Firstly, find an appropriate paddock on a beautiful farm, say, in the heart of the South Devon countryside, and appropriate it (never mind the arrival of llamas that wonder what you’re doing in their favourite field). Make sure you have a party of at least five strong people, some tallish and male, to construct your Mongolian Yurt.
Four of the party can easily assemble the elements and piece together the walls of stretchy latticework around the circular groundsheet perimeter whilst the other worker plays with babies in the farmhouse. At length, the shirker – or is it Sherpa? – will be required to assist in poking long roof poles into the holes in the circular piece of wood held aloft by the tallest group member standing on a step-ladder, and tying the curved ends into the top of the lattice (a canvas envelope running around the outside on top of the lattice walls cups the bottoms and takes the strain). When nearly all the poles are fitted the brightest spark will detect that some of the poles are tied into the wrong joints of lattice and, with a little effort of untying and re-tying (not to be confused with retiring) in the right joints. The two straight poles go either side of the door frame.
When all the poles are fitted perfectly the structure appears to be mighty high and you may well wonder how you will manage to slide the roof canvas into position; don’t panic, the tallest of the group works from inside and guides the canvas with a long pole, and gives instructions on which side should pull when. At last the top canopy – with the plastic window that covers the centre hole – is guided in similar fashion by the man at the top. This done, the Sherpa may return to the babies while the strong-armed ones attach guy ropes and peg them into the ground.
The sun will be going down beautifully behind the rolling hills and, magically, sausages, burgers and skewered chicken (well sekewered) will appear from an open barbecue; and someone will have produced a wonderful salad and accompaniments, and there will be Pimm’s in a jug on the serving table… and all will be well with the tribe… if you’re as lucky as we were last night.
Yurt
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A Qaraqalpaq bentwood type “yourte” in Khwarezm (or Karakalpakstan), Uzbekistan
Turkmen woman at the entrance to a yurt in Turkestan; 1913 picture by Prokudin-Gorskii
A traditional yurt (from the Turkic languages) or ger (Mongolian) is a portable, round tent covered with skins or felt and used as a dwelling by nomads in the steppes of Central Asia. The structure comprises an angled assembly or latticework of pieces of wood or bamboo for walls, a door frame, ribs (poles, rafters), and a wheel (crown, compression ring) possibly steam-bent. The roof structure is often self-supporting, but large yurts may have interior posts supporting the crown. The top of the wall of self-supporting yurts is prevented from spreading by means of a tension band which opposes the force of the roof ribs. Modern yurts may be permanently built on a wooden platform; they may use modern materials such as steam-bent wooden framing or metal framing, canvas or tarpaulin, Plexiglas dome, wire rope, or radiant insulation.
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Etymology and synonyms[edit]
A yurt in Shymkent, Kazakhstan, used as a café.
- Yurt – originally from a Turkic word referring to the imprint left in the ground by a moved yurt, and by extension, sometimes a person’s homeland, kinsmen, or feudal appanage. The term came to be used in reference to the physical tent-like dwellings only in other languages. In modern Turkish the word “yurt” is used as the synonym of “homeland” or a “dormitory”. In Russian the structure is called “yurta” (юрта), whence the word came into English.
- гэр (transliterated: ger, [ˈɡɛr]) – in Mongolian simply means “home”.[1][2]
- тирмә (transliterated: tirmä) is the Bashkir term for yurt.
- киіз үй (transliterated: kïiz üy, [kɘjɘz ʉj]) – the Kazakh word, and means “felt house”.
- боз үй (transliterated: boz üy, [bɔz yj]) – the Kyrgyz term is meaning “grey house”, because of the color of the felt.
- ak öý and gara öý ([ɑk œj, ɡɑˈrɑ œj]) – In Turkmen the term is both literally “white house” and “black house”, depending on its luxury and elegance.
- qara u’y or otaw ([qɑrɑ́ ʉj, uʊtɑ́w]) – in Qaraqalpaq the first term means “black house”, while the second means “a newborn family” and is used only to name a young family’s yurt.
- “Kherga”/”Jirga” – Afghans call them.
- “Kheymah” (خیمه/ख़ॆमा) is the word for a yurt or a tent like dwelling in India and Pakistan, from the Hindi/Urdu (and Persian) :خیمه
- In Persian yurt is called chador (چادر), in Tajik the names are yurt, khona-i siyoh, khayma (юрт, хонаи сиёҳ, хайма).
- өг (ög, Tuvan pronunciation: [œɣ]) is the Tuvan word for yurt.
History[edit]
Yurts have been a distinctive feature of life in Central Asia for at least three thousand years. The first written description of a yurt used as a dwelling was recorded by the ancient Greek historian Herodotus. He described yurt-like tents as the dwelling place of the Scythians, a horse riding-nomadic nation who lived in the northern Black Sea and Central Asian region from around 600 BC to AD 300.[3]
Construction[edit]
A Mongolian Ger
Traditional yurts consist of an expanding wooden circular frame carrying a felt cover. The felt is made from the wool of the flocks of sheep that accompany the pastoralists. The timber to make the external structure is not to be found on the treeless steppes, and must be obtained by trade in the valleys below.
The frame consists of one or more expanding lattice wall-sections, a door-frame, bent roof poles and a crown. The Mongolian Ger has one or more columns to support the crown and straight roof poles. The (self-supporting) wood frame is covered with pieces of felt. Depending on availability, felt is additionally covered with canvas and/or sun-covers. The frame is held together with one or more ropes or ribbons. The structure is kept under compression by the weight of the covers, sometimes supplemented by a heavy weight hung from the center of the roof. They vary with different sizes, and relative weight.
A yurt is designed to be dismantled and the parts carried compactly on camels or yaks to be rebuilt on another site. Complete construction takes around 2 hours.
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Mongolian Ger: starting with walls and door
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Mongolian Ger: starting to place roof poles
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Mongolian Ger: with roof poles in place
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Mongolian Ger: placing the thin inner cover on the roof
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Mongolian Ger: adding felt cover
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Mongolian Ger: adding the outer cover
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A ger sits on the Steppes near Mandalgovi
Very constructive! It all goes to show that, in such matters, one should always watch one’s “Steppe”!
a fun day (food and wine) yurt you failed to invite me 😁