Tim & Tigon, page 10
Madagol and his wife lived in a shabbily constructed hut that was below freezing indoors. Curled up on a bed under a mountain of blankets, Madagol’s wife sat looking frail and utterly miserable.
It must have been terribly isolating for them both, especially Madagol’s wife. Although the town was not far away, few braved the weather to visit in winter. When the blizzards set in, there were some periods when they were completely cut off.
For me, on the other hand, the isolation appeared to be a godsend. The vet in Australia had suggested by satellite phone that the abscess would heal within a week. All I had to do now was sit tight.
In reality, Madagol’s hut proved to be not quite as isolated as I had believed, and it was wishful thinking to assume my journey was back on track. After just my first night with Madagol and his wife a man known as Abdrakhman – a friend of Baitak – came barrelling down in his old Russian four-wheel-drive vehicle and hauled me back to Akbakai, exclaiming, ‘My daughter’s birthday is tomorrow night. You will be an honoured guest! We are chaining you to our home until the new year!’
As the guest of honour, I was expected to raise a toast to the stream of guests visiting Abdrakhan’s home. In the coming days I fell into a whirlwind of feasts, culminating with a New Year’s Eve dance in the snow to Kazakh, Russian and Uzbek music, while Chinese firecrackers flew around like rockets, rebounding dangerously off the walls of the house. It was a fleeting opportunity for us all to forget about the realities of Akbakai.
The celebration was brought to an end by the onset of severe frost, and come New Year’s morning there was a price to pay. I woke in a cold sweat and by afternoon was lapsing in and out of fever. Abdrakhman was exhausted and bedridden. He decided it was time for me to leave.
I once again found myself taking refuge with Baitak. He took me in without question, and for three days insisted I sleep on the only bed in his home while he, his wife, and their son slept on the floor.
I intended to stay for one night, but the flu took hold and this drew out to two weeks. I spent days lying disoriented while Baitak’s wife, Rosa, fussed over me. Far above there was the faint raking of wind. Only on rare excursions into the elements to relieve myself did I become aware that the weather was closing in. A blizzard was gathering, and the town battened down. I could only hope that Tigon, who I had left with Madagol, had found a warm and safe sleeping place.
About a week into my sickness, Baitak too fell ill, and we lay side by side in our sickbeds, waited on by Rosa. We spent hours discussing politics, the contrasting realities of the Western world and Kazakhstan, all things nomad- and horse-related, and of course life in Akbakai.
Although it was hard for Baitak to relate to my life in Australia, he seemed to understand the reason for my journey. Baitak had grown up in the foothills of the Tien Shan Mountains in Southern Kazakhstan. He reminisced about how he and his friends used to catch the collective farm’s horses from the herd and gallop bareback until they fell off. Although he no longer rode, he owned a herd of thirty horses that roamed the steppe around Akbakai. This was a source of great pride, and once every two weeks he set off by motorcycle to look for them. Later, when we had recovered from the flu, he pulled out two old saddles from a rusty trunk. ‘Not to have a saddle would mean becoming an orphan. Not to own horses would mean death,’ he said.
When Baitak and I were finally on the road to recovery, we regularly dined in his cafe. This gave me a valuable opportunity to gather a broader picture of life in Akbakai.
Judging from the clientele, there were two types of locals. The first were pale, beaten-looking men who would arrive to eat and drink vodka after their gruelling work in the mines. Their work was poorly paid and dangerous. Then there were those people who had come seeking riches, often out of desperation.
Baitak described Akbakai residents somewhat differently. ‘There are two kinds of thieves in Akbakai: those above ground, and those below.’
I learnt that many of the ‘above ground’ thieves were workers in the processing plant who stole ore from the production line and sold it to locals to supplement their poor wages. They would pay off their bosses and the security guards to get the material out of the plant. People who didn’t work at the plant could also get ore and tailing debris by paying off security guards at night. For this reason there were many unemployed people from faraway regions who had come to try their luck.
The work of thieves ‘below the ground’ was more treacherous. They would often rappel as far down as 400 metres into disused shafts to mine the ore. Sometimes, it was said, these people fell to their deaths.
