The 5th World Nomad Games
At the end of the tour of Kazakhstan the highlight is certainly the 5th World Nomad Games.
When mentioning the World Nomad Games most people have a blank expression.
What is it?
The official answer is “The World Nomad Games are international sports competitions in ethnic sports. The competition is based on folk games of historically nomadic peoples and takes place every two years around Central Asia – bringing together the nomadic tribes to compete in their traditional games”.
Basically it’s the Olympics of the Central Asian Nomadic Tribes.
Instead of running, jumping, swimming and court games, athletes compete on horseback, archery, hunt with falcons, and play a game on horseback using a goat carcass as the ball.
The games, which include sports like Kok-Boru (headless goat polo), burkut saluu (eagle hunting), Er Enish (horseback wrestling), alysh (traditional wrestling), Salburun (falconry), and Ordo (bocci balls with cow and goat bones) are played in several different arenas but there is also a great focus on ethnic and folk activities running alongside.
It is an international affair, with participants not just from Central Asia but from as far afield as Europe and the USA—apparently, nomadic sports had gone global!
Here is the BBC report on the games.
https://www.bbc.com/travel/article/20240912-world-nomad-games-the-spectacular-olympics-of-central-asia
Below is a video that give a flavour of what happens…..
Day 1
We took off from Almaty at 11:50 and landed in Astana at 13:35 ahead of schedule and went directly to the games from the airport.
We had pre bought tickets for the “Equestrian Arena” at Ethnoaul, where we were all set to witness Zhamby Abu (horseback archery) and Audaryspak (horseback wrestling). It felt like the perfect way to dive into the action without needing a night on a rattling train!
The games is also about all of the different cultures of the different nomadic tribes. It showcases their way of life and also their sports one of which is hunting with Eagles.
It is also a time when everybody can get together and wear their best clothes and generally show off
There is also a great display of local art
DAY 2 – World Nomad Games Astana
This morning, we had booked tickets for Kok Buru, one of the many variations of “headless goat polo,” so we were off to witness that wild spectacle. We were very fortunate that it was Kazakhstan against Russia. It appears to be split into four chuckers of 15 minutes each exactly the same as our polo. What was even better was that Kazakhstan thrashed Russia, we left when it was 12 to Kazakhstan and 0 to Russia.
As a bonus, we also got to watch the ladies archery competition. As we did not have tickets, we had to watch it through the fence and be careful not to step on the grass as we were immediately chastised.
After our Georgian lunch we went to watch the Power Games. The aim of this event was to lift the goat carcass of 100 kg onto the shoulder. Some of the guys couldn’t do it, but the Kazakhstan guy did it seven times in the allotted time.
To finish off the day we had a wander up to the exhibition area
DAY 3 – World Nomad Games Astana
Today was always going to be a busy day as we bought tickets when we were in the UK for different events. This morning it’s Tenge Ilu which is the high adrenaline horseback sport where they pick rocks off the ground so may opt for that instead.
At the same time its Kokpar (headless goat polo) and its the actual final quick visit to the ethnic village and across the road to the hippodrome to see the final.
This was a pretty riotous affair, the noise was brilliant, halfway through the first half there was a big fight which isn’t a good idea when all the players have whips. Mounted police arrived and eventually after quite a break they sent one player to the sin bin.
At full time the match was a draw so it went into extra time, this would be usually called gold gold but we placed it as the golden goat….
Kazan eventually scored the first goal in extra time which made them the winner, we were very happy for Kazakhstan.
Lunch in the ethnic village was a bit of a lesson in batch cooking but tasty non the less.
After lunch in the ethnic village, we headed across town to the wrestling Palace to watch the finals of the wrestling. These bouts only went on for three minutes and some lasted the three minutes but some only lasted as long as nine seconds. There was certainly a few injuries, freeze spray to the back of the head and smelling salts appear to sort everybody out. Nothing like the big girls blouses in the premiership.
DAY 4 – World Nomad Games Astana
Our final day at the Games.
In the morning we had the option of watching Tenge Ilu but as we watched it yesterday we opted for the finals of the Kusebegolik,eagle hunting. Kazakhstan and Kyrgyzstan had an advantage as other countries weren’t allowed to bring their birds, possibly due to the fear of avian flu and competitors had to rent the birds once on country.
It’s really weird the way that things work out, the wind got up and then Lynn and I decided to go into a large yurt to get away from it for a little while. This was the pensioners tent and they were starting the performance, we saw singing, dancing, Lynn took part in an exercise class and the whole experience was absolutely brilliant.
After all the fun at the games it’s time to have a look round this wonderful city. The architecture is just amazing, the vision they have had for this city, saying it was built in 10 years, it’s absolutely amazing. Kazakhstan is nowhere near the Third World country we thought it was, in fact it puts Britain to shame.
PLEASE CLICK HERE TO SEE CITY TOUR
and then later the closing ceremony which historically has been a rather spectacular affair so we are hoping for a similarly exciting event—a great way to end the holiday and the games!