The Kazaks in China’s Xinjiang Uygur Autonomous Region are celebrating a folk festival with four days of singing and horse racing gala.
Most of the Kazaks (also known as Kazakhs or Qazaqs) are living in Kazakhstan and some others in its neighbouring countries, e.g. Russia, Uzbekistan and China etc. There are around 1.4 million Kazaks in China; not really a small population but still considered as a minority tribe among China’s 1.2 billion people.
Kazaks are well known for their fierce love of freedom, skilful horse riding and hunting with semi-domesticated eagles. The image above shows them playing a traditional sport which is a combination of tug-of-war, basketball and horse racing. You might remember this from the Rambo movie. Image via Cri.