Precious Conventions

Mongolia boasts a unique blend of traditions born of the country’s varied environments: the steppe, the desert, and the city. We look at three iconic practices with UNESCO Intangible Cultural Heritage status

Howling winds constantly tear across the Gobi.

Its winters are among Earth’s coldest, and the massive summer dust storms offer scant respite. Nothing much grows on these barren plains – but, like other desert communities, the nomads that regularly migrate through this area and across the steppe of the north have discovered the best way to cope with the lack of food and constantly shifting sands: the two-humped Bactrian camel, a hallmark of Mongolian life.

With their naturally wide soles and legendary endurance for low water, food and temperature levels, every camel is as precious as family to nomads. Apart from transport, they provide milk rich in protein and calcium, which features in steaming cups of suutei tsai, a salty local milk tea. Milk can also be made into butter and cheese – whose long shelf life is invaluable on arduous migrations far from towns and cities. In fact, Mongols need their camels so much they rarely slaughter them, preferring to dine on the meat of goats, sheep, and horses. And to add to their list of charming qualities, the fluffy ungulates are also said by herders to have the softest hearts.

But camels aren’t completely desert-proof, and females only give birth to one calf every second year (after a 13-month pregnancy) to cope with the harsh conditions. This severely limits their numbers. There is the additional risk of losing mother or baby during labour; even if both survive, the exhausted female might reject her calf, and it will die.