When it snows on the steppes of eastern Kazakhstan, hunters saddle up and gallop off with eagles on their arms in search of prey.
The men follow the animal tracks in the snow then release their giant eagles into the air to snatch up foxes and rabbits.
“Hunting is my life,” said Baurzhan Yeshmetov, a 62-year-old man in an embroidered velvet tunic, his eagle perched on his arm staring menacingly into the foggy hills.
“This eagle is my life,” said Yeshmetov who, when not hunting, works as a taxi driver in Kazakhstan’s financial center, Almaty.
Many in Kazakhstan see eagle hunting as a symbol of their nation’s nomadic past and a throwback to an oft romanticized era before these steppes turned into a geopolitical battleground between competing regional powers Russia and China.
Two decades of economic growth that followed Kazakhstan’s independence from Moscow’s rule in 1991 have also created a generation of young Kazakhs whose search for a new identity has led them to look deeper into history.
“In Soviet days, all of this was forgotten because everyone had to believe in communism,” said Dinara Serikbayeva who runs an eagle-hunting museum in the village of Nura.
Speaking in the Soviet-built House of Culture building where functionaries once lectured villagers about a fast-approaching communist paradise, she said eagle hunting has turned into a symbol of this new quest for identity.
“Kids once again think it’s cool. It’s an essential part of our nomadic ancestry and we are extremely proud of it,” she said.
Called berkutchi in Kazakh, professional eagle hunters number only about 50 in Kazakhstan — a vast country that has used its oil wealth to transform itself from a sleepy Soviet backwater into a modern consumer society.
They often gather in the icy hills on the Kazakh border with China — far from cities like Almaty, bustling with luxury cars and Wi-Fi cafes — to determine whose eagle is the best.
The Kazakh golden eagle is one of the world’s fiercest, with a wingspan of 2m, razor-sharp talons and the ability to dive at the speed of an express train — up to 305kph.
During a Dec. 5 tournament, a panel of juries watched with unsmiling faces from a hilltop as hunters, clad in fox-fur hats, unleashed straps and sent eagles into the air.
Villagers prepared kebabs in open-air barbeque stands, loudspeakers blared folk songs, and tourists with binoculars and fluorescent outdoor gear stared in wonder.
Eagle hunting was largely banned during Soviet rule and the tradition would have disappeared altogether had it not been preserved by ethnic Kazakhs in China and Mongolia.
More than 1 million Kazakhs took their skills to their graves during a Soviet-inflicted famine in the 1930s when Soviet leader Josef Stalin’s forced collectivization campaign erased entire villages in Kazakhstan, Ukraine and Russia.
“Hunger, repression, collectivization. People had no time to worry about their eagles,” said Yepemes Alimkhanov, a government official in charge of reviving national sporting activities. “It was a tragedy. But the tradition is coming back. Our sons and daughters have inherited it.”
The number of trained eagles in the village of Nura alone grew to 30 from just two since 1990. Indeed, everything in Nura seems to revolve around the practice. Even the village bus stop sports a large mosaic of a flying eagle.
On the eve of a recent competition, families gathered inside their huts for a festive meal, serving the national dish of chewy meat and greasy dough. They talked about eagles.
“This year of course no one has money, it’s crisis time,” said Bagdat Muptekekyzy, a tournament organizer. “It is hard. But we’ll do anything to keep our hunters flying their eagles.”
Turning heads as they cruise past office buildings and malls, driverless taxis are slowly spreading through Chinese cities, prompting both wariness and wonder. China’s tech companies and vehicle manufacturers have poured billions of dollars into self-driving technology over the past few years in an effort to catch industry leaders in the US. Now the central city of Wuhan boasts one of the world’s largest networks of self-driving cars, home to a fleet of more than 500 taxis that can be hailed on an app just like regular rides. At one intersection in an industrial area of Wuhan, AFP reporters saw at least five
China and Vietnam yesterday inked 14 documents spanning cross-border railways to crocodile exports after Chinese President Xi Jinping (習近平) met with new Vietnamese leader To Lam in Beijing. The Vietnamese president’s visit to Beijing, his first overseas trip since becoming the general secretary of the Communist Party of Vietnam earlier this month, signals a desire between the two communist neighbors to strengthen ties, amid growing trade and investment, despite occasional clashes over boundaries in the South China Sea. “China has always regarded Vietnam as a priority in its neighborhood diplomacy, and supports Vietnam in adhering to the party leadership, taking the socialist
A former Saudi Arabian official alleged in a report that the kingdom’s Crown Prince Mohammad bin Salman forged the signature of his father on the royal decree that launched the kingdom’s years-long, stalemated war against Yemen’s Houthi rebels. Saudi Arabia did not immediately respond to a request for comment over the allegations made without supporting evidence by Saad al-Jabri in an interview published yesterday by the BBC, but the kingdom has described him as “a discredited former government official.” Al-Jabri, a former Saudi Arabian intelligence official who lives in exile in Canada, has been a years-long dispute with the kingdom as
‘ENOUGH IS ENOUGH’: Hospitals said faculty staff from medical colleges were assisting with emergency cases as more than 1 million doctors were expected to strike Hospitals and clinics across India yesterday turned away patients except for emergency cases as medical professionals began a 24-hour shutdown in protest against the brutal rape and murder of a doctor in the eastern city of Kolkata. More than 1 million doctors were expected to join the strike, paralyzing medical services across the world’s most populous nation. Hospitals said faculty staff from medical colleges had been pressed into service for emergency cases. The strike, which began at 6am, cut off access to elective medical procedures and out-patient consultations, the Indian Medical Association said in a statement. The discovery of the 31-year-old doctor’s bloodied