Golden Eagle Festival in Oglii, Mongolia
In September 2025, I visited Mongolia to experience the Golden Eagle Festival in Oglii (2 hours east of Ulaanbaatar). This is a continuation from Circle Mongolia: 1.5 weeks touring Nomadic Culture. Read ahead for my trip report!
Note: If you don’t have international data, I highly recommend downloading an e-sim before your trip! While many of the huts have wifi, it’s good to have service in case of emergencies or to ensure your map loads. I use Airalo for my e-sims, which is affordable and is easy to download. Make sure your phone is e-sim compatible!
What is the Golden Eagle Festival?
Every year during the first weekend of October, the town of Oglii holds a 2-day eagle hunting festival for nomadic eagle hunter families. Eagle hunting goes back nearly 100 years, as the local people use eagles specifically in the winter to help them get food. The tradition is part of Kazakh culture and is unique to this area of Mongolia.
During the repression period (~1930s to 1980s) when communist Mongolian culture took over, eagle hunting was banned and the tradition died out. It wasn’t until the 1990s that eagle hunting was not outlawed anymore, and eagle hunting knowledge was passed down once again from older generations.
The festival began in the 2000s to promote and maintain this culture. It became internationally famous from the documentary “The Eagle Huntress” in 2016, which debuted at Sundance.
When I was there in 2025, there were probably 1,000 people in attendance, many of which were tourists, and 65 eagle hunters competing.
Day 1: Ulaanbaatar tour & flight to Olgii
Gandantegchinlen Buddhist monastery
In the morning, we visited the active monastery in the center of UB. We got to see the call to prayer and morning ritual of the monks. In the main square, there is a pillar remaining of the old monastery that was destroyed in the 1930s from the communist repression. Now, people make a wish on the pole. The highlight of the monastery was the 100+ft tall copper Buddha in the back of the complex. Surrounded by 1,000 little buddhas, this statue was awe inspiring and enormous.
National Museum of Mongolia
This museum does a great job of walking through the entire history of Mongolia, from the homo erectus and Stone Age all the way through modern times. We spent about 2 hours here, and while it was a lot of information (literally zoomed through 2400 years of history), the artifacts and information was great. I especially liked the information from 1900s and onward, which covered Mongolias independence, struggle through communism, and switch to democracy. I learned the Mongolian emblem on the flag was a vision from a monk represents the sun and moon, yin and yang, and pillars showing the country sandwiched between Russia and China.
Parliament & Sukhbaatar Square
Next to the museum is the main center of UB. The parliament was entertaining a politician from Iran while we were there, so it was roped off and had the Iranian flag in front of the building. The statue of Sukhbaatar shows the Mongolian who fought for independence recognition from Russia and China in 1946 (although they were already independent in 1922, China tried to claim ownership over Mongolia, but this guy put his foot down). A fun thing about the square is everyone takes photos for events there. We saw a wedding, a 30th year high school reunion, and a 40th year high school reunion.
Flight to Oglii & city viewpoint
After lunch, we headed to the airport (1.5 hour drive, why is traffic so bad?). We flew Hunuu airways to Oglii, and although I looked every day for the flight (on google flight, flighty, the airline website) and didn’t find its existence, the plane was there and we made it in one piece, just a little delayed. Our new guide picked us up and we stopped by a city viewpoint to catch the sunset before heading to our tourist camp. The food in this area had a lot of soups because of how cold the weather is. In the winter, it gets down to -30F.
Day 2-3: Golden Eagle festival
On the plane to Oglii, I read “The Eagle Huntress”, and I’m so glad I did! It outlined the whole competition so I knew what to expect.
The festival itself was a 30 minute drive south of Oglii in a random valley. The nomadic people came from all over via car or horseback with their eagles to compete. About 65 eagle hunters registered, 3 of which were females, and the whole first day they had a “time trial” to who could call their eagle from the top of a mountain to their arm fastest. The top 16 would then proceed to day 2. The conditions were super tough, because there were 40+mph gusts of wind that made it hard for the eagles to hear the hunters and fly downwards if they veered off path. The fastest time of the day was around 20-25 seconds.
I froze my little booty off in the cold. Even though it was sunny and the weather should have been 30F, with wind chill it was 10F. We walked around, saw some archery, and bought souvenirs before leaving around 3. That evening, a storm blew through and it snowed 1-4 inches treating us to gorgeous scenery.
In the morning, I went on a 3 mile walk along the river with gorgeous mountains & tundra. For day 2, I made sure I was prepared for the cold. I had 3 pants (leggings, sweat pants, hiking pants) and 5 shirts (2 long sleeve tight shirts, a fleece, puffy, and rain jacket). Because the storm blew through, it was also warmer with wind gusts only up to 30mph. Today, the eagle competition featured the top 16 people from day 1 and they had to call their eagle from the mountain to land on a fake prey being dragged by their horse. It took a little longer, with the fastest time being 33 seconds and the top 3 people of the day all under 40 seconds. In the end, a 9-year old 7th generation eagle hunter won with the best average performance across days 1 and 2. The festival had a few other performances, including a horse race at a “trot” (everyone cheated), a horse time trial to pick up 3 different coins on the floor, an improv sing-off (think pitch perfect combined with comedy improv, but in Kazakh). We left early to visit an eagle family, but the events we missed was a goat body tug of war (??) and something about a girl trying to whip a boy on a horse.
Kazakh Eagle Hunter family
In the afternoon, we drove an hour south from the eagle festival to visit a nomadic family. They were on a dirt road outside of Tolbo and had already relocated to their winter home, a solid structure due to how cold it gets in this area. The family was so wonderful and fed us with a platter of boiled mutton and carrots / potatoes which is traditional for honored guests. The mother and father were 52 and 53 years old respectively, and their youngest son lived with them, which is traditional as the youngest is expected to take care of the parents. They asked us our occupations and were fascinated that my mom and John are not retired yet. They were curious about our lives, as they got married at 20 and immediately had 3 children. We felt so at home and it was the best visit we had this trip to a nomadic family! After, they family dressed us up in traditional Kazakh / eagle hunter gear as we went outside to take pictures with the eagle. This eagle was gorgeous, only 3 years old (they live till 30-35 but many families release them after 5 years old to live wild again and populate), she weighed probably 15lbs. It was such a special moment to hold the eagle and was absolutely the highlight of Mongolia.
Festival concert
We drove back to Oglii and went to the theater to see the 1 hour celebration performance after the Eagle festival. This was a mix of singing, dancing, and music. We got to see traditional Kazakh instruments like a flute / clarinet and the fun seemingly Bollywood influenced dancing. It was such a great way to end the Eagle experience!
Day 4: Fly to UB
The morning was frigid at 9F, but actually felt better than the previous few days because the wind finally died down. In the morning we went to the Oglii Museum, which had exhibits on the nature / animals of the area, clothing, instruments, history of the province, and Kazakh specific traditions. It was cool to tie it all together and connect the museum to our experiences, even things as little as a silver belt or flute instrument! From here, we stopped by a souvenir store where I almost bought a little nesting ger set before heading off to the airport.
Cultural show
Back in UB, we went to a 1 hour cultural show, tailored for tourists, at the Gamzam Palace. In the summer, this happens every day at 6pm while in the off season, it’s 2-3 times per week. The show has about 10 performances covering throat singing, Buddhist culture (including a dance with the old white man who protects the people), a contortionist, Shaman dance, orchestra pieces with traditional instruments like the horse head fiddle, among other things. I really enjoyed it and wish we did this on the first day we arrived!
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