The day of the competition dawns clear and sunny.
Since the first light of morning,
the participants have been taking up their positions at the top of a hill.
A certain nervousness can be felt in the air,
and not only because it is the first time that so many hunter have come together to test their skill,
but also because yesterday, inside the gers,
many bets were laid, and some may have yet rather too much.
The first part of the competition consists of releasing the eagles,
one by one, on the signal of a pennant, towards a fox skin pulled along by a horse.
The five birds of prey that take least time to reach the fox skin
will go into the final, where this time the target will be a live fox.
Evening is drawing in, and the five finalists are ready for
the grand final. Kumarkán, the master hunter, is one of them.
The competition has ended, and the participants go to collect their eagles.
Kumarkan was not the winner, but he doesn’t mind too much.
Next year, he will return with his son Talaikán and his friends,
to once again share an art and a tradition which here remains alive,
but which unfortunately in his homeland, neighbouring Kazakhstan, died out long ago.
With no noisy farewells, and more or less in silence,
the hunters slowly leave Jorjok and head out into their world
of infinite spaces and vast horizons.
In the Gobi desert, in the middle of October,
the grass is drying. For the Tansendarya clan,
it is time to gather up camp and set off towards less harsh lands in which to spend the winter.
The cattle and part of the family left at daybreak,
while the rest have remained, loading the camels and organising the caravan.
For eight days they will walk, moving northwest to the edge of the desert.
Then, at the start of spring, they will travel up into the highlands of the steppe,
only to return later to the Gobi.
That is what their ancestors did, that is what they do,
and that is what their children will do.
And that is the story of three ethnic groups that live in a world of constant movement,
struggling to preserve their most valuable treasure, their culture,
which, little by little,
is being wiped out by a society engaged in a headlong rush towards globalisation.