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 - https://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.

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Many thanks to our series sponsors, they made this all happen by getting on board with a completely unknown show:

Gustavus Adolphus College https://gustavus.edu/
See International https://www.seeintl.org/
American Forests https://www.americanforests.org/
Tourism Northern Territories https://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