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| Photo © Christophe Legris-All Rights Reserved |
The Taliban banned the popular Afghan sport of buzkashi but it has returned with a vengeance. It is also a popular sport (or game) amongst the south Central Asians such as the Uzbeks, Hazaras, Tajiks, Kyrgyz,Kazakhs, Turkmens and Pashtuns.
The rules are simple but brutal, and are not dissimilar to the game of polo. Two teams on horseback endeavor to carry a slaughtered goat around corner posts, then back into the center circle in which it was first placed, all the while steering their horses away from the whips of the opposing side.
Here's a photo gallery featuring buzkachi by the French photographer Christophe Legris. He's a French and Latin literature teacher, a writer, a media producer and a promoter, living in Kabul after spending 9 years in Istanbul, San Francisco and New York and currently in Thailand.
His website has numerous galleries including Thailand, Afghanistan, New York and India. I also liked his gallery of the Kuchis, who are nomads and semi-nomads in Afghanistan, who mostly keep sheep and goats.
For further buzkashi coverage, the trailer of Buzkashi Boys makes for compelling viewing.
