Tsaatan people are reindeer herders and live in northern HuvsgulAimag of Mongolia. Originally from across the border in what is now the Tuva Republic of Russia, the Tsaatan are one of the last groups of nomadic reindeer herders in the world. They survived for thousands of years inhabiting the remotest subarctic Ulaantaïga, moving between 5 and 10 times a year.
The reindeer and the Tsaatan people are dependent on one another. Some Tsaatan say that if the reindeers disappear, so too will their culture. Reindeers provide them with milk, cheese, meat, and transportation. They also sew their clothes with reindeer hair, reindeer dung fuels their stoves and antlers are used to make tools. They do not use their animals for meat. This makes their group unique among reindeer-herding communities.
As the reindeer populations shrink, only about 40 families continue the tradition today. Their existence is threatened by the dwindling number of their domesticated reindeers. Many have swapped their nomadic life for urban areas. In June 2015, after days spent horse-riding across the Ulaantaïga from the village of Tsagaan-Nuur, near Khövsgöllake, we had the chance to meet them.
