FeaturedSpecial ReportsHeadlines
Polo Then and Now
Special for the Armenian Weekly
A rumble as thousands of pounds of horses come racing down the field at 35 mph; yelling; a ball goes whizzing by spectators as mounted warriors' sticks clash. This could be a scene from 1,000 years ago on an Anatolian plateau, or it could be the scene found in Massachusetts at a Sunday polo match. The game has not changed much over the past several thousand years, nor has the scene of brightly dressed spectators coming out to mingle and gaze at the theatrics. I
Or, subscribe now for unlimited access
By submitting your email address you agree for Hairenik Association, Inc. to send you communication by email.
Already a subscriber?Log in here
This story is FREE for you...
Create a free account to access this and four more articles, and get more sent to you with our e-newsletter.By submitting your email address you agree for Hairenik Association, Inc. to send you communication by email.
Polo is a great sport to play and watch. One of the greatest contemporary players is Argentinian Nacho Figueras.
Darius the Great must have had a polo match with Central Asians from Turan who spoke an Indo-Iranian language, as at his time, the Turkic peoples were up in Mongolia.
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Turan
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Turkic_peoples#History
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Turkmen_people#Origins
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Shahnameh#On_Turkic_identity
Mr Tashjian, wherever you got your information from, I think it was a poor choice of words to state “the earliest record” as if it really was and next use “Turkoman”, and present it as if it really did take place. there was no such thing as “Turkoman” in 500 BC, and the so-called match that supposedly took place was written 1500 years after Darius, and obviously it is all fantasy. The history of polo is not exactly known, and for all we know it could have originated in Artsakh.
One thing we do know, it was a sport of the Aryan people, not Turanian and of course, the ridiculous Azeris are busy on wikipedia spreading their disinformation to establish a history for themselves to be connected to Turkmens, Turkomans, etc which is why they recently claimed polo was a “historic sport of Azerbaijan”. As usual, Armenians sit back and watch while their culture is swindled from them before their eyes.
Sorry Mr Tashjian, but if it was Darius who played then the so called Turkomens might have been Armenians??!!The reality is polo is a pure Armenian sport and we taught it to the Byzantines for sure. However, recent slaughter of hundreds of armenian horses under soviet rule decimated our sport. In fact some of those horses came from Arabia and were owned by Armenians from the Middle East.
Nice article Mark and congratulations for pursuing your dream outside of being a corporate zombie, rare amongst todays youth.
OK MARK,
What a wonderful article. Bravo for your following you dream. Now how about playing the sport in its proper homeland?!
Armenia is ready for a renaissance in Polo. And Vahakni — http://www.vahakni.com is ready to host a match! Come over, start a program and we’ll get you some students! There is a wonderful horseback riding center called Aryudzi in Ashtarak near here, and it is quite popular. I think Armenians would be delighted to resurrect our ancient sport right here in the homeland. With your help and guidance we can make this dream come true!
Please feel free to contact us!
Cheers,
Nina