The World Nomad Games bring traditional equestrian sports, wrestling, archery and nomadic culture together in one extraordinary international competition.
Kok-boru
The event that stops first-time visitors in their tracks is kok-boru. Teams of riders thunder across an arena wrestling for possession of a goat carcass and trying to carry it to the opposing goal.
There is dust everywhere. Horses collide shoulder to shoulder. Riders hang almost horizontally from their saddles to scoop the carcass from the ground, then accelerate away with opponents trying to tear it from their grip.
Calling it polo with a goat gets the mechanics across. It does not remotely convey the spectacle.
The SideQuest
The Games began in Kyrgyzstan in 2014 as an international celebration of the sports and culture of traditionally nomadic peoples. For the classic setting, it is hard to beat Cholpon-Ata on Lake Issyk-Kul, beneath the Tian Shan mountains.
Go for the spectacle. Stay long enough and the stranger discovery is that everybody around you stopped thinking it was strange long before you arrived.