jenniferrpovey:

katnissthedemigod:

derinthemadscientist:

songs-of-the-east:

Scenes from the 2016 World Nomad Games hosted in Cholpon-Ata, Kyrgyzstan. The World Nomad Games brings athletes from various countries, primarily from the Central Asian region and Russia, to participate in sports native to the Eurasian Steppe. The Eurasian Steppe was home to various nomadic peoples particularly the Iranic-speaking Scythians and Sarmatians, who were a source of fear for the ancient Greeks due to their warriorlike nature and great horse-riding skills; including their mastery of horseback archery. Both groups are believed to have originated in the Eurasian Steppes, but their settlements ranged from China to Poland, and because of this they greatly impacted the genetic pool and cultures of a number of different groups in Eastern Europe and Central Asia such as the people of the Caucasus, Slavs, Turkic people, and other modern Iranic people. The Sarmatians in particular were famed by Greek historians for their female warriors and rulers that inspired the stories of the Amazons. 

You’re telling em we’ve been watching people swim back and forth across a pool in the olympics when these guys have foot archery and horseriding on fire?

They’re doing fucking GYMNASTICS on a horse, holy shit…

I want to know what they did to that horse that it’s just calmly running along while something on its back is literally on fire.

That horse is completely relaxed and not at all traumatized, one ear is paying attention to the rider and the other to their surroundings. They just don’t care that their back is literally on fire.

That’s some serious horsemanship.

Every other horse in these shots either has their attention on their rider, where they are going, or both. One of the horses in the gymnastics routine at the bottom is slightly anxious, but I think it’s more worried the rider is going to screw up than afraid.

These people invented horsemanship and they still know how to do it!