Hey everyone!
It's Danielle from Exploring Alternatives.
In this video, we're at the tiny house festival in Lantier, Quebec and we're about to meet
up with Rivkah from Groovy Yurts to learn more about their traditional Mongolian yurts.
*Music Playing*
One of our favourite things about Mongolian yurts is that they've been used for 3000 years,
and you can tell by the structure that the design is constantly evolving.
And that's how it's become the structure that you see today.
It is extremely efficient and perfect for the nomadic people of Mongolia.
Mongolia is a very harsh climate, we're talking about Siberia, right?
People are surprised when you find out that you can live in a yurt year-round, in Canada,
in Quebec.
Yes, absolutely you can.
And we recommend maybe a second layer of felt if you're going to be more stationary.
But with a good stove and a proper installation you'll find that you're very nice and toasty.
You can heat it with wood, propane, even electric if you're plugged in that way.
My personal favourite is wood because it gives a nice warm, dry heat which is really good
for this kind of structure.
In Mongolia they use a wood stove as well.
Starting from the outside in, the exterior is made from cotton canvas, and then we have
a thick layer of sheep's wool felt to keep everything nice and warm, and then we have
an inner cotton liner, that you can see here, and then you have the wood structure which
are like the bones of the yurt.
And then for North American climates we like to add a house wrap.
We add the house wrap for water proof-ness but in a traditional yurt that's being used
again and again, it's actually the smoke from the fire that creates this sort of coating
inside the yurt that keeps the water out.
All the layers are tied together with 3 large horse hair ropes.
Everything is hand woven.
And you have to pull the ropes nice and tight to keep the yurt strong.
We have two central posts here in most yurts.
They're called bagans.
And in the standard 5-wall yurt you have 81 uns.
The uns sit into the top of the toono, which is the circular window at the top.
The uns fit in there and then sit against the walls of the yurt.
And the walls are this lattice.
So when we talk about a 5-wall or a 6-wall or a 7-wall yurt — that's how Mongolian
people determine the size of their yurt.
So it's the number of walls.
Yurts are the traditional homes of Mongolian people who are nomads.
And they have a traditional way of setting up the yurt.
So usually the man's bed is here at the back.
And then the woman's bed to our left here.
If the family has children there'll be another bed here.
Or for any guests.
Mongolians don't tie their yurts down to the earth.
They have such a deep respect for the earth that they don't want to harm it.
And so if it is really windy then they'll use this middle rope to tie it to a large
rock in the middle or perhaps anything heavy.
When the rope is not in use they have it tucked here in a serpentine fashion to symbolize
fertility over the woman's bed.
This furniture is also all hand painted.
There's a round back to it so that it fits well in the round space.
And this one here as you can see has little drawers and cupboards for storage.
And underneath as well.
Traditional Mongolian yurts are red or orange and those bright colours symbolize the sun
shining over the Mongolian steppe.
And if you look up into a yurt on a sunny day like this one, it does very much look
like the sun's rays.
Yves is the founder of Groovy Yurts and he's originally from Switzerland.
When he was a younger man...he's a trucker by trade, and by love.
And he wanted to do the biggest road trip possible so he drove his big truck from Switzerland,
across the trans-Siberian highway, all the way to Mongolia.
So he raised money and brought school supplies to schools in Mongolia and once he got there
he had this big empty truck to drive back so he thought hey, you know, maybe I'll sell
a few yurts.
And that's how it started, and it worked really well and he was able to do many, many trips
going back and forth bringing school supplies and other necessary things to the impoverished
areas of Mongolia.
And so began Groovy Yurts.
We plant 3 trees for every yurt that we build, and everybody that works for us is supported
and paid a fair wage.
And we also promote that the yurts be built as much as possible in the countryside.
Just the ropes that we sell, they support an entire village.
Thanks for watching!
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