On my first day in Bishkek, I rather sheepishly ordered an oat milk cappuccino – conscious of its association with Europe’s hipster elite, and wondering what the service staff in this Bishkek cafe must think of me. Ten minutes later, I found myself sipping my oat cappuccino on a bench opposite an enormous Soviet-era government building (in the car park of which I later discovered a craft beer bar), not 100 meters away from a statue of Stalin. At first, these symbols of nationalism and globalism seemed to clash rather strikingly. But these apparent contradictions kept presenting themselves to me: tradition vs. modernity was exemplified by the yurt camp in which a solar powered speaker belted out Pitbull’s ‘Mr Worldwide’, reverberated by the empty mountains surrounding us. It seemed that Kyrgyzstan was one of those places where different worlds didn’t necessarily have to compete, but can exist side by side.
This year, Kyrgyzstan hosted the World Nomad Games, celebrating traditional sports associated closely with nomadic countries. The opening ceremony in Bishkek stadium came just as the Shanghai Cooperation Organisation summit, attended by world leaders including Xi Jinping and Vladimir Putin, was drawing to a close. Despite the summit’s significance amid geopolitical shifts, coverage in ‘Western’ media was difficult to find. I was therefore somewhat surprised to see Mr Putin and Mr Modi walk into the stadium together, and take a seat next to leaders including Mr Pezeshkian of Iran, Mr Erdoǧan of Turkey, and the UN Secretary General António Guterres – not 200 meters away from me.
Apart from wondering whether my attending the event was completely ethical, prejudice set in: I assumed the long and loud applause for the Iranian delegation of athletes reflected the world views of those attending, and that other countries would not be greeted quite so warmly. But I was proven wrong: there was equal enthusiasm for the U.S., Ukraine, and Russian delegations.
During the entire six days of weird and wonderful games that followed, it seemed that people and perspectives that might appear to belong to opposing worlds were embraced alongside one another. This even extended to the Kazakhs, the Kyrgyz arch-rivals in the wildly popular sport of ‘Kok Boru’, which comes closest to rugby on horseback – only the ball is a goat carcass.
Perhaps I’m reading too much into a few weeks of yurt camps, horseback wrestling, world leaders, and the occasional oat cappuccino. But maybe we are generally too quick to divide the world into opposing camps of ideologies. Furthermore, perhaps ideologies themselves don’t have to be static or dichotomous, and can overlap, interact, and even produce something new. I learnt much from the clash of ideologies that wasn’t, and maybe the world can too.
Kok Boru and Yurt speed building in the videos, more photos below!
