Yee haw! Russians get taste of rodeo

FARMINGTON -- Before Tuesday, the only thing most of the Muscovites in town for the Moscow-Utah Youth Games knew about rodeo was that it's the name of one of Russian President Vladimir Putin's three dogs.

"I've never seen anything like this before," alpine ski coach Rashid Sufiyanov said while sitting in the stands of the Davis County FairPark's Legacy Center.

Sufiyanov was one of several hundred spectators at a rodeo presented Tuesday to show the visiting Russians some undiluted American culture. Utah Sports Commission President Jeff Robbins said the intent was to show them something they've never seen before -- up close and personal.

"Russians think of the American West, and what we have here, this is the sort of thing they expect," he said.

Matt Dent, a former LDS missionary to Russia (Vladivostok) and one of the interpreters helping the Muscovites at the youth games, concurred. When Russians discovered he was from the West, "They would say, 'Oh, are you a cowboy?' "

(Answer: No. Dent is an aspiring businessman.)

The steer wrestlers, barrel racers, team ropers and especially the bull riders held the audience's attention, though perhaps the loudest response (surprised laughter) came when a rodeo clown lassoed a horse and his pants came off with the rope. Slapstick, apparently, translates well to any language.

"Maybe that's the only thing they really understood," Dent said.

"At first, when (the rodeo) began, I wasn't really sure about it, but as it kept going I liked it more and more . . ." said speedskater Anton Chichkanov. "It's just something you don't see in Russia. You may see horses in an arena, but people falling off them and (things like) that, you just can't see that."

The most boring part of the evening for Chichkanov was the short presentation before the rodeo by some Russian dancers performing to American music.

"I've seen it time and time again and I'm sick of it," he said.

Several hundred yards outside the arena, in a designated free- speech area next to the road, the Utah Animal Rights Coalition introduced the Muscovites to another aspect of American culture: the peaceful protest.

Interestingly, though, the protest wasn't nearly as much of a novelty for the Russians as the rodeo was.

"I didn't see (the protesters, but) we have those all the time in Russia," tennis player Mikhail Ptukhin said.

"They (the athletes) are young," said interpreter Iryna Worman, originally from Ukraine. "They don't remember how it used to be. But I do."

E-mail: aedwards@desnews.com

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