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By Jürgen Klute

Last Saturday (28 June), there was a premiere in Brussels’ Bois de la Cambre. The Naadam Festival took place there for the first time. However, it was not only the first time in Brussels, but also the first time in Europe – and outside Mongolia. The Naadam Festival is Mongolia’s national holiday. It is usually held annually from 10 to 13 July. In order not to compete with the celebrations in Mongolia, the festival in Brussels was organised a few days earlier.

According to the Mongolian Embassy in Brussels, around 5,000 people attended the festival in the Bois de la Cambre. Around 80,000 Mongolians live in Europe. Most of them came to Europe after the fall of the Iron Curtain to build a new life here, due to the fact that the economic situation in Mongolia was not rosy in the 1990s. Many of them had come to Brussels on Saturday, but there were also guests who had travelled directly from Mongolia, as Tumurbat Bazarragchaa from the Mongolian Embassy explained to Europa-Blog.

The Naadam festival focuses on three sports: wrestling, archery and knucklebone, a game played with sheep bones. According to Bazarragchaa, 128 wrestlers, 60 archers and 250 knucklebone shooters joined the Naadam Festival in Brussels.

At the start of the festival, the athletes presented themselves to the visitors in a small ceremony. Next, there were musical performances by traditional and modern Mongolian music groups and bands. The band Uuhai is particularly worth mentioning. It combines traditional Mongolian musical instruments and the special traditional Mongolian throat singing with modern Western metal music (here is a sample). There were also performances of various dances.

However, the wrestlers took centre stage. While in American wrestling two opponents face each other in a ring, in Mongolian wrestling all wrestlers are on a grassy area at the same time. They communicate flexibly among themselves to decide who will compete against whom. The aim is to get your opponent to lie on their back on the ground – and not to display brutality, as in American wrestling. The loser then leaves the field. The winners continue. However, the competition is spread over several rounds, which are interrupted by longer breaks.

In addition to the sporting performances, there were also insights into Mongolian culture: calligraphy and painting.

And, of course, culinary needs were also taken into account. A variety of food stalls offered different Mongolian dishes and drinks. The most popular were ‘khuushuur’, flatbread filled with minced meat and fried in hot oil, and dumplings, which are also popular in China, consisting of meat-filled noodles cooked in steam, somewhat similar to Swabian Maultauschen.

A special feature of the Naadam Festival is that it is not only the athletes who appear in traditional Mongolian costumes. The Mongolian guests were also dressed in traditional, very colourful costumes and hats. Consequently, there was also a small fashion contest for the guests, in which prizes were awarded for the most beautiful costumes.

The festival was rounded off in the evening with a concert featuring modern Mongolian music.

This first Mongolian World Festival was organised jointly by the Office of the President of Mongolia, the National Festival Organising Committee, the Mongolian diplomatic missions in European countries and the Mongolian Council of Overseas Mongolians (NCOMB). Tumurbat Bazarragchaa emphasised to the Europa-Blog: “I would like to express my sincere gratitude to the Mongolian National Wrestling Federation, the Mongolian National Knucklebone Shooting Federation, the Mongolian Archery Federation, the Mongolian rock and music bands, and Mongolian citizens living in European countries. Many thanks of course to many guests and visitors from Belgium, Netherlands, Germany and other European countries.”

The Naadam festival probably dates back to the historic clan gatherings that were social highlights in the Middle Ages. Later, 11 July became a national holiday as Revolution Day. It commemorates Mongolia’s declaration of independence in 1921.

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Photos: Jürgen Klute

Featured image: Jürgen Klute

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