Kyrgyzstan Opens World Nomad Games as SCO Summit Unfolds

Bishkek (GNP): The sixth World Nomad Games opened on Sunday night at the newly built Bishkek Arena, drawing an unusually high-profile crowd of heads of state and international officials who were already gathered in the Kyrgyz capital for the Shanghai Cooperation Organization (SCO) summit.

The opening fell on August 31, a day that also marked 35 years of Kyrgyzstan’s independence, placing the country squarely in the international spotlight as it opened the Games and prepared to host the SCO summit in the same week.

The Games returned to where they began. Kyrgyzstan launched the World Nomad Games in 2014 and staged the first three editions at Cholpon Ata before the event moved to Turkey in 2022 and Kazakhstan in 2024. This year’s edition runs through September 6, and its return to Kyrgyzstan carried particular symbolic weight, being staged at a new arena on the southwestern edge of Bishkek near the foothills of the Kyrgyz Ala-Too Range that drew around 30,000 spectators for the opening ceremony.

The stadium, which will eventually hold more than 51,000, is not formally due to open until October 5, and construction was still visibly underway in the run-up to the ceremony, underscoring the pace at which Kyrgyzstan pushed to have the venue ready in time.

Before the diplomatic proceedings began, the evening opened with a concert featuring many of Kyrgyzstan’s best-known performers, including Bayastan, Malika Dina, Erlan Andashev and Begish, with veteran singer Baktiyar Toktorov drawing the loudest reaction from the crowd for his song “Yza,” widely known by its “Bui-Bui” refrain. The formal ceremony followed after a wait of around 90 minutes, during which footage of arriving dignitaries played on the arena’s screens as motorcades delivered guests for the occasion.

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Delegation leaders attending the SCO summit joined the opening ceremony alongside the presidents of SCO member states, with the guest list extending well beyond the organization’s core membership.

Russian President Vladimir Putin, Indian Prime Minister Narendra Modi, Turkish President Recep Tayyip Erdogan, Iranian President Masoud Pezeshkian and Belarusian President Alexander Lukashenko were among those in attendance, alongside the presidents of Kazakhstan, Tajikistan and Uzbekistan.

The President of Mongolia, an SCO observer state invited to the accompanying “SCO Plus” meeting, also attended, along with Vietnam’s Vice President, the Chairman of the Council of Ministers of the Togolese Republic, and senior officials from the United Nations, the Collective Security Treaty Organization (CSTO), the Commonwealth of Independent States (CIS) and the Eurasian Economic Union (EAEU), with UN Secretary-General Antonio Guterres among the international guests.

Chinese President Xi Jinping, in Bishkek for a state visit and the SCO summit, had been expected to attend but stayed away, with presidential spokesman Askat Alagozov citing deadly flooding and landslides in Tibet where rescue operations were continuing, though Xi’s bilateral meetings in Kyrgyzstan proceeded as planned.

Once the dignitaries were seated, more than 3,000 athletes from 104 countries entered the arena behind their national flags, including 517 from Kyrgyzstan, before the ceremony moved into a theatrical retelling of Kyrgyz history and legend featuring galloping horses, trick riders and mass choreography.

President Sadyr Japarov used his address to tie the Games to Independence Day and the diplomatic gathering unfolding alongside it, saying the country’s foundation rests on independence and its roots in nomadic civilization, and that its future lies in building a developed, strong Kyrgyzstan.

He described the confluence of the Games and the SCO summit as carrying a wider meaning, noting that state leaders were seeking paths to peace and cooperation through dialogue at one event while the peoples of the world drew closer through sport and culture at the other, with both resting on the values of peace and friendship.

Japarov also used the platform to highlight the government’s development agenda, pointing to the China-Kyrgyzstan-Uzbekistan railway as a project that would change perceptions of Kyrgyzstan’s geopolitical role, and to the Kambar-Ata-1 hydropower project, while announcing that Russia had formally expressed readiness to host the seventh World Nomad Games in Tatarstan in 2028.

Organizers describe the Games, now in their sixth edition and showcasing traditional sports, national games and cultural practices tied to nomadic civilizations, as intended to foster mutual understanding and promote friendship and good-neighborly relations among participating nations, with the event now moving to Issyk-Kul for its sporting, cultural and scientific programs through September 6.

Sadyr Japarov said, “Our foundation is independence, and our roots are in nomadic civilization. Our future lies in building a developed, strong new Kyrgyzstan.”