Dubbed the "Great Gathering of the Steppe", the Olympic Games of the Nomadic World are a spectacular celebration of the traditional sports, identity and culture of peoples across Central Asia.
World nomadic games are a bit like Scottish folk sports games Highland Games, and a little to the Mongolian traditional sports festival Nadam.
At them, participants compete in sports such as horse wrestling and Central Asian strongman disciplines.
The fifth World Nomadic Games were held in September in Astana, the capital of Kazakhstan.
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From them, one can guess how the Olympic Games might have looked if they had been organized by the Mongolian warlord Genghis Khan, one of the most powerful rulers in history.
Indeed, many sports require the skills necessary to survive on the steppe, as well as the unsurpassed horsemanship on which steppe empires, from the Huns to the Mongols, have rested for millennia.
The Games feature competitions in traditional sports such as archery and long-distance horse racing, but they also promote Kazakh food, traditional costumes, and even the art of epic storytelling.
The goal is to preserve and protect the nomadic and steppe culture, which is under increasing threat from globalization, modernization, and even climate change.
The World Nomadic Games are held every two years and change venues as often as the nomadic peoples who participate.
The next one is in 2026, and probably the host will be Kyrgyzstan, where the first competition was held in 2014.
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Spectacular opening
The opening ceremony on September 8 was spectacular.
3.000 athletes from 89 countries paraded, while hundreds of musicians, dancers and singers performed in front of the political elite of Central Asia.
The history of the Kazakh steppe is presented, from the ancient Scythian warriors and traders on the Silk Road to the rise of the Golden Horde, the Mongol-Turkish state, and the Kazakh Khanate in the 15th century, an arrangement that marked the beginning of Kazakh statehood.
The performers presented scenes of gatherings in the steppe under the symbolically embroidered strips of a yurt (a tent-home, used by nomadic tribes), as a reminder of the periodic gatherings of nomadic confederations to enthrone a new khan.
The wildest sport in Central Asia
The most popular sport of the Games, known throughout the region as why hurry, hurry up, hurry up i Buzkas, could best be described as rugby on horseback with a dead goat as the ball.
Two teams of seven riders each compete to grab a dead headless goat (made of rubber for these Games), hold it by the leg and gallop to the opponent's line, then drop it into a rope hoop or large plastic bucket.
To say it looks rough is an understatement - broken fingers and other types of injuries are a given.
"For copkara the most important are strength, courage and fearlessness," says Kazakhstan team captain Kermenbek Turganbek.
Thousands of fans watched the home team of Kazakhstan defeat arch-rivals (and ethnic brothers) Kyrgyzstan in the final, in extra time.
An endangered traditional sport
One of the more unusual of the 21 official sports at the Games is eagle hunting.
To an experienced eagle trainer, known as berkuci, it takes many years to tame and train a wild golden eagle (golden eagle), and because of the costs and time required, it is the most threatened traditional sport of the Games.
The competition is held in three categories: hunting with eagles, hawks and falcons.
All three come from Kyrgyzstan, Kazakhstan and western Mongolia, where foxes, rabbits and wolves are traditionally hunted in winter when their fur is thickest.
Horse wrestling
Horse wrestling is organized on sand in an arena with a diameter of 15 meters, and the fights are divided into six weight categories.
The goal is to knock the opponent to the ground, but points are also scored if the opponent gets out of the saddle or is pushed out of the circle.
Horses are punished for biting.
Other wrestling disciplines without horse riding, known as kuresh, kuresh or Koresh in the Turkish language.
These are specific Kazakh, Turkish, Tatar, and Kyrgyz styles, and unlike many other sports at the Games, there are women's competitions in most of these disciplines.
An ode to the warrior past
Archery (both on land and on horseback) is perhaps the most reminiscent of the warrior past of these parts of Asia.
For centuries, the unsurpassed horsemen of the steppe with bows and arrows were a striking force in the conquest of cities throughout the Middle East and Eastern Europe.
"The blood of Genghis Khan runs through my veins," says Mongolian archer Cecegsuren Dorjsuren.
"When I take a bow in my hands, I feel the spirit of my ancestors".
Wrestling competitions for men and women
Pole-pulling originates from Yakutia - today's Republic of Sakha, one of several republics of the Russian Federation inhabited by Turks, which participated in the 2024 Games.
Two contestants sit facing each other, with their feet on a board placed between them, and both hold the same stick.
The goal is to snatch the opponent's stick or pull it to your side - imagine children fighting over a toy).
There are men's and women's competitions in this sport.
Celebrating nomadic culture
The World Nomad Games are much more than a sports competition.
At the heart of the six sports facilities is an ethno-aul (village in Kazakh), which has a collection of yurts, craft shops and local restaurants, actors dress up as medieval warriors, and musicians perform ancient folk songs.
In the picture above, these women in traditional Kazakh costume are standing in front of an apple tree, symbolizing the belief that the wild apple comes from the area around the largest city and former capital of Kazakhstan, Almaty, whose name is often translated as 'Rich in Apples', and the Russian version of the name, Alma Ata, could be translated as 'Father of (all) apples'.
Folk singers, music and epic poetry
One of the greatest pleasures of visiting the World Nomadic Games is the traditional music that can be heard from the concert halls and yurts in the ethno-village.
The most interesting Kazakh performers are by eye, poets or storytellers who recite and improvise epic poems and historical stories, while playing the dombra (a folkloric string instrument) and the Kazakh lute.
The musicians in the photo above play the dombra and accordion, a legacy of the long Russian influence in this region.
Old crafts
In addition to sports and music, the World Nomadic Games also celebrate old crafts.
The games feature a variety of artisans, such as embroiderers and weavers, and many offer classes in traditional Kazakh handicrafts.
Bulbul Kapkizi, pictured with a Soviet-era carpet with an embroidered image of Lenin, is a master weaver, yurt maker and ethnographer who has been training and teaching for over 45 years.
An ethnic Kazakh born in western Mongolia, she moved to Kazakhstan 20 years ago after the country gained independence, at a time of huge ethnic and economic change in post-Soviet Central Asia.
The glow of the capital
The ultra-modern architecture of Astana does not seem a suitable host for the celebration of an ancient nomadic culture.
Nomads traditionally don't leave much of an architectural legacy, and Kazakhstan's futuristic capital Astana is quickly making up for lost time.
Because of the expensive and modern buildings, whose designers are famous names, such as the British architect Norman Foster, Astana looks more like Dubai in Central Asia, although it is located in the Eurasian or Great Steppe and is the second coldest capital in the world, after Ulaanbaatar in Mongolia.
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