Where are the Erdyn games. Yordyn games. Wedding at the foot of the sacred mountain
Russia , Ulan-Ude
Yordyn games: bright photos and videos, detailed description and reviews of the Yordyn Games event in 2020.
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Lake Baikal has been called the sacred sea for centuries, where people easily converse with spirits. The Podlemorie was considered a special place of power, the banks of which are dotted with "scribbles" with scenes of hunting and shamanic dances. Near the Aya rock, shamans gathered annually to perform secret rites and prayers, proclaiming a general truce. At the same time, nearby, around the low hill of Yekhe Yord, their fellow tribesmen gathered for “naadan”, that is, “three games of husbands”. People met after a long separation, hunted, competed in strength and dexterity, danced, played weddings. The holiday ended with a general round dance around the hill. The Christianization of the region led to the prohibition of the pagan custom.
Revival of the Yordyn Games
New Yordoin Naadan took place in 2000 after a century-old break. Then representatives of Buryatia, Yakutia, Aginsky and Ust-Orda Autonomous Okrugs took part in them. Since 2013, the festival has been included in the UNESCO calendar of events, and preparations are underway for its inclusion in the Human Heritage List. The 2017 Games became international, with delegations from Mongolia, China and Korea.
Festival program
The official part is the ascent of shamans to the top of Yekhe Yord, lighting a juniper fire there and a long ritual to the thunder of tambourines. And at this time, competitions begin in “bukhe barildaan” - national wrestling, “surkharbaan” - archery and “urildaan” - horse racing over rough terrain. According to the rules of martial arts, there are no time limits, the loser is the one who touches the ground with any third point. The ability to send an arrow to the target has long ceased to depend on the safety of life and herd, however, archers enjoy respect and honor among the people. AT sports program new types of competitions have appeared. From Yakutia came pulling on sticks and carrying a heavy stone over a distance, from Mongolia - shearing sheep for a while.
Modernity has added to the list with the Beauty of the Yordyn Games contest, where girls demonstrate not only faces, figures and hand-embroidered dresses, but also the ability to perform national songs and dances. In addition, each is obliged to treat the judges with koumiss of her own preparation.
A fair of products of folk art masters, an exhibition of national costumes "Threads of Time" open here, dance and choral ensembles are replaced on the stage. The culmination of the holiday is the general dance “khatarkha”. Participants must complete the full circle, which requires at least 700 people. In ancient times, it happened that there were several round dances, people trampled shoes to holes, dancing until the morning.
Practical Information
Venue: Irkutsk region, Olkhonsky district, Khotoruk area. Web site . GPS coordinates: 52.790981, 106.528888.
How to get there: by car from Irkutsk along the highway 25H-013 to Bayanday, turn right to the village. Elantsy, from there along a dirt road to the Yalga-Uzur farm. Distance 220 km, travel time 4 hours. During the days of the festival, a special bus departs from Irkutsk.
The culture of the nomadic peoples of Siberia flourishes in all its splendor in front of the guests of this unique holiday in Irkutsk region.
This sports and cultural holiday, as well as those taking place in Kyrgyzstan, is often called the "Olympics of the nomadic world." Once every two years, it gathers representatives of national sports and traditional artists from all over Russia and a number of foreign countries in the ancient sacred center on the shores of Lake Baikal. During the days of the festival, a real fireworks display of extraordinary events awaits its guests: horse races across the steppe, demonstrations of martial arts, intellectual and power games nomads, acquaintance with nomadic cuisine, dances, ethnic fashion shows, shamanic rituals, as well as a vibrant concert program.
The Yordyn Games or Yordoyn Naadan is a holiday revived from ancient times. From ancient times until the arrival of Christian missionaries on the shores of Lake Baikal in the 18th century, it was held at the foot of the sacred mountain Yordo. The festival was held as a competition in the Buryat triathlon Naadan (“three games of husbands”), which were timed to coincide with the migration of herds from winter pastures to summer pastures.
The youth of the nomads competed in three traditional sports - the national wrestling "bukhe barildaan", archery "surkharbaan" and horse racing "urildaan". The strongest and most dexterous received real heroic prizes, and also became heroes of the epic poems of the "uligers". In addition to sports, the most important component of the Yordyn Games was the ritual dance “yokhor”, which was led around the Yordo hill by all its participants. If it was not possible to collect the minimum required number of dancers - 700 people - the year was considered extremely unsuccessful. Another part of the festival was the competition of singers and storytellers.
