So I’ve been in Kazakhstan for almost two weeks now between Karaganda and Balkhash, and one thing that has stuck out everywhere has been the punching bags.
These are like street arcade games: you put in some coins and get a chance to show your strength. But why does Kazakhstan have so many of these, or why is this something seemingly unique to Kazakhstan? And I know we have these at fairs in other parts of the world like America, but they are everywhere here in a way that is wholly unique.
At a superficial level, boxing is extremely popular in Kazakhstan. Right now Kazakhstan is ranked fifth in the world by the International Boxing Association1 (with another Central Asian country, Uzbekistan, holding second place), and they won silver in the Olympics at the 1996 and 2000 games.2 About a month ago the Chairman of the Committee of Sports and Physical Education of Kazakhstan’s Ministry of Tourism and Sports, Ruslan Yesenalin, said during a press conference that, “Boxing is undoubtedly the number one sport. It’s our tradition, and we must preserve it.”3 And during the 2025 World Boxing Championship Kazakhstan actually came out on top, narrowly beating Uzbekistan for first place.4
So we may try to explain the presence of these boxing machines with respect to the culture of boxing, but I think this is missing something deeper about the values of Kazakhstan and Central Asia more broadly.
I asked this same question to my Russian friend Denis while I was in Karaganda, and he told me it has to do with cultural values of strength and power here in Central Asia. Although the potential origin of this value is unclear, Denis’s hypothesis seems to be backed up by the government itself, which writes on its website, “Since ancient times, the Kazakh people have held competitions at festivals, demonstrating strength, agility and competitive spirit.”5 Now this does not necessarily confirm Denis’s hypothesis about the ‘culture of strength,’ but it does at least lend credence to the idea. If you look at the list of traditional sports in [5], you will see that more of them than not are based on physical strength and dominance. And another source6 writes that, “Different games were one of the vital parts of the culture and festivals of nomad people from the past. Physical contests are still massively popular in Kazakhstan; from wrestling in a ring to wrestling on horseback.”
For what it’s worth, not everybody thinks these punching bags illustrate something deeper about Kazakh culture. My current homestay host Victor dissented against Denis’s idea and told me it is simply about making money, like slot machines at a casino.
A broader question is if the sport or sports of a culture can actually illustrate something deeper about its underlying values. I think the answer is at least sometimes yes. Take American football for instance. You could look at the surface and see a bunch of dudes hitting each other, or you could look deeper and find metaphors about dominance and strength which certainly are quintessential American values. America prides the entrepreneur who overcomes and dominates his or her adversaries, and you could read American football as a metaphor for the same underlying value. This idea is actually not mine, but I encountered it from an episode of Philosophize This!, which by the way is a wonderful high-quality philosophy podcast.
But I cannot explain the global prevalence of football (soccer) in the same way. Perhaps this is due to my own lack of knowledge, or perhaps it really is not that deep. Maybe not every sport has to mean something.
Ultimately, I cannot tell you if there are cultural values like strength that underpin the boxing culture in Kazakhstan. Maybe a Central Asian anthropologist will stumble upon this post and send me a strongly-worded letter one way or another. But for now I think the question is at least open, and it seems more likely than not.
- https://setopen.sportdata.org/ibaranking/ranking_main_country.php ↩︎
- https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/List_of_Olympic_medalists_in_boxing ↩︎
- https://qazinform.com/news/boxing-is-kazakhstans-no-1-but-theres-no-room-for-complacency-ruslan-yesenalin-23fcae ↩︎
- https://worldboxing.org/kazakhstan-tops-the-medal-table-at-the-inaugural-world-boxing-championships-2025-thanks-to-victory-in-the-final-bout-of-the-competition/ ↩︎
- https://www.gov.kz/article/64578?lang=en ↩︎
- https://central-asia.guide/kazakhstan/kazakh-culture/kazakh-games/ ↩︎