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Traditional Festivals
Naadam festivalNaadam (HaagaM) is the national festival of Mongolia held from July 11th to 13th. The festival is also called "Eriin Gurvan Naadam," meaning "men's three variety of games." The games are Mongolian wrestling, horse racing and archery, and are the only ones that are held throughout the country. However, now women also participate in two of the 'three manly games' via. archery and horse-racing.

The main festival is held in the Mongolian capital Ulaanbaatar, although other cities and towns across Mongolia have their own, smaller scale Naadam celebrations. It begins with an elaborately produced ceremony featuring dancers, athletes, horseriders, and musicians. After the ceremony, the competitions begin. 512 wrestlers meet in a single-elimination tournament that lasts nine rounds. Mongolian traditional wrestling is an untimed competition in which wrestlers lose if they touch the ground. In dress and style, it resembles the Japanese sumo.
Unlike Western horse racing, which consists of short sprints generally not much longer than 2 km, Mongolian horse racing as featured in Naadam is a cross-country event, with races 15-30 km long. The riders are children, some as young as five years old.

Naadam is the most widely watched festival in the country, and is believed to have existed for centuries in one fashion or another. Originally it was a religious festival but now it formally commemorates the 1921 revolution when Mongolia declared itself a free country.

Another popular Naadam activity is the playing of games using shagai, sheep anklebones that serve as game

pieces and tokens of both divination and friendship.

The festival is also celebrated in the Inner Mongolia region of China.

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