What Ölgii is known for
Ölgii is the capital of Bayan-Ölgii, Mongolia’s westernmost province and its only Kazakh-majority and Muslim-majority one, about 93 percent Kazakh. Kazakh families in the province have long hunted with golden eagles, catching wild birds and releasing them again. The city is known for its Golden Eagle Festival, an October event that turned a family hunting practice into a ticketed competition for photographers and tourists.
Three Kazakh partners and a foreign backer
The idea for a festival was agreed at a table in Bayan-Ölgii between a Mongolian guide, his employer, and three Kazakh partners named Kazbek, Medukhan and Edilkhan; Jalsa Urubshurow, a tour operator raised in New Jersey, offered to pay for it. Usually dated to 1999, the festival won official approval in January 2000 and first ran that October, researchers found. By 2019 the October event sold 600 tickets to foreigners, drew an estimated 1,200 to 1,500 visitors, and had 124 hunters competing, judged on costume, the eagle’s speed to the glove and its strike on a fox pelt.
An audience that changed the hunt
Wild trapped eagles will not fly in front of a crowd, so festival hunters now mostly fly colberkuts, eagles taken from the nest as chicks and hand raised, which can never hunt or be released in the wild. In Sagsai, a district of about 30 hunters, researchers found only three still hunting regularly in winter. Girls posing with eagles for photographers have also drawn criticism: the historian Adrienne Mayor has warned that staged huntresses erase the real history; Kazakh women hunted before.
Where the money goes
The organiser says all ticket proceeds go to the Kazakh Falconry Association, which helped build the Eagle Hunter Cultural Center, which opened between Ölgii and its airport in 2024. The organiser has also begun working with conservation scientists to study the province’s golden eagle population and set animal welfare guidelines.
Questions people ask about Ölgii
Why is Ölgii, Mongolia famous?
Ölgii is known for the Golden Eagle Festival, an October competition in which Kazakh hunters compete on costume and their eagle's skill. Three Kazakh partners and a New Jersey-raised tour operator built the festival at the end of the 1990s, and it has grown into a ticketed event for photographers and tourists.
When was the Golden Eagle Festival founded?
It is usually dated to 1999, when the organiser says it began. Researchers Takuya Soma and Battulga Sukhee found the festival won official government approval in January 2000 and that its first event actually ran that October, with 60 eagle hunters.
Has the festival changed how people hunt with eagles?
Yes. Because wild eagles will not fly before a crowd, most festival birds are now hand raised chicks that can never hunt or be released. Researchers found that in Sagsai, one district of about 30 hunters, only three still hunted regularly in winter by the time they studied it.
Is Bayan-Ölgii province entirely Kazakh?
No. Kazakhs make up about 93 percent of Bayan-Ölgii, Mongolia's only Kazakh-majority and Muslim-majority province. The remaining residents are not Kazakh, so the province is Kazakh-majority rather than entirely Kazakh.