Mongolia will celebrate the annual three-day Naadam festival on July 10-13 in commemoration of 804th Year of Great Mongolian State, and 89th Year of People’s Revolution. Naadam festival, is a traditional game festival of Mongolia named “The Three Games of Men”: wrestling, horse racing and archery as well as the latest entry of anklebone shooting.
Locations
The festival events will take place in several locations -
Sukhbaatar Square - parades, concert and ceremonies (City center)
Khui Doloon Khudag - horse racing, (located about 40km west of Ulaanbaatar on the main road leading to Lun)
Central Stadium - opening, closing ceremonies, and wrestling.
Archery stadium - archery
Anklebone tent - anklebone shooting
Central Cultural Palace - concert in celebration of the National Naadam Festival
Cost
Tickets for July 11th ceremonies will cost 10,000MNT for an unshaded seat, and 20,000MNT for a shaded seat.
Next day tickets are 4,000MNT to 6,000MNT. Tickets are available at the Central Culture Palace and the Wrestling Palace.
Tourists can buy daily tickets for USD25 from the Metropolitan Tourism Department, or through hotels and tour operators.
Shopping
500 businesses have permits to open stands for souvenirs and fast food stands
Program highlights
Saturday, July 10th,
8:00am - first horse race at Khui Doloon Khudag
10.00am - parade at Sukhbaatar square
Sunday, July 11th
11:00 am -opening Ceremony at the Central Stadium
11:50am - 1st round of Wrestling
01:30pm archery at the Archery stadium
Monday, July 12th
Final rounds and ceremonies of wrestling, archery, ankle bone, horse racing
complete program
For hour by hour detailed program see the Detailed 2010 Naadam program
Parking
There are different types of parking permits - parking rights only at the Khui Doloon Khudag horse racing field, and other permits have both horse racing field and Central Stadium. Parking permits can be purchase at local district-level traffic police departments.
