Kyrgyzstan

The way Nomads hunt:

The nomads hunted in a few different ways. There was the eagle, Taigan Dog, bow and arrows and the coolest of all tamed snow leopards.

The eagles would hunt tackles and foxes. The nomads did not eat they meat but fed it to the eagles. The Nomads used the fur to make clothing. The eagles had to eat 1 kilo of meat a day in summer and 1 kilo every other day in the winter. After 20 years they will release the eagle back into the wild. We got to meet the world champion eagle hunter and see a demonstration from him. It was like having Lebron James teach you how to shoot a 3 pointer.

A Tiagan is a type of hunting dog that flush up prey. They have shaggy fur and kinda look like a Saluki. They are only bred in Krygstan. The Hunting sequence was that the Taigan’swould flesh out the prey and the eagle would catch and kill it.

Nobody knows much about the snow leopards but very few people had them. They hunted Ibex and Marco Polo sheep, That’s basically all they know about tamed snow leopards. I learned about the snow leopards from a petroglyph.

We also got to shoot bows and arrows. My brothers and I had a competition with it Ruggles won. I got second place.

Four legged transportation:

The nomads had a few different modes of transportation, camels horses and their feet.

Since their country is 94% mountains their horses had to be really tough. Their horses were also smaller than our horses. So it was funny to watch my dad ride them. The horses also had to carry yurts and supplies. A lot of people still ride horses today. So it was not hard to find horseback ridding tours.

Camels were not as common to come by because they can not travel in the mountains as easily. In the flatter parts of Kyrgyzstan we saw camels. Be tween the two animals the nomads could pack and move whenever it was needed.

On our tour I rode two different horses. One was named wind the other was named Manis (a local legend like Odysseus ). On the second ride we rode through a sheep herd which was a lot of fun.

The homes nomad stay in Yurt and felt making:

The nomads lived in yurts because they were easy to pack up and carry. During our 10 day trip we got to stay in yurts and build a small yurt. We also got to make a small thing of felt.

Making the yurt was kind of easy. First the guy taught us how to make walls. You steam and bend a piece of wood into kinda of a bow shape. Then you shave the bark and dry it for 3 days. Then you drill holes into it to connect it to other piece. Together they form an accordion wall. Then you build a roof. After that you connect all the sections and cover it in felt. Then you have a Yurt!

The next day we learned how to make felt. First we layered the wool on a grass mat and then put patterns on top with different colors wool. After that we used a gardening can to pour boiling hot water on top, rolled it up and stomped on it for 20 minutes. Then we rubbed soap on it and let it dry.

I think it would be easier build a yurt then my house because the wood is easier to obtain. The felt would be hard to make. Assembly of a yurt is definitely easier. It would be nice to have a replaceable home becuase when things broke it would be easy to fix.

The tables we sat at:

During our 10 day trip we sat at a ton of different tables. They carried from short to tall. Some had very little food most of them had tones of food. They all had platers bull of cookies and candies.

My favorite tabes were the short ones because you could rest and not have to worry to much about your posture. They were also usually nice to enjoy your food and tea. All the tables had tea with every meal, but usually no cream or milk but plenty of sugar.

The reason I did not like the tall tables as much was because they weren’t as comfortable. And they are common like back home. But, no matter the table the food was all so good. There was tones of colors from the decorations and candy boats and smells from the variety of dishes.