Kok Baru or “Dead Goat Polo”
In 2018 I visited the World Nomad Games for 3 days on the shores of Lake Issykyl in Kyrgystan and was enchanted by the variety of the nomadic culture games being played and surprised by the presence of American teams participating. This time I attended the entire 8 days of games–from opening ceremony to closing ceremony–with a 10-person tour run by MIR travel in Seattle. As usual, both MIR and their local guide Farhod, did an outstanding job despite difficult conditions on the ground.
Yurt Arena Bishkek
The Kyrgyz government decided to have the annual Shanghai Cooperation Council meeting in Bishkek at the same time as the games. This meant that there were 24 Heads of State visiting, many of whom wished to attend the opening ceremony and cheer on their teams. The security requirements for those leaders to attend required shutting roads down all over town and made it difficult for any guest to reach the site of the ceremony in the huge new 50,000 person yurt-shaped Bishkek arena.
The next day we drove to our hotel in Cholpon Ata on the lake shore, and we began to do what we came for–attend the cool nomad games.
Tug of War
A new stadium for the horse games had been built adjacent to the huge hippodrome, which would be used for the spectacular closing ceremonies. The new horse games stadium was actually a convenient walk along the lake shore from our hotel.
A recently paved road ran up the mountain valley to a 1000-yurt encampment, where most on-foot games, such as archery and yurt building, and cultural exhibits, took place. 
Visitors had to leave their personal transport at an assembly place and crowd onto dozens of buses taking them further up the canyon to the yurt village.
Yurt Building Competition
The authorities had greatly underestimated the number of visitors and had to rush more and more buses to the site each day, as the crowds swelled. Over 200,000 people visited the yurt camp in just the first three days.
Eagle ready for competition
We especially enjoyed visiting three yurts set up by the Bishkek U.S. Embassy: one offered American fast food; the second a Makespace 3-D printer; and the third the highlights of the 250 years of U.S. history, including famous presidents (with no mention of the current president). It was fun to talk to embassy employees staffing these yurts, about their life and work in Kyrgyzstan (where we served in the 1990’s).
The remainder of our time was spent at horse events in the lake-side venues. These included everyone’s favorite national nomad sport – Kok Baru – or “dead goat polo”. The American team did better this time than in 2018, but still failed to win a game. Parents of a U.S. athlete at the games were in our tour group, and we heard stories of difficult training with unfamiliar horses.
American Cowboy
In addition, there was amazing acrobatic horse riding and Kyrgyzstan’s second favorite nomad horse sport- Kiz Kumai – where a horseman chases a horsewoman across the arena. If he catches the girl, she gives him a kiss. If he fails to catch her, she chases him back to the starting line, beating him with her riding crop. Naturally, the crowd cheered more loudly for the beating than the kissing.
Kiz Kumai Competition
The closing ceremony had a parade of all the athletes, including a line of the eagle hunting participants, who tried hard to keep their birds calm through the noise and bright lights.
The Closing Ceremony
My all-time favorite event took place at the lakeside spiritual center dedicated to Chingiz Aymatov, our favorite Soviet era Kyrgyz author. I enjoyed the children singing and dancing and included below the video of 20 young ladies doing the amazing reindeer dance.
The next games in 2028 will take place in Russia, so it is likely fewer American athletes will participate.
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