ASTANA, Kazakhstan -- Two women wearing pointed hats and ankle-length leather overcoats trimmed with fur walk past a cluster of gers, the traditional tent dwellings of Central Asia's nomadic peoples. One has a fierce-looking golden eagle perched on her thick leather glove, the other a leash attached to a Tazy dog -- an endangered Kazakh breed.
Sights like these were common in Astana last week, when the Fifth World Nomad Games was held in Kazakhstan (Sept. 8-13) for the first time. Staged at a time when the nomadic peoples of Central Asia's steppes traditionally shift their summer camps to more temperate winter pastures, the games took place largely in the Kazanat Hippodrome, a 10-hectare grassland-like setting on the city's southern flank.
