Travel
An emerging photographer reflects on the desire to preserve in images a disappearing culture that embraces transience. By Sofia Jayne.
The last Mongolian herders
Looking through the viewfinder, I try to focus Chimed in the centre of the photograph. She is wearing her blue silk deel, a traditional garment that covers her arms and hangs down to her yellow gumboots. She is milking her cows before the sun goes down. The open plains and rolling hills of the Mongolian steppe surround us and they seem to go on forever.
Chimed is not used to having her photograph taken and she’s nervous, so I try to move quickly, but as an amateur photographer, I’m nervous too. Our translator, Munk, talks to her and makes her laugh. When I think I’ve got my shot, I bow my head and say one of my very few Mongolian words: “bayarlalaa”, thank you.
Inside the ger, Chimed hands me a small bowl of airag, the national drink of fermented horse milk. I take a sip, unsure of the sour flavour, but smile gratefully as I pass it on to the other members of the group. The eight of us are travelling central Mongolia on a photography program with a company named Culture Focus. Everyone is an experienced photographer except me and Chris, who has retired and is now travelling the world through a new lens.
Chimed and her husband, Batmonhk, are Mongolian herders. They were raised on the steppe, in a semi-nomadic tradition that has been passed down for millennia. Their gers, also known as yurts, are small, round, portable homes made from a wooden frame and a felt and canvas covering. They live off the meat and milk products of their animals and move around four times a year so their herds can graze on different pastures.
Batmonhk spends most of his days out in the fields, shepherding the cows, sheep and goats on his horse or motorbike. Chimed cares for their home and makes food such as aaruul and eezgii – hard biscuits and cheese-like treats made by drying milk. The winters are harsh in Mongolia and milk is only produced in the summer, so they preserve it in this way to last the year.
Their 14-year-old son, Batsuuri, is a talented horserider and the last of their four children still at home. He goes to school in the capital, Ulaanbaatar, where he stays with his older brother, but comes back to his parents in the summer. There are not many education or employment opportunities in the countryside, so most young people move to the city.
I ask Batsuuri about his plans for the future. He’s not certain what he wants to do yet, but he says, “I wouldn’t become a herder, that’s for sure.” I want to ask him why, but our translator reminds me Chimed is right there. She knows her son will one day move to the city permanently and she trusts her children to lead their own lives. “All we can do is keep doing what we’re doing and take care of our livestock and the children will decide,” she says.
Mongolia, the world’s largest landlocked country that does not border an inland sea, gained independence from China and became a socialist satellite of the USSR just over a century ago. Today it is a market economy, with among the last significant nomadic populations. Most Mongolians – including many members of parliament – are either herders or are from herder families, and their culture is deeply rooted in respect for the land. Laws prevent private ownership of pastureland, in order to protect nomadic life.
The herder population is nevertheless declining due to rapid urbanisation and the effects of climate change. At the turn of this century, half of Mongolia’s population lived semi-nomadically; today it’s only 30 per cent.
I am in the country during Naadam, the national festival that has been running annually for more than 2000 years. Like a Mongolian Olympic Games, there is horse racing, wrestling, archery and shagain kharvaa, an ancient sport of flicking sheep ankle bones at a target. Driving through Bulgan province, we stumble across a small country festival.
Dust clouds the air and people on horseback come galloping from every direction. There are tents where people laugh and share plates of khuushuur, a flatbread filled with mutton or beef. Everyone is dressed proudly in their brightly coloured deels.
This scene is a photographer’s dream. Young boys on their horses call out to us and point at our cameras. When they see our eyes on them, they show off by standing up on their saddles or snapping the reins to make their horses run faster.
As I’m walking through the field with my camera, a mother grabs my arm and asks me to photograph her three young daughters who are dressed up for the event. She asks me to send it to her on Facebook – I have no service, but she says she is happy to wait.
There is both an appreciation of photography in Mongolia and an acceptance of life’s impermanence.
Munk tells us one day he caught his mother burning photographs. When he asked her why, she said they were no longer relevant or the people had died. Most people here are Buddhist and believe that after death the soul will move on to the afterlife. The body remains as an empty vessel, often returned to the landscape for the vultures to claim.
From the 1950s to the ’80s, caravans of doctors, merchants, hairdressers, actors and photographers would travel to remote areas to serve and to entertain nomadic herders. Families would have their portraits taken and wait anywhere up to a year for the caravans to return with their printed pictures.
Then there is the less benign history of photographic record: in the 1940s, when the Soviet Union established photography in Mongolia, it was to encourage socialist ideals and promote state narratives.
After the program ends, I have a few days by myself in Ulaanbaatar, but the city is a ghost town. I didn’t realise that everything would be closed for the national Naadam celebrations. On the streets are only drunk men, who sway and mutter to themselves in a heavy state. In the 1990s, after the Soviets left, Mongolia transitioned to a market democracy – the sudden change led to unemployment and poverty for many, and along with it an increase in alcoholism.
I get to know Munguunuu, who at 24 is the same age as me, and works in the film lab of one of Mongolia’s only photography collectives. 17Film Lab is tucked away on the lower level of an old Soviet apartment building, alongside the Noise Art Media photo agency and the Batzorig Foundation of Documentary Photography, which provides training and support to young creatives in Mongolia. They are working on multiple projects that document herder life and urbanisation from the perspectives of local photographers.
I ask Munguunuu if it is safe to walk around by myself in the city and she says she feels pretty safe. In fact, she likes to photograph the drunk men. She says people living in the city can be reserved and either don’t want their picture taken or they pose in the way they wish to be seen. The drunk men show their true emotions. “Their faces are honest. Their eyes tell the truth,” she says.
Before I leave, I buy a book of the foundation’s photographic archive. It comes with a poster of a quote from the late photojournalist Ts.Batzorig. Bold white letters in the Cyrillic alphabet protrude from the black background. The translation feels like the perfect message to take from here.
“We are a people with something to leave behind. Photography will keep us eternal.”
This article was first published in the print edition of The Saturday Paper on August 23, 2025 as "The last Mongolian herders".
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