Mongolian Gers – Photo of the Week
What is a ger?
What’s a ger? I get asked this question often. Here’s your answer in pictures!
A Mongolian ger is the same as a Russian yurt.
Mongolian families live in these nomadic tents across Mongolia
The gers are always white and made of felt and cloth
There is one door and no windows. Doors normally are intricately painted in orange or blue
Often families will set up their gers close together and a family will all live within a few km of each other
Each ger has a stove in the middle wth a 'chimney' poking out of the top
The whole family live/sleeps/eats inside the tent with no privacy
Two or three times a year the family takes down the ger, places everything they own on a truck and move about 5 to 13 km and sets up the tent again.
And that, my dear readers, is what a ger is all about!
Would you like to stay in a ger someday?
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Just don’t call it a yurt.
Ha! That’s the truth! I’m not exactly sure why the Mongolians adopted a different word, do you have any idea?
i wouldve love to seen the interior
Stay tuned – shortly I’ll have some photos on the site of the interior!
The interiors range from plain vanilla to elaborately decorative. Did you see any that had rocks on ropes in the center? In the Gobi, they are more useful (to keep it from blowing away) than the stoves!
I didn’t see any rocks up in the middle in Terelj. However I was in the Gobi two years ago staying with families and did see some then!
That was really interesting!
Thanks.
Nancy & Shawn
Second pic… Is that a solar panel they have there? Cool!
Oh yes – they all have a solar panel – its normally connected to a battery that then provides them light and sometimes even a tv! Melvin – you have to go there sometime!
I love the satellite dish piled on the top of the truck with the house. Nice post, thank you.
I, too, love the wonderful mix of the basic and the technological. Painted doors and a simple stove along with solar panels and a satellite.
I can’t wait to go to Mongolia! It looks so beautiful!
Jade Johnston – http://www.ouroyster.com
Where are the sink, shower and terlet (i.e., basic necessities)?
Those things are handled by mother nature. There is no plumbing in a ger. You simply walk outside anywhere and use the toilet. Most families have holes (drop toilets) dug out somewhere away from the ger that they use. as far as showers – that’s what buckets are for!
And in America we have everything and complain about everything we have. Terrific picts!