Over the course of my stay I came to realise that almost everybody I met – except Madagol, Vitka and Grisha – was involved in the so-called ‘secret business’ of stealing ore and tailings and processing it in backyard labs. As the scale of the operation dawned on me, I realised it was not possible to make an honest living in Akbakai and prosper. And for those who did manage to successfully sell on the gold, there were hefty dues to be paid to the local police. One Russian family who were involved in this business could not feed themselves, and were forced to eat dogs to get by. They bred puppies exclusively for this purpose, eating them when they were still young and leaving just one or two to mature from each litter.
The portrait of life in Akbakai painted a bleak picture for Kazakhstan as a whole, but Baitak discouraged me from attempting to understand the system. He wanted me to focus on recovering from the flu and protecting my horses. ‘At this time of year the hunger begins, and one horse can provide food for a family for months. Every year, two or three horses will be stolen from my herd. This is normal. However, I am afraid that your horses may be stolen and eaten as well.’
As it turned out, Madagol had run out of hay for my horses and had released them into the steppe. It was the only chance they would have at surviving the winter. In spite of the difficult circumstances, Baitak assured me that the safest place for Tigon was with Madagol. I worried for him, especially now that the horses were no longer there. Apart from the threat of being stolen, would Tigon think I had abandoned him?
Most of my stay in Akbakai was removed from any real experience of traditional steppe life. There were, however, some customs I was lucky to observe.
After we both recovered from the flu, Baitak informed me there was a special occasion I needed to witness. It was sogym, the winter slaughter of animals – and not just any sogym, but the most sacred of all, the slaughter of a horse.
On a mild mid-January morning, Abdrakhman, Rosa and others gathered at Madagol’s hut armed with knives and axes. The horse in question was an eleven-year-old gelding that had been fattened on a diet of wheat, barley, and hay. ‘The fatter the horse, the better the kazy,’ explained Baitak. Kazy was a prized national Kazakh dish of horsemeat sausage made from the meat and yellowy fat that runs down from the spine along the ribs to the stomach. This meat and fat are cut into strips and stuffed into intestines with a mixture of garlic and salt before being boiled.
Specialists can tell at a glance whether a horse is ‘one finger’, ‘two fingers’ or ‘three fingers’ fat. I had become accustomed to Kazakhs routinely approaching me and prodding the ribs of my horses, specifically quantifying their fat. Ogonyok was always judged two or three fingers, a reminder that travelling with a fat horse through Kazakhstan was fraught with danger.
After the horse was led out of a corral, things swiftly got underway. The gelding’s legs were bound together, and when the horse lost balance and fell, the men hurried to roll it upside down.
Sensing my apprehension, Baitak talked me through it. ‘We have different horses for riding, racing, milk and meat. But whatever the case, you won’t find any horse dying of old age in Kazakhstan. It is forbidden to let such precious meat go to waste – a single horse can keep a family alive for winter. More than that, to let a horse rot provides no dignity for the horse – it is like abandoning your animal, disowning it. And another thing, a horseman here will never slaughter his own favourite mount – it will be given over to someone else for the task. I could never imagine putting the knife to my own horse.’
I stood back and watched the men heave the horse’s head over a chopping block. Madagol cupped his hands in prayer. I focused on the horse.
At first his eyes were wide. His nostrils flared, sending frozen breath shooting into the air. But then he stopped struggling and his eyes panned skyward.
I wanted to look away as Madagol cut back and forward with the knife, but it was all over very quickly. The horse was unmoving; its spirit had gone.
Within a couple of hours the various cuts of meat were being sorted into hessian sacks. We sat around a table dining on kurdak, a traditional dish made of fried innards, including heart, liver and kidneys.
Most of the horsemeat would be shared with people less fortunate than Baitak, including Madagol, and Baitak’s relations in the city. This was a nomad tradition known as sybaga, when the prosperous wing of a family shares the meat and milk from its herds with less successful relatives. Sybaga also requires that the most respected and honoured guests be given the best from the table. In Baitak’s case, family status now appeared to have been extended to Tigon, who could be seen outside, head deep in a bucket of blood and scraps. Thankfully, it seemed, rather than just surviving here with Madagol, he’d made himself right at home.
There was no denying I had found horse slaughter very confronting. I’d grown to love my horses and could not imagine putting them to the knife. And yet as I sat chewing on freshly fried liver and watching the swelling happiness in the eyes of Baitak, Madagol and others, I was overcome by the miracle of life on the steppe – that the morsels of grass the land offers can be turned into life-giving fat and muscle. Partaking of the flesh of the horse was a crucial part of the horse worship that had sustained nomads from the beginning of time. These people could appreciate the value of meat more than most of us could even conceive of doing.
