TSAATAN
those who have reindeer My first encounter with the Dukha people, who now live in the Tsagaan-Nuur county in northern Mongolia, happened on the way to their summer settlement. After three days horse riding through green woods, patches of snow, crossing cold streams in the silence, a man sitting on a panting reindeer, speaking on a cell phone appears to my eyes. There are still only around 40 families of these nomadic herders whose lives depend on and take shape around the reindeer. Dukha people practice shamanism, their language is an endangered Turkic variety, they use sheep tails as pacifiers for their babies, kids and reindeer grow in alliance.