The rebirth of the old tradition took place in 2000, thanks to the scientific works of Professor D.S. Dugarov and the active support of local authorities. The ethno-festival has become a major event in the process of reviving the culture of indigenous peoples in such large regions as the Irkutsk region, Buryatia, the Trans-Baikal Territory, Tyva, Tatarstan, Bashkortostan, Kalmykia and Sakha (Yakutia). Keepers of the traditions of the Great Steppe from China and Mongolia regularly become participants in the international celebration. As a masterpiece of the intangible culture of mankind, the Yordyn Games were included in the calendar of events held under the auspices of UNESCO.
The venue of the festival is located nine kilometers from the village of Elantsy on the right bank of the Anga River. You can get to it by bus from Irkutsk and a number of nearby cities.
From June 12 to June 14, on the western coast of Lake Baikal in the valley of the Anga River at the foot of Mount Yekhe Erd, the fifth international festival "Yordyn Games" takes place. Our photojournalist Ilya Tatarnikov went to the event and will keep diaries of the festival.
Day 1 (June 13)
11:00
Good morning dear friends! Today, the first day of the international ethno-cultural festival Yordyn games opens with the shamanic rite of Yehe Taigalan "Delhei daidyn murgel".
11:16
Visitors to the event also participate in the ceremony. 
11:39
On the way to the main site of the Yordyn Games, we stopped at the site of the horse races. Everything is not organized very well - the riders started and left for the horizon and there is nothing else to look at (the finish is in another place).
13:25
The opening ceremony of the Yordyn Games has ended. There was a bright and colorful theatrical performance reflecting the culture and customs of the indigenous population.
15:44
The main sports competitions of the Yordyn Games are going on all day. Shops with souvenirs, cafes work. A competition of uligershiins (performers of odic poetry) is taking place on the stage.
All age categories take part in sports competitions. 
16:15
Games are accompanied by good weather and clear skies. 
17:39
The contest "Beauty of the Erdyn Games" continues. The participants demonstrate their skills in reading national poems, singing, knowledge of foreign languages.
17:51
Mount Yehe Erd. Its height is about 42 meters. To go around the mountain, you need to take 700 steps.
18:33
Around the venue of the festival are stunningly beautiful landscapes. All this beauty is harmoniously accompanied by national music and singing from the stage. 
18:42
If you climb the neighboring mountain, you can see the scale of the festival. 
19:42 This concludes the broadcast for today, and the guests of the festival are still waiting for a gala concert with the participation of performers from Buryatia and the Irkutsk region. Till tomorrow!
Day 2 (June 14)
11:00 The final day of the Yordyn Games has begun. Today, the program of events includes an exhibition of products of folk art masters, a festival of traditional circular dance, the Buryat national wrestling, a race around Mount Yord, and the most important and interesting event: a circular Yohor around Mount Yekhe Yord.
11:15
Guests of the festival can try homemade national board games. She is one of them, for example, Shage-nadan develops concentration, speed of reaction. The task of the player is tossing one bone before it falls, to collect another from the table. It is very difficult without proper skill.
11:32
At the same time, the circle dance festival takes place.
12:32
Competitions in the Buryat national wrestling have begun.
13:55
The bator competitions ended with a run around Mount Ehe Yord.
23:16
Unfortunately, at the end of the festival, communication at the scene was turned off, so we are catching up: the games were visited by the governor of the Irkutsk region S.V. Eroshchenko, he awarded the participants of the competitions and participants of the beauty contest. 
After the awarding there was a final concert, with songs and dances, both Buryat and Russian folk.
Acting Governor Sergey Eroshchenko came to the closing of the festival:
“Events such as the Erdyn Games are an incentive to develop the infrastructure of unique places in the Irkutsk region.” The very idea of reviving the Erdyn Games, which for millennia has been a reason for the nomadic tribes of Eurasia to forget about wars and conflicts and gather near the sacred mountain Erd for the sake of national sports and ethno-cultural competitions, serves as an occasion for the infrastructural development of the Olkhon region. 
The event ended with a grandiose yokhor (round dance) around Yehe Yord mountain. There were so many people who wanted to take part that two round dances danced yokhor.
This concludes our broadcast. The next Yordyn Games will be held in 2017.
Yordyn games- This is the All-Buryat interregional ethno-cultural festival, which has now reached almost an all-Russian scale, which is held every four years on the coast of Lake Baikal. In just a few years, the local Buryat religious shamanic prayer service with elements of a sports and cultural festival turned into an ethno-cultural festival of a number of peoples of Siberia, and then many other territories of Russia.
