The Ethnosport Culture Festival kicked off at Istanbul's Ataturk Airport on Thursday.
Organized by the World Ethnosport Confederation, the festival has been held for the fourth time this year with 16 nations participating, including guest country Argentina.
The football stars including Galatasaray's Radamel Falcao, Fenerbahçe's Emre Belözoğlu and Vedat Muriqi also joined the festival to shoot arrows.
"l haven't thrown an arrow before. It'll be exciting. The sports is not only a race but also a unifying factor," Fenerbahçe striker Vedat Muriqi told reporters before shooting arrows.
The festival is set to run through Oct. 6.
Nearly 1,000 athletes will compete in the festival in 12 traditional sports -- including archery, oil wrestling, belt wrestling, mounted javelin throwing, mancala and horseback archery.
The oil wrestling festivities alone will last for four days with a total of 300 contenders.
The fourth Ethnosport Cultural Festival is also presenting a dazzling array of traditional cuisines from across the globe for festival-goers to savor.
The event features the cuisines of 16 countries from all around the world.
Apart from sports, children are taking part in 40 traditional children's games and there are also 60 handicraft workshops.
