Eagle Hunters & the Golden Eagle Festival โ€“ The Pride of Western Mongolia

Govi

An unforgettable celebration of Kazakh heritage, golden eagles, and nomadic courage Every autumn, the mountains of western Mongolia come alive with one of the most vibrant and culturally rich events in Central Asia: The Golden Eagle Festival. Hosted by Kazakh eagle hunters of Bayan-ร–lgii Province, this festival showcases the ancient art of hunting with trained golden eaglesโ€”an extraordinary tradition passed down for over 2,000 years. Together with the eagle huntersโ€™ nomadic lifestyle, the festival offers an unforgettable cultural, photographic, and emotional experience.

Who Are the Eagle Hunters?

The Kazakh “berkutchi” (eagle hunters) are among the last people in the world who preserve the art of hunting with golden eagles.

What makes them extraordinary:

  • They train female golden eagles from a young age
  • Eagles are used to hunt foxes and small animals
  • Hunter and eagle form a deep bond built on trust
  • The tradition is passed from father to son for generations
  • Kazakh hunters wear beautiful embroidered clothing and fur hats

Meeting them is like stepping into a living museum of nomadic heritage.


๐Ÿ† The Golden Eagle Festival Explained

Held every year in early October near Ölgii city, the festival gathers 60–100 eagle hunters from across the Altai Mountains.

Major Competitions:

๐Ÿฆ… 1. Eagle Calling (Shyga)

Hunters climb a hill and release their eagle.
The eagle must recognize its master and fly down to land on his arm.

๐Ÿบ 2. Fox Fur Drag (Kukpar-like Test)

Eagles chase a moving lure that simulates real hunting.

๐ŸŽญ 3. Traditional Costume Competition

Hunters wear richly decorated Mongolian–Kazakh outfits made of wolf, fox, and traditional embroidery.

๐ŸŽ 4. Horseback Skills

Hunters show speed, precision, and control while riding.

๐Ÿง• 5. Women & Young Hunters

Increasing numbers of young and female eagle hunters participate, preserving the future of the tradition.


๐ŸŽ‰ Cultural Highlights of the Festival

The festival is not only about competition—it's a full celebration of Kazakh culture.

๐ŸŒŸ Experience:

  • Traditional Kazakh music
  • Folk games and horse shows
  • Family gatherings in felt gers
  • Handmade crafts and souvenirs
  • Delicious Kazakh food such as beshbarmak and airag

The atmosphere is warm, colorful, and full of life.


๐Ÿ“ธ A Photographer’s Paradise

The Golden Eagle Festival is one of the world’s most photogenic events.

Perfect photo moments include:

  • Eagle landing with wings wide open
  • Hunter riding with traditional clothing
  • Portraits of hunters and their golden eagles
  • Snowy Altai Mountains in the background
  • Sunset photography with eagles on horseback

Photographers from around the globe travel here for once-in-a-lifetime shots.


๐Ÿงญ Beyond the Festival – Visit Eagle Hunters at Home

Travelers can also visit eagle hunters outside festival season.
You may:

  • Stay with a hunter’s family
  • Ride horses through the Altai Mountains
  • Watch daily eagle training
  • Learn the rituals of calling, feeding, and releasing eagles
  • Photograph hunters in natural settings

This experience is more personal and intimate than the festival itself.


๐Ÿ—บ How to Attend the Golden Eagle Festival

Location:

Near Ölgii city, Bayan-Ölgii Province, Western Mongolia.

How to get there:

  • Flight: Ulaanbaatar → Ölgii (3 hours)
  • 4x4 drive to the festival grounds (30–60 minutes)

Festival Dates:

Typically the first weekend of October, but can vary slightly.


๐Ÿ›– Where to Stay

  • Hotels & Guesthouses in Ölgii
  • Ger Camps
  • Nomadic Kazakh Homestays
  • Tented Camps (for photographers and adventurers)

Booking early is recommended due to high demand.


๐Ÿ’ก Best Time to Visit

October (Festival Season)

Cool weather, golden trees, and snow-dusted peaks.

June–September (Eagle Hunter Home Visits)

Perfect for trekking and cultural immersion.

Winter Hunts (January–February)

Extreme cold but incredibly authentic.


๐ŸŒŸ Why the Eagle Festival Belongs on Every Mongolia Itinerary

โœ” One of the world’s most unique cultural events
โœ” Last living community of eagle hunters
โœ” Breathtaking Altai landscapes
โœ” Powerful traditions preserved for centuries
โœ” Unforgettable photography opportunities
โœ” Deep cultural immersion with Kazakh nomads

The Golden Eagle Festival is not just a show—it is a celebration of heritage, courage, and the extraordinary bond between human and eagle. It captures the wild, proud soul of Western Mongolia.