In 2011, delegations from 15 subjects participated in the Buryat Games Russian Federation: in addition to Buryatia itself and the Irkutsk region, the organizers of the forum sent their teams from such different territories of the country as Astrakhan region, Trans-Baikal, Krasnoyarsk, Altai and Khabarovsk Territories, the republics of Tyva, Altai, Khakassia, Bashkortostan, Kalmykia, Tatarstan, Sakha (Yakutia), Khanty-Mansiysk autonomous region. Foreign states also participated - the Inner Mongolia Autonomous Region of the People's Republic of China, Mongolia, the Republic of Korea. The composition of the delegations is indicative: as a rule, these are well-known masters of folk culture, folklorists, religious scholars, shamans, athletes, and patriotic activists.
The idea of the Yordyn Games arose among Buryat activists in the 1990s, and this event was originally planned as a revival of the forgotten Buryat religious and shamanic worship on the sacred Buryat mountain Yordo in the Cis-Baikal region. In the first purely religious ceremony, organized by the initiative of Buryat religious activists from the Republic of Buryatia in 2000 and named as Yordoin tailgun(prayer service), believers-shamanists from all Buryat territories of the Baikal region - Buryatia itself, Ust-Orda Buryat autonomous region, Irkutsk region, Aginsky Buryat Autonomous Okrug and Chita region. But the next religious-shamanic prayer service outgrew the framework of the tribal Buryat event, grew into a big ethno-cultural holiday and received the name Yordoin naadan(Yordyn games). At the same time, a provision was adopted according to which this national Buryat holiday should be held once every four years.
The Buryat shamanic prayer service and games got their name from the Yekhe Yordo hill in the valley of the Anga River. As you know, from hoary antiquity up to the XVII-XVIII centuries. at its foot, a large inter-clan Buryat prayer-holiday of the Ekhirites, one of the four main tribes of the Buryat people, was annually held, in which the closest clans of kindred Bulagats and even some clans of the Hori-Buryats from Transbaikalia also took part.
In 2005, the holiday was already held as the Yordyn Games and on an even larger scale. In terms of its breadth, spectacularity of the Buryat religious rites, the skill of performing folklore groups, as well as the variety of national costumes, the Yordyn Games were an important event in the revival of the national traditions of the Buryat people. The forum participants held traditional competitions in archery, national wrestling, folklore ensembles performed, horse races were arranged. For two days, dancers in national costumes, singers, musicians demonstrated their skills. The program also included national sporting events. At the same time, traditional Buryat competitions were supplemented by national Yakut competitions in stone throwing and stick pulling. Another colorful innovation was the election of the beauty of the Games, which has become a tradition. But the main event was and remains the traditional Buryat dance Yohor around a huge mountain. There are more and more people dancing in this ritual dance with each new holiday; they not only close one circle around the mountain, but also form two or more circles. It is believed that when the circle is closed, the year will be rich and fertile. In 2005, there were more than five thousand participants.
The next important modern element of the Games is the holding of scientific and practical conferences on the problems of the ethno-cultural revival of peoples. So, in 2011, within the framework of the festival, the Interregional Scientific and Creative Conference "Cultural Interactions of the Peoples of Siberia and the Far East" was held, where the issues of developing a dialogue between the cultures of the peoples of Siberia and the Far East, the formation of the regional identity of Siberians, the role of cultural subjects in the dissemination of humanistic values were discussed. , on the development of interregional projects in the field of spiritual and physical development, culture and arts. Participation of leading educational institutions of culture and art of the Far East and Siberia is planned.
The Yordyn Games in 2011 were defined as the III International Ethnocultural Festival - a traditional holiday of the peoples of Eurasia. It was noted that Siberia has become the cradle of the formation of many peoples living on the territory of the Russian Federation, and Baikal and the Baikal region occupy a central place in these processes.
The Buryat prayer service on the shores of Lake Baikal, the sacred sea-lake of many peoples of Central Asia and Siberia, has become a native ethno-cultural event for many peoples; Buryat shamanistic prayers have grown into a general holiday of national cultures with song and dance and sports games a number of peoples.
Thus, the phenomenon of Yorda, originally a local Buryat tribal shamanistic prayer service with elements of a festival, which, with its new “reading”, instantly transformed into the largest ethnocultural holiday of the traditions of many peoples of Siberia, the Volga region and the Urals, lies in the actual relevance of the issues of reviving the traditional cultures of the peoples of Eurasia , their common spiritual values.
