wool ropes. These days many households have photo voltaic panels to cost their televisions and telephones and so one sleeps in a very EMF and electrical air pollution free house.
A ger is without doubt one of the most pure dwellings on earth, protecting in heat in winter and sustaining coolness in the summertime. It’s moveable, assembled or disassembled simply, and it’s stunning in its simplicity of design and mobility. The Mongolian ger is registered by Unesco as an object of the world cultural heritage of mankind.
After a breakfast of milk tea with clarified butter and boortsog, Mongolian cookies (they’re referred to as bawirsaq within the Center East), the day begins by tending to the animals and milking the cows; relying on what number of animals they’ve, it might take two hours within the morning. Then they let the livestock exit to pasture.
After a time out within the pastures, nomadic households feast on their very own produce. Their food regimen consists predominantly of meat and do-it-yourself dairy merchandise and for the final 200 years or so there has additionally been rice and root greens. There isn’t numerous it of their food regimen, however it’s obtainable from the province or village centres. From the meat to the mutton, the standard is superb. It’s not simply natural, however wild-roaming, herb-fed and the style is so totally different. Simply merely cooked meat with a bone broth, boiled potatoes, carrots and onions is completely scrumptious.
Whereas trendy nomads are on-line and primarily keep in contact through Fb, their night leisure stays extra bodily interactive: chess, archery, musical devices, and a sport known as shagai, which includes the small astragali bones of a sheep or goat, representing their 5 prized animals, Tavan Khoshuu Mal: sheep, horses, camels, cows and goat. And, in fact, sharing riddles and poems and singing – the nomadic oral tradition could be very sturdy, and so they converse fantastically.
Bedtime tends to be fairly early, round 8pm, as they rise with the solar, which is the healthiest means. Within the west, there’s a rising consciousness about circadian rhythms as a pattern, however in Mongolia it’s the lifestyle.
Nomadic youngsters begin serving to the household at an early age. When they’re simply 4 or 5 years previous they’re already driving horses and may help out when rounding up the herd. Round 35% of the inhabitants, or 1 million Mongolians, are nomads and it’s fairly traditional in a nomadic household for it to be handed on. My father was a nomad when he was born, however then he moved to a metropolis.
It’s not straightforward to be a nomad. When there’s a robust winter with sturdy snowstorms or a dry summer season with little rain, it may be very difficult. Because of this, younger nomads are attracted extra to cities, however in cities it’s robust for them as a result of they don’t have any training or particular professions relevant to an city surroundings and might fall into poverty. They want help from the nation, varied organisations, and your complete cashmere consuming utilizing folks on this planet. It’s unhappy if younger nomads begin giving up on nomadic tradition as a result of Mongolia, as one of many final remaining nomadic cultures, will change as we all know it.
Being a nomad shouldn’t stay within the conventional means that it has labored for hundreds of years. There are methods to help, encourage and study from the fashionable nomads of Mongolia. Schooling and entrepreneurship might be a part of being a nomad and will assist younger nomads being pleased with who they’re, like many generations of sturdy and proud nomads earlier than them. That may assist protect this superb nomadic tradition and values, that the world may gain advantage from studying.
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Younger nomadic couple Lhiasuren Chimidzul and his spouse, Uyanga Altansukh, of Khovd Province, with whom we spent an evening, warmed by their hospitality.
One particular night on this journey, we had been welcomed into the house of Lkhaisuren and Uyanga – a younger nomad couple – in Khovd Province, the place we stayed in a single day of their ger.
Going to sleep trying on the stars via their ger’s roof, with the sound and scrumptious odor of softly burning wooden in a hearth and waking as much as the sweeping view of the valley was essentially the most superb expertise of this journey. For nomads, the valley is their lounge, a land with no fences and blue skies. Now, who wouldn’t wish to expertise that, and let the long run generations to expertise that too?
As informed to Scarlett Conlon
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