Don’t ask me how, but I somehow ended up at the annual Turkmenistan sports day gala and prize giving.

I suspect every culture has its equivalent of sports-day prizes – a strangly consistent mix of public spectacle, acknowledgement, tradition, pomp with a too-long -on-your-feet-waiting-around boredom wrapped up in lights, music and crowd dynamics. I love the way that the prizes were designed for visual impact – the bigger the box the better the prize must be.

Being taken for a Russian journalist made wandering around with a camera a bit easier, you’ve gotta love the blag.