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| The Spirit of Mongolia |
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Mongolia's rolling, windswept plains can be bone-chilling and desolate. But they are also a place of life and excitement. And once upon a time, these unforgiving lands gave birth to great emperors that galloped their way into the history books.
On this episode of NATURE, actress Julia Roberts takes viewers on an intimate trip to Mongolia's historic hinterlands, where modern nomads still tend their herds of swift horses. NATURE's WILD HORSES OF MONGOLIA WITH JULIA ROBERTS offers a vivid portrait of these steadfast herders and their spunky steeds, the proud descendents of the last truly wild horses on earth. In scenes that are by turns moving and amusing, Roberts becomes a part of one nomad family, lending a hand when it is time to move camp, and joining in the festivities after a dramatic horse race. Despite their cultural differences, Roberts and her hosts find common ground in their mutual love of horses.
In Mongolia, a landlocked, Texas-sized nation that lies between Russia and China, the bond between people and horses goes back at least a thousand years.
Originally, Mongolians may have tamed the horses that thundered across the vast plains in order to harvest their meat and milk -- important sources of food in a harsh environment. But the horse soon became just as valuable as a beast of burden, carrying people and supplies across great distances. Warriors quickly realized that they too could enlist horses as a powerful ally in their campaigns, allowing armies to move far and fast.
By the 1100s, in fact, the Mongols were widely revered as master riders, and mounted Mongol warlords were greatly feared by their enemies. But it took one of these tribal leaders, a goat herder born in 1167 named Temujin, to forcibly unite the Mongols under a single king. In 1206, after decades of warfare, Temujin was named the Genghis Khan -- or Great Emperor -- of the Mongols. By then, he had conquered a swath of central Asia, and his fierce mounted armies were staging major thrusts into Eastern Europe, northern China, and southern Russia.
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