A couple of videos from a recent trip to China and Mongolia...

Celebrating Nadaam in Tsagaan Nur at the edge of the Tundra in Northern Mongolia. Tsagaan Nur is a small backwater town near the Russian border. The town is a cross-country drive of 10 hours away from the nearest paved road and beyond it lie the wasteland and swamps of the Tundra accessible only on horseback. Children as young as six participate in the annual Nadaam horse race, riding bare back over the rocky grassland tundra.

Further North above the treeline at the edge of the Russian border live the Tsataan, a small Tuvan Turkic community of reindeer herders. Only 44 Dukha families remain, totaling somewhere between 200 and 400 people. They ride, breed, milk, and live off of reindeer, though the reindeer population has dropped to approximately 600 since the 1970s, when it was an estimated 2000.

Music by Black Box Recorder, Silver Mount Zion Funeral Band, Bright Eyes.