The Kazakhs of Mongolia
This hard-to-reach western border has never been a route that received much tourist traffic until recent times. Now, through movies and documentaries, the rich nomadic culture of the Kazakhs, who mostly live Western Mongolia, is drawing global attention
To access Mongolia, most tourists fly to Ulaanbaatar, the capital city, and from there they take guided vehicles or fly domestically to other regions. The hard-to-reach western border has never been a route that received much tourist traffic until recent times. Now, through movies and documentaries, the rich nomadic culture of the Kazakhs, who mostly live in Western Mongolia, is drawing global attention.
Down in the deep south of Russia, past Novosibirsk into the valleys of the Altai ranges is the tiny village of Kurai. With only one general store, this village serves the trickle of travellers journeying overland towards the western border of Mongolia 200 kilometres away. Kurai has been our unplanned home for the last three days after a stop at the border revealed a padlocked gate with a sign informing us that the guards will only be back in two days when the weather gets warmer.
The village of Kurai has seen a growing influx of travellers accessing Mongolia via this route. And villagers have seen improvements to their standard of living thanks to these visitors stopping by for rest and refreshments. In our last three nights, we stayed with a village family in one of their wooden cabins where we indulged in a hot bath in their banya, a Russian steam bath, our last wash for days to come.
My fascination with Mongolia and its people began 25 years ago with a postcard from my nanny, whose husband was an engineer working on construction projects in the country. She had gone to accompany him for some time, returning with unusual gifts and fascinating stories of its land and people. It was the postcard, however – an image of two toddlers covered in fur jackets and hats, skin fair, cheeks a reddish burn, surrounded by mountains blanketed in thick snow – that would captivate me most.
Many years later, I would learn that those were Kazakh children from a nomadic family living in the Altai. Many more after, till now, I would travel with my Russian friend and guide into the Mongolian Altai to meet the Kazakhs to learn more about their way of life.
Origins of the Kazakh
We are blessed the second time at the border. The weather is warmer, and the gates are open. Where Mongolia begins, the smooth tarmac of Russian roads end. Lying beyond the invisible line that separates both countries is a vast expanse of dirt and mountains and an even vaster sense of space. There are no roads or signs; the only human markings are tyre tracks which we follow to get to Bayan-ölgii, the Kazakh city of Mongolia.
The Kazakhs are semi-nomadic people of Indo-iranian, Turkic and Mongolic descent who live mostly in this westernmost part of Mongolia flanked