Traveling is a kind of sugary disease. After every visited country, you wanna taste more flavors. To discover new places, to meet new cuntures and to have them turns into your only dream. This is the same for me; however, my trip to Central Asia has brought the most valuable ones in my life. "Kök Börü" is only one of these. Indeed, I came across this traditional sport / game by chance. I was just a new student in Bishkek, Kyrgyzstan and "If you didn't ride Kyrgyz horse, you wouldn't have seen Kyrgyzstan!" said my friends. For that matter, I went to the Hippodrome with my friends to fulfill this tradition. The winter month was harder there than in Turkey.
We arrived at the Hippodrome by a taxi, but we had to walk to another gate because we got out of the car in front of the wrong one. Our hands and feet were frozen, but we finally managed to hunt up the right gate. We learned that the main gate was closed because it was Sunday. We were so cold and our phones weren't working because of the cold. Suddenly, we remembered that we saw a hole in one side of the wall as we were coming to that side, and decided to enter through the hole (gatecrash) :D .
We did. After walking for a while, we found ourselves in a large circle field. We saw the stables of the horses on the right side of the circle. And on the left side…. Oh Gosh! A lot of horses were rushing and striking out for us. They had been too far away from us a minute ago and we couldn’t know which way to turn. The jockeys on horses seemed to be fighting for each other and they weren't even notice us. I felt the crazy look of the golden palomino horse at me. It was huge and scary.
When I screamed, I realized I wasn't alone. My friends were the same as me and the jockeys were laughing at us. The horses passed us by, and then stopped. Was it a joke? What if the horses had run over and squashed us? I guess I won't forget that fear I've ever experienced. That's how I met "Kök Börü" sport. It was a very significant, national and historical sport of Central Asia, especially in Kyrgyzstan.
Its logic is similar to football matches. Briefly, two teams compete on horses. There is a head-cutted goat on the ground and jockeys have to take it by riding the horses and throw it into the large bowl-shaped hole that represents a goalpost. The team with a higher score wins. Here, what we did was to watch the training of this magnificent and ancient sport. Of course, we didn't forget to go back to the horse stables and ride those famous Kyrgyz horses. In fact, a few weeks later, we watched also the new movie called "Kök Börü" within the same enthusiasm. I'm writing down some links for you to have fun with this unique sport. If your way falls to Kyrgyzstan, which is a country of the noblest horses, do not forget to eat horse meat (Beş Parmak), drink horse milk (Kımız) and ride stunning creatures. :)
PS: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=LEFxaMlwIK8 (teaser)
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=eC02k7Yqog8 ( soundtrack)
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