Qymyzmūryndyq – figuratively, the holiday of the first Kumys, sacred to all nomads drink. “Kumys in traditional culture has long been considered a bloodless sacrifice, symbolising white grace, libation to the sky, four sides of the world, mountains, a battle banner”, – writes scientists Z.K. Suraganov and K.K. Sarsembin.
It is celebrated all over Eurasia with different name variants: Buryats call it “tsegeyeny zugaa”, Bashkirs – “mystar”, and Kazakhs of Mongolia – “bie bailar”. But everywhere it is associated with the beginning of the spring-summer season and a symbolically favourable time in the life of nomads. Even the name of the rite “qymyzmūryndyq ” in translation from Kazakh means “sticking/dipping nose in kumys”. The semantics of the white kumys is to emphasise the sacrality of the festival.
