In Mongolia on Thursday, January 18, they called the winners of the Mazaalay International Ice Festival, Montsame reports.
The opening of the festival in Ulan-Bator, the capital of Mongolia took place on January 14. Among the goals of the event, the organizers called a decrease in seasonal dependence of the tourism industry, extension of the winter season and an increase in tourist flow to Mongolia.
The Mazaalay Ice Town includes a rink, a 50-meter slide, a 22-meter ice slide and snow-uniform sculptures 56.4 meters long. The town can simultaneously accommodate 400-500 people, and its area is 4,000 square meters.
The main attraction of the town was a five -meter sculpture of snow and ice depicting a bear Mazaalai with her cubs.
The festival hosted an international competition of ice and snow sculptures. The climax of the opening ceremony of the Mazaalay International Ice Festival was the world record of Mongolia, listed in the Guinness Book of Records – 408 people rolled up from an ice slide 12 meters wide and 18 meters long for an hour.
In the International Contest of Ice and Snow Sculptures, Save Mazaalai, 24 sculptors from 12 teams from seven countries: Russia, China, Thailand, France, USA and Mongolia took part. The organizers and participants noted that the competition helped to draw the attention of the world community to the protection of the disappearance of the Gobi Broke Bear – Mazaalai.
French sculptors took first place, and the subsequent places took commands from Mongolia and Yakutia (RF). In addition, the Russian team received a special prize at the international competition.
Mongol sculptors who took second place, with their composition called “Talisman Gobi” called not to kill these rare animals.
One of the members of the team from Thailand, who came from the tropics to a cold country, said: “I am glad that I came to Mongolia. It was not easy to create an ice composition in the cold.”
The organizers also said that in the future they plan to hold an annual ice festival named after animals under the threat of extinction, and the international competition of ice and snow sculptures.