Saturday, August 31, 2019

Arag

What to buy in Mongolia? People usually buy cashmere scarfs, clothes, magnets, leather wallets etc.
But not many people know about arag which was used to collect cow dung. Nowadays no one uses it to collect dried cow dung though it is very ecologically friendly thing to do.

You can buy one in the central market but it will be quite big and inconvenient to bring it into your flight. But there are some small arags which is of course used as a souvenir. Here is several of them:

There are several sizes of it on the photo. One of them is on a A4 paper so you can imagine its size.
Arag is made of willows and some strips of camel skin. These strips are wet when the arag is new. And then it becomes very hard and holds all these willows together very well. Traditionally it was outside of our national ger (tent) so when it is raining it becomes wet and then it is sunny and it is dry. But the camel skin strip is very special material that it is never loosens. It is always getting tighter.
Most arags in the central market are made using plastic threads which has no camel skin strip properties.
The arags on the above photo is made by my sister. If you want to buy it you can contact me. My email is : altangerel.khuder@gmail.com. She said its price is about 15 usd.

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