Bishkek, Kyrgyzstan, hosted the opening ceremonies of the World Nomad Games on Tuesday, a dramatic celebration of ancient Central Asian sports featuring a display of hundreds of horses, traditional Steppe costumes, and an American team ready to compete on the other side of the planet.
The World Nomad Games, conceived in Kazakhstan and debuting 12 years ago, is primarily a sporting contest meant to feature the traditional cultures of the Turkic peoples of Central Asia. This year, teams representing over 100 countries will compete in 43 sports ranging from tug of war, bird of prey hunting, archery, and a variety of equestrian games. Most sports have some link to ancient games played in Central Asia for hundreds, if not thousands of years. Among them are “breaking the vertebral bone,” in which competitors seek to most definitively destroy a vertebral cattle bone; Kush Saluu, in which competitors choose to hunt with either a golden eagle, falcon, hawk, or Kyrgyz sighthound; and a variety of ancient traditional board games.
The American team marched in the opening ceremonies on Tuesday, waving the American flag, wearing cowboy hats, and sharing the heartland spirit of the country. America is competing in the sports of horse wrestling (in which competitors try to tear each other off their horses) and Kok-Boru or “goat pulling,” in which teams on horseback compete for possession of a goat carcass.
“‘Kok-Boru’ also known as ‘Goat Polo,’ is the ultimate test of horse-riding strength, connecting American Western Heritage with Ancient Nomadic Traditions,” the American team’s website explains. “It’s the Western Frontier meets the Nomadic Steppe, reminiscent of the American ‘Wild West,’ and exemplifying the shared values of horsemanship, rugged individualism, and resilience. These competitors exhibit a return to the Pioneer Spirit!”
American Ambassador to India and Special Envoy to Central Asia Sergio Gor represented the U.S. government at the games alongside Sen. Steve Daines (R-MT). In a statement on Wednesday, Gor explained that he used the visit to also meet with Kyrgyz President Sadyr Zhaparov and reaffirm the friendly relationship between the two countries.
Kyrgyzstan’s government came up with the idea of the World Nomad Games to rehabilitate its image after a turbulent period at the beginning of the century and to connect with neighboring countries sharing the Turkic Steppe traditions.
“Following coups in 2005 and 2010, and that year’s violence in Osh, Kyrgyzstan was most commonly associated with inter-ethnic tensions, conflict, and other negative things,” Dr. Arzuu Sheranova, an independent researcher based in Germany, told the Asian affairs publication The Diplomat in a report this week. “Although the government was initially skeptical of the idea, [they realized] eventually that the games could be used to attract foreign investments [and] rebrand the country as a safe destination for foreign tourists.”
This year, Kyrgyzstan celebrated 35 years of independence from the former Soviet Union and welcomed a high number of world leaders to the World Nomad Games’ opening ceremonies, in part as a result of Bishkek also hosting the Shanghai Cooperation Organization’s (SCO) annual summit. The SCO is a security coalition largely made up of Central Asian countries leveraged for influence primarily by China, India, and Russia. Both Russian strongman Vladimir Putin and Indian Prime Minister Narendra Modi reportedly attended the opening ceremonies, joining a total of 18 heads of state at the event.
The Kyrgyz government put on a dynamic show for its guests, featuring elaborate horseback performances in a newly built stadium, one of the largest in the region.
America’s presence at the games, and its political investment in friendship with Kyrgyzstan, is important in the context of China’s ambitious attempts to expand its influence in the region. Kyrgyzstan, along with its Central Asian neighbors, is a core part of China’s “Belt and Road Initiative” (BRI), a scheme in which the Communist Party is promising to rebuild the Ancient Silk Road that connected China to western Europe. In reality, the BRI is a debt trap scheme in which China offers poor countries predatory loans to be used to pay Chinese companies for overpriced infrastructure projects. When the countries cannot pay, such as in the case of Sri Lanka, China seizes the project it built and uses it to expand its political footprint, challenging the sovereignty of the countries involved.
The Kyrgyz government signed over 30 bilateral documents during Xi’s visit to Bishkek this week, according to Kyrgyz Foreign Minister Jeenbek Kulubaev. President Zhaparov described the relationship with China as being in a “golden period” despite China currently engaging in genocide against ethnic Kyrgyz people on its side of the border in occupied East Turkistan, a situation the Kyrgyz government has largely ignored.
“I can confidently say that today cooperation between our countries has entered a new, golden period of development,” Zhaparov reportedly said.
Xi reportedly gave a similar assessment, according to Chinese state media.
“In recent years, bilateral trade volume and people-to-people exchanges have reached new highs, Xi said,” according to a Chinese government readout, “noting that major projects including the China-Kyrgyzstan-Uzbekistan railway have been successfully implemented, and the tangible results of mutually beneficial cooperation have broadly benefited the two peoples.”