Turkmenistan racetrack

During a summer 2013 trip to Central Asia (covered in last month’s issue), I took this photograph at a racetrack in Ashgabat, Turkmenistan’s capital. The country’s ruler loves horseracing, so he built hippodromes in the large cities where the beautiful Akhal-Teke horses, a breed from that country that was almost wiped out during the Soviet era, are raced. We did not see any formal gambling there. Instead, we saw many young people dressed in their finest who had gone to the track in the hopes of attracting mates. In this social ritual, the boys wear black suits and ties, and the girls wear their national costumes, each trimmed with one of five decorative designs. These designs represent the different tribes identified by the emblems that appear on the left side of Turkmenistan’s flag.

STUART GREEN, Long Beach, CA