(wikimedia.org)
There are two forms of “Buzkashi” in Afghanistan (where it is considered the national sport): Tudabarai is played at village weddings and circumcision festivals under the sponsorship of khans (strongmen leaders), and is known for its “volatile and violent” scoring system. Qarajai buzkashi is the urban variant, played in front of large crowds at velodrome arenas with more sophisticated rules and refereeing. In an unexpectedly futuristic twist for one of the world’s oldest sports, you might expect to see drones hovering above the pitch to capture footage for the TV highlights reels.
To quote an AFP News Agency description, “Buzkashi originated in Central Asia around the time of Genghis Khan. Legend has it that the sport was originally played by warriors using the corpse of a defeated enemy.” This is obviously a story that’s closely intertwined with the geography of the Steppe, across which it was easy for nomadic tribes to raid and retreat, making it difficult for the aspiring settled civilisations of Eastern Europe to develop, especially the Kievan Rus (the predecessor of Russia) which eventually fell into decline and was conquered in turn by Poland and Lithuania.
Kyrgyzstan mountains landscape
(pixabay.com)
When the Grand Duchy of Moscow (which would come to be seen as the successor state to Kievan Rus) began its expansion under Ivan III the Great at the end of the 16th century, it compensated for its uncomfortable geography (without natural defences) by adopting an aggressive strategy of all-out attack. This brought it into close contact with the raid-and-retreat nomadic tribes of the Steppe. The tribes for whom Buzkashi (under its various different names) can perhaps be seen as a way of life.
A Trans World Sport documentary says that the unwritten rules of Buzkashi are “seldom observed” and that the game is often seen as “a reflection of the violence and power struggles that have marked Afghanistan for centuries.” The anthropologist G. Whitney Azoy likewise describes the game as “a metaphor for chaotic, uninhibited and uncontrollable competition” that characterises Afghanistan and, presumably, the other countries where the game is traditionally played.
(wikipedia.org)
One of these places is Kyrgyzstan (pop. 6,500,000), the wild, mountainous neighbour of Kazakhstan and China, probably best known for its traditional rites of bride kidnapping. [Christopher Gross does a great TED Talk on this topic.] In the capital Bishkek, there is a large hippodrome built into the ordered urban landscape of the architects and town planners. This space of “chaotic, uninhibited and uncontrollable competition” is located in the west of the city, between Tolstoy street and Gagarin street.
There is a 3,000-km Moscow-to-Bishkek rail connection which departs from Kazansky (one of Moscow’s nine terminal stations) and takes three days. Here’s an evocative description of the same journey in reverse that can be found online: “Out of the window, the jagged mountains of Kyrgyzstan melt to the intense and seemingly interminable Kazakh steppe, which finally gives way to the verdant, pastoral landscapes of southern Russia.” Like the town planning and the architecture, the railway connection (established in the 1930s) is one way that Moscow was (and is) able to project its influence 3,000-km away, deep into the land of buzkashi and bride kidnapping.
And of course there was the military. It was at a Soviet air base in Bishkek from 1959 to 1961 that a young Hosni Mubarak trained to pilot the Ilyushin-Il28 and the Tupolev-Tu16 before rising through the ranks of the Egyptian Air Force and serving as President of Egypt from 1981 until he was deposed during the Arab Spring in 2011. The rugged landscapes of Kyrgyzstan must have been a particularly good place to train fighter pilots. And it must have been an awesome (and frightening) sight for the villagers in the hills down below.
Bishkek historical museum (wikimedia.org)
Bishkek’s population 100 years ago was 20,000. Now it is 1,000,000, with air pollution a major problem and slum settlements developing on the outskirts of the city. Its central square, Ala-Too Square, was completed in 1984 to celebrate the sixty year anniversary of the Kirghiz Soviet Socialist Republic. And it looks the part, with its boulevards, its wide open spaces, its big marble minimalism and the obligatory Lenin statue in the back garden of the State History Museum (moved here from the main square itself in 2003). This may just be the best place to explore the dynamics of Russian control in the chaotic environment of the Eurasian steppe.
On the first floor of the State History Museum, there is an exhibition on the history of the Bolshevik Revolution with bronze statues of crowds listening to speeches and so on. On the second (top) floor, there is a yurt, musical instruments, animal skin rugs, tools, pottery, a display of traditional weaving techniques, and woven rugs. The impression it creates is one of gradualism and harmony between the Marxist-Leninist (Russian) empire-builders and the native inhabitants of the steppe. The fact that the museum and its exhibits (and the Lenin statue) have survived the collapse of the USSR suggests that locals are not unhappy with some degree of continuity. And there has been plenty of political upheaval since then.
Kyrgyz Revolution of 2010 (wikipedia.org)
The “chaotic, at times violent” Tulip Revolution of 2005 (the First Kyrgyz Revolution) resulted in President Askar Akayev stepping down and seeking exile in Russia after a 15-year period in power. In a BBC article from 2006 (“People power forces changes in Bishkek”), Akayev’s successor Kurmanek Bakiyev was praised for promising constitutional reform after allowing peaceful protests to take place: “This has never happened in Central Asia before – the region where political change is so often violent, and where democracy is, at best, a distant concept.” Bakiyev was ultimately also deposed after the Second Kyrgyz Revolution in 2010 (which was also chaotic and violent). He was granted asylum in Belarus. So the Lenin statue in Bishkek has survived the collapse of the USSR and two chaotic and violent revolutions.
Karakol Valley (wikimedia.org)
Russian influence has also survived in Kyrgyzstan, which with a GDP per capita of just $4,193 is much poorer than Kazakhstan ($30,178). The best symbol of this was when the American airbase at Bishkek-Manas (opened in December 2001 to support US military action in Afghanistan) was forced to close in 2014 (the announcement having been made in 2009). Kyrgyzstan was a founder member of the CSTO in 1994 and has been a member of the Eurasian Economic Union since 2015 (the year after it was established).
The country’s geography makes it difficult to govern but also very appealing to tourists, with some calling it the “Switzerland of Central Asia”. The highest peak in the Tian Shan mountain range (which covers 80% of Kyrgyz territory) is just under 7,500 metres. On the other side of the mountains is the Taklamakan desert in China’s Xinjiang province and there has been speculation about a new BRI road or rail link between Kashgar (in China) and Tashkent (the capital of Uzbekistan) via the southern Kyrgyz city of Osh. The aim for the Chinese would be to connect Urumqi with Tehran and Istanbul (bypassing Russia). Another way to do this would be to go through Almaty and Bishkek.
But whatever happens, Bishkek will likely remain in Moscow’s orbit. China hopes for a quiet and stable Kyrgyzstan, seeing any unrest there as a potential influencer on the situation in an extremely volatile Xinjiang province just across the border.
And of course this all comes at a time when Russia’s own ties seem to be weakening in the west, with what looks more and more like the loss of Ukraine. As Zbigniew Brzeziński predicted in The Grand Chessboard in 1997, “given Russia’s declining birthrate and the explosive birthrate among the Central Asians, any new Eurasian entity based purely on Russian power, without Ukraine, would inevitably become less European and more Asiatic with each passing year.” Perhaps Russia, given these uncomfortable dynamics in the west, will be hoping for a quiet and stable Xinjiang.
Autor
Thomas Riley
Thomas Riley runs the Flows and Frictions podcast for Strategy&Future. Originally from Manchester, England, he has been living and teaching English in Katowice since 2009.
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