 

Testimonial

What Client Say About Us

Maria Doe

Traveller

Exceptional Northern Mongolia Experience with Lunas Tours Our journey through Northern Mongolia was truly unforgettable thanks to 'Lunas Tours'. Traveling through the Khuvsgul region, Darkhad Valley, and remote northern landscapes, we experienced pristine nature, rich nomadic culture, and deep local traditions that few tours can offer. The tour was extremely well-organized, with careful planning for long distances, changing weather, and remote conditions. We especially appreciated the authentic experiencesโ€”staying with local families, learning about reindeer herdersโ€™ lifestyles, and enjoying the peaceful beauty of Mongoliaโ€™s northern taiga. The teamโ€™s strong local knowledge, cultural sensitivity, and respect for nature made the journey both safe and meaningful. This was not just sightseeing, but a true cultural and natural immersion. We highly recommend 'Lunas Tours' to travelers who want to explore Northern Mongolia in a responsible, authentic, and well-guided way.

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Micheal and Debby from Nederland

Traveller

Outstanding service by Guide Luna & Driver Eba โ€“ Lunas Tours Our trip in Mongolia was exceptional thanks to our guide Luna and driver Eba. Luna was incredibly knowledgeable, professional, and caring. She explained Mongoliaโ€™s history, culture, and traditions with passion and clarity, and always made sure everyone felt comfortable and well-informed throughout the journey. Driver Eba was equally impressive. His driving was safe, smooth, and reliable even on challenging roads and long distances. He handled every situation calmly and professionally, making us feel secure at all times. Together, Luna and Eba worked as a perfect team. Their coordination, friendliness, and attention to detail turned our trip into a truly memorable experience. We highly recommend them to anyone traveling in Mongolia with Lunas Tours.

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Sarah

Australian traveler

Amazing experience with Lunas Tours โ€“ Mongolia Our journey with Lunas Tours was truly unforgettable. From the very beginning, everything was well-organized, flexible, and thoughtfully planned. The team showed deep knowledge of Mongoliaโ€™s culture, history, and nature, and they always made sure we felt safe and comfortable. What we appreciated most was Lunas Toursโ€™ personalized approach and support for local communities. Staying with local families, experiencing authentic food, and exploring Mongoliaโ€™s breathtaking landscapes made this trip very special. We highly recommend Lunas Tours to anyone who wants a genuine, meaningful, and well-guided travel experience in Mongolia. ๐ŸŽ

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American traveller

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Canadian family

Perfect family tour with Guide Luna & Driver Eba Our family had a wonderful experience traveling in Mongolia with Lunas Tours in winter - 2025, especially thanks to our guide Luna and driver Eba. Luna was incredibly kind, patient, and attentive to our children. She explained Mongolian culture and history in a way that was easy and interesting for both adults and kids, making the journey educational and fun. Driver Eba made us feel completely safe throughout the trip. His careful driving, calm attitude, and readiness to help at any moment gave us great peace of mind, especially while traveling with children and luggage. Thanks to Luna and Eba, our family felt comfortable, well-cared-for, and truly welcomed. This was not just a tour, but a meaningful family memory. We highly recommend Lunas Tours for families visiting Mongolia.

