Trip to Tsaatan.
This is a day that starts a real adventure. After full breakfast with
fresh bakery from our Chief cook, we will drive to Khatgal town. Here
you can visit a local school, a hospital, National Park
Administration or even we can arrange for you a meeting with your
Mongolian colleague of your profession. Then, we will drive to the
Khirvesteg spot to meet our houses and guides to a Tsaatan family.
After hot picnic lunch we will begin the fully animal supported trip
continuing for 5-7 hours via Khirvesteg pass, on the western side of
Khuvsgul Lake into the Khoridol Saridag Mountains. Our cook will
serve you Mongolian traditional food, a specialty for this evening.
Overnight in tent close to the Tsaatan tribe. Bonfire… . (Average
altitude over 2000m )
Tsaatan (reindeer people) are the last groups of nomadic
reindeer herders in the world, who survived for thousands of years
inhabiting the remotest subarctic taiga, migrating over 5 and 10
times a year. Historically, these people considered to be Tuvan
(Tozhu Tuvans) Turkic community who were separated from their people
in Tuva due to the demarcation between Mongolia and Russia in early
1900s. Presently, there only about 200 tsaatans of 44 families
remained. The Tsaatan rely on the animal for most, if not all, of
their basic needs: milk, which is also used to make cheese; antlers,
which they use to make tools; and first and foremost, transport. They
do not use the reindeer for meat. Scientists believe that their
unique lifestyle still keeps some of imprints of pre-state tribalism;
hunter-gatherer bands, which are generally egalitarian.
