Mongolia Golden Eagle Festival, Director's Cut from Culture Quest: travel documentary series on PBS

We headed out to the Altai Mountains of Western Mongolia to experience Kazak nomadic culture via the Golden Eagle Festival.
This was the first episode we filmed in the series, and for me being new to the producer/production side of things, filming in Mongolia was the perfect first episode because as you will see, it's an incredible part of the world, amazing culture, events, and scenic eye candy everywhere you point a camera. I was able to rely completely on my videographer who films all over the world for all variety of networks - Ian Levasseur - who crushed the filming of this episode while I tried to figure out what the whole series was about (there were only two of us on the road for the whole series, both of us named Ian).
Also a great many thanks to Gerel from Mongolia Quest - mongoliaquest.com/ - who helped guide me through this whole episode and Dalaikhan who let us inside their world and was crazy generous with his time all the while trying to prepare for the Golden Eagle Festival competitions.
If you even moderately enjoyed this episode, please subscribe to our page, share the video with strangers you meet on the internet and check out our other episodes! Thanks for being here!
Many thanks to our series sponsors, they made this all happen by getting on board with a completely unknown show:
Gustavus Adolphus College gustavus.edu/
See International www.seeintl.org/
American Forests www.americanforests.org/
Tourism Northern Territories northernterritory.com/us/en
Chapters:
00:00 Mongolia episode opening
01:00 Culture Quest title sequence
01:34 Culture Quest sponsors
02:34 Arriving in Western Mongolia
04:07 Yurt camp in Western Mongolia
04:58 Mongolian nomadic culture
06:05 Altai Mountain history
07:19 Archers of Western Mongolia
10:40 Landing golden eagle on my arm
12:01 Golden Eagle Hunters practice flight
13:10 Amazing golden eagle landing, Mongolia
13:59 Opening of the Golden Eagle Festival
17:19 Mongolian Nomadic Culture
20:18 Horse riding competitions
21:44 Golden Eagle Festival Tourism
22:49 Hard day at Golden Eagle Festival
25:27 Golden Eagle festival reflections
28:17 Culture Quest Sponsorship messages

[@pupsull]

I am in admiration for the peoples and culture you've shown us here. I would love to have this experience; not sure if I can arrange it, but it's a window into something so different and dignified; what an incredible culture of community, pride, tradition and hardship, living off the land. Thank you

[@NATURECAMHD]

This is without a doubt, one of the BEST documentaries about the Kazak eagle hunters of Mongolia. This is coming from someone who has seen the Eagle Huntress six times! They are an amazing group of bad-asses. You'd have to be a one to survive the harsh climate. They make hunting with those amazing winged beauties easy. Great cinematography, nice interviews. Sequel please?

[@culturequestwithiangrant]

Thanks for that, as you can imagine, a lot went into pulling this thing off (and all of the other episodes), but much of the credit for the way it looks goes to our videographer Ian Levasseur who single handedly filmed the whole thing himself - including shooting with his hand-held camera and flying his drone at the same time for this sequence at 13:10 . Looking at your page, you should get to this festival, it's a trip of a lifetime! If you do go, you should check out the group we were with - mongoliaquest.com/ - they would setup an incredible custom trip for you. And yes, they are badasses. All the best.

[@trendingwwwandw]

Scenic and informative! We're glad we found your channel. Looking forward to your next Mongolia video✨

[@culturequestwithiangrant]

Thanks, I really appreciate you checking it out!

[@menniemint7772]

eagle mans should be moving back to kazakhstan !

[@Rustambro1]

Bayan ulgi is kazakh land, you should know it.

[@marylindsey5472]

That didn't look like a goat the was playing tug a war with