TSENHERIN OGUY

These are of the oldest petroglyphs in Mongolia. A local boy named Baggy or Hurubat volunteered to come with us. Due to the tradition, being the youngest son in his family, he is supposed to become a Lama, and it feels: he seems to glow with some sort of inner light, even the look of his eyes is different from the other kids. We notice the black mouth of the cave already from the riverside. However, we can’t get rid of the suspicion that as soon as we get to the cave, we’ll also see postcard stores and stuff expected of tourist places. Yet, there is nothing but the huge silence, stuck in the surrounding mountains, which definitely helps to fancy the ancient mode of life here. It’s unreal, fantastic! And we still get to see this! 

The cave is olivary, 220 meters long and 880 square meters large. There are several alcoves inside, which might have been used as rooms for the ancient inhabitants. The downslope begins right from the entry; we turn on out headlamps and descend down in the dark. 

The only creatures we bother here are the birds that dwell here. The cave is full of their dry muck that rises from the steps of our feet and wouldn’t let us breathe or see anything. The walls are silently ignoring the questions of our lamps: looks like it’s not that easy to find any paintings with no special knowledge or information. After an hour of prowl we decide to give up, mostly because our camera is out of battery from using its searchlight. When we are almost at the exit, I accidentally find about 20 cm small red drawing on the right wall. There are several bigger paintings, mostly animal ones, around this one. The strangest of these is the body of a camel with the head of an elephant. We are really lucky to even find the paintings because they are not lightened up or pointed out anyhow as it would be at usual tourism objects. If anyone is interested to see it, it’s their last chance because just in few years most probably it will be all organized. We come back to our yurt very satisfied with the day and spend the rest of it watching local nomadic life.