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Minje & Dunhe

Korean family

ํ•จ๊ป˜ํ•œ ์™„๋ฒฝํ•œ ๊ฐ€์กฑ ์—ฌํ–‰ ์ €ํฌ ๊ฐ€์กฑ์€ ๋ฃจ๋‚˜์Šค ํˆฌ์–ด(Lunas Tours)์™€ ํ•จ๊ป˜ํ•œ ๋ชฝ๊ณจ ์—ฌํ–‰์—์„œ ์ •๋ง ์žŠ์ง€ ๋ชปํ•  ์‹œ๊ฐ„์„ ๋ณด๋ƒˆ์Šต๋‹ˆ๋‹ค. ํŠนํžˆ ๊ฐ€์ด๋“œ ๋ฃจ๋‚˜ ์™€ ๋“œ๋ผ์ด๋ฒ„ ์—๋ฐ” ๋•๋ถ„์— ์•„์ด๋“ค๊ณผ ํ•จ๊ป˜ํ•˜๋Š” ์—ฌํ–‰์ด ๋”์šฑ ํŽธ์•ˆํ•˜๊ณ  ์•ˆ์ „ํ–ˆ์Šต๋‹ˆ๋‹ค. ๊ฐ€์ด๋“œ ๋ฃจ๋‚˜๋Š” ์•„์ด๋“ค์—๊ฒŒ๋„ ์ดํ•ดํ•˜๊ธฐ ์‰ฌ์šด ๋ฐฉ์‹์œผ๋กœ ๋ชฝ๊ณจ์˜ ์—ญ์‚ฌ์™€ ๋ฌธํ™”๋ฅผ ์„ค๋ช…ํ•ด ์ฃผ์—ˆ๊ณ , ํ•ญ์ƒ ์นœ์ ˆํ•˜๊ณ  ์„ธ์‹ฌํ•˜๊ฒŒ ๊ฐ€์กฑ์„ ๋ฐฐ๋ คํ•ด ์ฃผ์—ˆ์Šต๋‹ˆ๋‹ค. ์—ฌํ–‰ ๋‚ด๋‚ด ์•„์ด๋“ค์˜ ์ƒํƒœ๋ฅผ ์‚ดํŽด์ฃผ๋ฉฐ ๋ถ€๋ชจ ์ž…์žฅ์—์„œ ํฐ ์•ˆ์‹ฌ์ด ๋˜์—ˆ์Šต๋‹ˆ๋‹ค. ๋“œ๋ผ์ด๋ฒ„ ์—๋ฐ”๋Š” ์žฅ๊ฑฐ๋ฆฌ ์ด๋™๊ณผ ํ—˜ํ•œ ๋„๋กœ์—์„œ๋„ ํ•ญ์ƒ ์•ˆ์ „ํ•˜๊ณ  ์ฐจ๋ถ„ํ•˜๊ฒŒ ์šด์ „ํ•ด ์ฃผ์—ˆ์œผ๋ฉฐ, ๊ฐ€์กฑ ์—ฌํ–‰๊ฐ์—๊ฒŒ ๊ผญ ํ•„์š”ํ•œ ์•ˆ์ •๊ฐ์„ ์ฃผ์—ˆ์Šต๋‹ˆ๋‹ค. ๋ฃจ๋‚˜์™€ ์—๋ฐ”์˜ ์™„๋ฒฝํ•œ ํŒ€์›Œํฌ ๋•๋ถ„์— ์ด๋ฒˆ ์—ฌํ–‰์€ ๋‹จ์ˆœํ•œ ๊ด€๊ด‘์ด ์•„๋‹ˆ๋ผ ๊ฐ€์กฑ ๋ชจ๋‘์—๊ฒŒ ์†Œ์ค‘ํ•œ ์ถ”์–ต์ด ๋˜์—ˆ์Šต๋‹ˆ๋‹ค. ๋ชฝ๊ณจ๋กœ ๊ฐ€์กฑ ์—ฌํ–‰์„ ๊ณ„ํšํ•˜์‹ ๋‹ค๋ฉด ๋ฃจ๋‚˜์Šค ํˆฌ์–ด๋ฅผ ์ง„์‹ฌ์œผ๋กœ ์ถ”์ฒœํ•ฉ๋‹ˆ๋‹ค.

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Adrian Lee

Singaporeans

Our trip to Mongolia with Lunas Tours was an absolutely unforgettable experience. Traveling through the heart of Central Mongolia โ€” from the breathtaking Orkhon Valley to the remote beauty of the Eight Lakes (Naiman Nuur) โ€” gave us a true glimpse into the soul of this vast and peaceful land. Special thanks to our amazing guide Luna, whose deep knowledge, kindness, and professionalism made the journey smooth and meaningful, and to our skilled driver Eba, who safely navigated the mountain passes and rugged trails with calm confidence. The Orkhon Valley, with its wide open grasslands, wild horses, and traditional herder families, was a highlight โ€” we felt connected to Mongolian history and nomadic culture. The horseback trip to the Eight Lakes was truly magical, surrounded by pine forests, sparkling lakes, and the peaceful sound of nature. Visiting Erdene Zuu Monastery, the first Buddhist monastery in Mongolia, was another memorable experience. The blend of ancient architecture and the serene spiritual atmosphere made it a powerful reminder of Mongoliaโ€™s rich history and culture. Finally, the hike up to Tuvkhun Monastery, perched high in the Khangai mountains, was both peaceful and inspiring. The view from the top was breathtaking, and it gave us a sense of tranquility that words cannot describe. We are deeply grateful to Luna and Eba for taking such good care of us throughout the journey โ€” from comfortable accommodations to delicious meals and flexible travel arrangements. Their warm hospitality made us feel like family. Thank you, Lunas Tours, for organizing such a perfect balance of adventure, culture, and nature. We will definitely recommend your company to friends and family in Singapore who are seeking an authentic Mongolian experience. โ€“ On behalf of travelers from Singapore

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