Jul 11 2007

A Day At The Races

Category: Eating Out,Friends,Kazakhstan,Personal,PicturesChrisM @ 9:26 pm

Whilst Alex was here, and during the week long celebrations for Astana being the capital city, and President Nazarbayev’s birthday, we all went to an afternoon of events over at a new race track they have built near Astana.

Kokpar Kyz Kuu Astana Kazakhstan 2007

During the day, we saw a horse race, some fine equine skills (see above) that involved gymnastics on horses, and a game of goat polo. In case you have not come across it before, this is a game where two opposing teams, who are on horses, wrestle a goat carcass from the ground, then try to place it in the opposing team’s goal. The other team obviously want to stop them from doing this, and so block the players’ horses, and try to steal the goat for themselves.
Luckily, the new grand stand had a roof, so we did not over heat or burn on the fine hot & sunny day. They even gave out free beshparmak!

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2 Responses to “A Day At The Races”

  1. Irina says:

    Can I make three comments?
    1. I found the event very interesting and enjoying.
    2. The ‘goat polo’ is called kokpar in kazakh.
    3.You have a typo in Nazarbayev’s name.

  2. Chris Merriman says:

    1) Me Too.
    2) Thanks, I used the two names in the title tag for the photo (for SEO purposes) , but I could not remember which word meant which activity.
    3) Ta, I have now corrected it.