Astana, Kazakhstan – Clouds of mud get up from the sandy grassland of a taking part in grassland as a bundle horses converge, their riders status of their stirrups as they direct their mounts against an strange goal: the headless and disembowelled carcass of a goat laying within the mud.
From what seems as a multi-legged, rotating creature of hooves, tails, heads and human fists, one rider manages to boost and hoist the carcass underneath his leg, speeding against the objective with two groups of 7 horsemen chasing him from either side – some to offer protection to him, others to thwart him, regardless of the value. The chance of damaged hands and jaws is all too actual.
This isn’t a film however a sport of kokpar, a horseback recreation identified and performed throughout Central Asia, and an exciting climax to this occasion’s version of the 5th International Nomad Video games that concluded on September 13.
Held within the futuristic Kazakh capital of Astana, the 5th version of the International Nomad Video games is a party of the game, tradition and solidarity of the nomadic peoples of Asia’s Turkic international locations.
The bi-annual tournament began 10 years in the past in Cholpon Ata in Kyrgyzstan, with 30 nations taking part, later former Kyrgyz President Almazbek Atambayev steered the video games could be a great way to exhibit the patch’s tradition in an occasion of fast moving globalisation.
“We are the descendants of wise and brave nomads who were able to preserve their unique identity and gave us the civilisation of the Great Steppe,” Kazakhstan President Kassym-Jomart Tokayev stated on the elegant opening of the video games on September 8. “Our common duty is to cherish this sacred heritage and to pass it on to future generations.”
Tokayev also addressed the suffering in other parts of the world, especially in Gaza, while emphasising the games’ role in strengthening friendships among nations, much in the same way as the recently concluded Olympics.
In the same way that France used the Olympics to showcase Paris and French culture to the world, so Kazakhstan used its first time hosting the World Nomad Games to showcase the origins of the Kazakh steppes, symbolising the peaceful interconnections of past nomadic empires beneath a traditional nomadic yurt.
‘Three games of men’
This year’s event, the first held in Kazakhstan, was possibly the largest to date, featuring more than 2,000 athletes from 89 countries ranging from Angola to Argentina, Hungary to Sweden, and Turkmenistan to Zimbabwe.
They all came together to participate in 21 traditional games that have their roots in the “three games of men” (archery, wrestling and horse racing), which testify to the skills of the peoples who ruled the steppes of inner Asia for thousands of years, from Silk Road traders to the Golden Horde that preceded the 15th century Kazakh Khanate.
Besides kokpar, some of the most interesting games were audaryspak, a horseback wrestling competition where a sportsman must wrestle his opponent from his horse, and kusbegilik, a hunting game with birds of prey (majestic golden eagles, falcons and hawks) whose flight speed is assessed by launching them on a lure or counting how long it takes the bird to reach a bait in its owner’s hand.
There have been additionally a number of other kinds of wrestling, such because the native Qazak Quresi and Kurash, fully carried out in status place, in addition to the Robust Nomad Strongman Pageant, which incorporated weight lifting, javelin throwing demanding situations and pulling a 200kg (440-pound) bullock cart by way of bare hand and muscle.
The video games additionally went past recreation to incorporate technique similar to Togyzkumalak, a board sport wherein a participant wins by way of accumulating the very best collection of stones, and are living performances of aitys, Kazakh and Kyrgyz folk-orientated improvised song and poetry duels which become a part of UNESCO’s Intangible Cultural Heritage in 2015.
Kazakhstan received the video games with a complete of 112 medals, together with 43 golds, adopted by way of Kyrgyzstan with 65 medals and Russia with 49, however there have been enough quantity of surprises.
Betty Vuk, an Italian feminine judo fighter and member of Italy’s Qazak Quresi Understructure, attach Italy’s best gold medal, and primary within the Nomad Video games, in conventional Kazakh wrestling.
Alternative profitable international locations incorporated Hungary – which received 8 medals, together with one gold, surpassing Turkey, Bharat, China and Turkmenistan – and Romania, Poland, Moldova, France and Australia, underlining the rising attraction of conventional Central Asian video games and martial arts all over the world.
Year the 2026 version will go back to Kyrgyzstan, hour video games may hurry park a ways past the steppe.
“Maybe in 2030 or 2032, it’ll be possible to host the World Nomad Games in North America because we have common ground there. […] Our geography should expand and become a world project with wider attention,” Kazakhstan’s vice-minister of Tourism and Sports activities, Zharasbayev Serik Maratovich advised the media. “We want to popularise our games and ask anyone to help spread the word.”
Again at the kokpar grassland, the goat used to be made from rubber, however a lifeless animal is the norm in a recreation that has relatively other laws and names relying on the place it’s performed.
It used to be Kazakhstan that emerged because the eventual winners of the kokpar match, taking house the gold forward of Kyrgyzstan.