HORSEMANSHIP AND RIDING AGILITY ARE LEARNED AT A YOUNG AGE AND ARE VITAL IN
SKILLS OF AN EAGLE HUNTER. THIS EVENT AT THE GOLDEN EAGLE FESTIVAL TESTS RIDERS’
ABILITY TO PICK UP SMALL TARGETS WHILE MAINTAINING SPEED AND BALANCE.
Richard’s first foray into Mongolia was in 2008, where he traveled in order to witness and
photograph a yearly festival in Bayan Ölgii, in the western part of Mongolia. It is a long trip, and he
has done it four times. “To get there, you have to go through Ulan Bator, the capital of Mongolia,
either via Beijing or Seoul. Local airplanes then go on to Bayan Ölgii,” he explains, adding that “The
local airlines are not real reliable, but all the trips I’ve been on have worked out okay.”
Indeed they have.
During Richard’s photographic trips, he stayed with a Kazakh family, whose home is built of
cinderblock and mud, and heated with hot water pumped through pipes that run along a center wall
summer
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