Lagman is a dish that is very common in Central Asia, China, and many Middle Eastern countries. It can also be found in Russia and the Caucasus and is a popular dish among the Crimean Tatars. The basic recipe, which combines noodles with meat, has hundreds of variations. In Uzbekistan, the dish tends be a […]

The Talking Phrasebook Series presents useful phrases and words in side-by-side translation and with audio files specifically geared to help students work on listening skills and pronunciation. Below, you will find several useful phrases and words. To the left is the English and to the far right is the Uzbek translation. Uzbek is currently transitioning […]

Navruz is a spring solstice celebration that marks the beginning of the New Year according to the traditional Persian calendar. It has been a beloved holiday for some 3,000 years, surviving cultural change caused by centuries of tumultuous history. It is now celebrated on the set date of March 21st. The holiday has long been […]

The original Sakha is given for some terms in parentheses. Photographs provided by Mitrofan kyyha Varvara Egorova-Dygyia, Susan Crate, and Kathryn Yegorov-Crate. The Sakha Republic, known as Sakha sire (Саха сирэ) in the Sakha language, is home to one of the most extreme climates on earth. Winter temperatures regularly dip past -45F, making it the […]

The World Nomad Games is a unique international sporting event that celebrates the traditional sports and cultural heritage of the traditionally nomadic Turkic people. The World Nomad Games brings together athletes and spectators from around the world to participate in nomadic traditions through a festival of traditional sports, cultural events, and art exhibitions. The next […]

Below, you will find several useful phrases and words. To the left is the English and to the above right is an English transliteration of the Kyrgyz translation. Below the English transliteration is a Russian transliteration. In the center of each row is a play button that will play a recorded file of the English […]

In July 2023, as a volunteer on an ethnographic expedition studying the folklore of Old Believers in Eastern Kazakhstan, I was invited to attend and participate in the Ivan Kupala Day celebration. The event, organized by the Russian Ethnographic Museum in Ust-Kamenogorsk, Kazakhstan, occurred on July 6 at the beautiful Left Bank Complex on the […]

Most of Uzbekistan’s holidays are recognizable from the old Soviet calendar, although they have been moved, refocused, and/or renamed to now celebrate Uzbekistan’s independent, post-1991 history and culture rather than that of the USSR. The major exceptions to this are two major Islamic holidays and the ancient Persian New Year celebrations that have now been […]

Using historical and ethnographic studies from previous years, literary data, and his own field research conducted over several years’ time in different regions of Kyrgyzstan, the author explores the place and role of dwellings in traditional funeral and burial rituals of the Kyrgyz people. The yurt, a type of dwelling continually used by the formerly […]

International Women’s Day was first celebrated in St. Petersburg in 1913, declared by activists there and celebrated with rallies that demanded more rights. It did not become an official state holiday and day off, however, until 1965. In that year, March 8th was chosen as it marked the day when, in 1917, women again marched […]

The Talking Phrasebook Series presents useful phrases and words in side-by-side translation and with audio files specifically geared to help students work on listening skills and pronunciation. Each entry below, divided by category, features an English word or phrase in the left column and its Khakas translation in the right, presented in the original Khakas […]

As soon as I arrived in Bishkek, I started asking every person I met where I could find, watch, and play kok boru. I first learned about the sport in researching Kygyzstan before I arrived in Bishkek and was instantly fascinated by it. Kok boru is the wild national sport of Kyrgyzstan. It’s basically polo, […]