How To Put Up a Yurt
Finally got around to digging up some old photos I took several Nauryzes ago (several years ago on Nauryz). It was my first year in Kazakhstan and I went to Duman to watch them put up the yurts, having never seen this before. Watching, I got the idea to do a little photo instructable on how to put together a yurt. While I doubt anyone could use these instructions to actually build a yurt themselves, I hope it’s interesting to see the different steps involved.
The materials all laid out. Believe it or not, this is all you need (except for the outside covering). The shanyrak or roof and the wall frames.
For fancy yurts, step one is to put up the door. Simpler yurts have no door, only a doorway.
Step two: tie together the pieces of the wall frame to create the round base.
The base, all set up.
Step three: The trickiest part is putting the shanyrak up. As you can see, one guy uses a forked stick to hold the shanyrak up from the middle of the yurt, while the others insert the roof supports into holes in the side of the shanyrak and then tie them to the wall frame.
It’s not as easy as it looks trying to keep the shanyrak in place and stable.
Putting more and more roof beams in.
Tying off the roof beams
Step four: With the walls and roof frame in place, time to put on the walls. This yurt is a show yurt so the roof and wall covering is one piece, conveniently shaped.
Another shot of getting the covering on.
Pulling it down.
A more traditional yurt, where the felt walls are wrapped around the walls and the roof is then thrown on top.
Roof going on.
The finished product.
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