The celebration continued for two days, after which I prepared to leave. By this stage I had become so much a part of the family that the prospect of departure saddened me. Even Madagol, who seemed to have his reservations about me, had warmed somewhat. This was partly because I had let on that Australia had about half a million wild horses roaming in the outback. He had been dreaming of mustering a herd and bringing them home to sell for meat.
‘That Indian Ocean, is it a shallow or deep lake?’ he asked one night.
When the day came for my departure, Baitak was furiously opposed to my decision. His gripe with me was because Ulanbel, my next stop, was apparently renowned for its criminals. He was afraid for my safety.
It was nevertheless a relief to ride out from Akbakai, and once again be together with Tigon and the horses. I made good progress, following little gullies and valleys, picking out features on the horizon and setting new bearings from there. By the time I made camp the mountains surrounding Akbakai were a blip on the horizon. But then came another blow. The seal on my fuel bottle split, and before I could begin cooking, the petrol had all leaked out onto the snow. By morning a blizzard had come in, and the abscess in Taskonir’s foot was back with a vengeance.
I packed up and turned back east, knowing it was the end of winter riding.
Madagol was over the moon to receive advance pay to look after my horses, and Baitak was relieved to hear of my new plan. I left Akbakai for a few weeks to restock my supplies and renew my visa, and when I returned I found that winter had taken a heavy toll. The temperature had stayed around –30°C for a month by that stage. During that time Baitak and Madagol had lost track of my horses, and after a week of searching discovered them in a gully, sheltering from the wind. They were alive, but for how long? Not long after this episode, Madagol had fallen off the roof of his animal shelter and snapped his leg in several places. His son had taken over responsibility of the kstau.
Above all, winter had not been kind to Tigon. One night I had been haunted by a dream in which Tigon was looking at me with big sad eyes. He was covered in grease and muck, trapped in a dark place, looking frightened. Upon my arrival, Baitak and Rosa relayed the bad news. While on a visit with Madagol into town, Tigon had vanished for some time, and was feared eaten. One of the mines had gone bankrupt, and some of the hungry, unemployed workers were hunting dogs. While Baitak searched for Tigon, his own pet dog had disappeared without trace. Eventually Baitak had heard a rumour that Tigon was being held by a Russian dog-eater named Petrovich.
‘If that Australian’s dog doesn’t come back, I’ll know it was you. Don’t you dare eat him!’ Baitak had told him. Seven days later Tigon had been found locked away in an old mining shed. He had been badly beaten.
‘No one thought he would survive, so I arranged immediately for him to spend several hours in a sauna, then fed him raw eggs and vodka,’ Baitak told me. When I was reunited with Tigon he was all skin and bone and barely moving. Even his eyes had lost their flicker.
To think about the ordeal he had been through was almost too much to bear. Worst of all was imagining his lonely cries for help – like from my dream – when I had not been there. And yet good luck, and a good heart (in Baitak), had intervened. Beyond my rage and sadness, I felt grateful. All that mattered now was that Tigon was alive and we were together.
It took another three weeks before Tigon could walk and we could contemplate the journey onwards.
Come the end of March it was hard to believe that I was still stuck in Akbakai. I had been there more than three months, and was beginning to doubt whether I could pull through the rest of Kazakhstan, let alone make it to the Danube.
11
Otamal
By the end of March, as the days began to draw long, there were signs that winter had capitulated. Frost was broken by slush and rain, and snow began to retreat. In its wake the surrounding steppe melted into a swamp. In Akbakai, people were emerging from their homes, pale, gaunt and broken-looking, counting the costs.
I spent several days tweaking my equipment, gathering my animals and preparing them for travel, and during this time the steppe dried out enough to be navigable. With a healthy-looking Tigon, and a little extra weight on my own frame, I figured my window of opportunity had arrived.
On 4 April – the day earmarked for my fourth attempt to depart Akbakai – I stumbled out of Baitak’s hut into a predawn blizzard. The thermometer read –15°C, and by the time I had watered the horses I was chilled to the bone.
I didn’t bother saddling the horses, and instead returned to bed. Baitak saw me come back in. ‘So Akbakai is still holding you here? Only that man in the sky knows what is best for you, and he is keeping you in Akbakai for a reason. You have done the right thing.’
Baitak had warned me about this early spring phenomenon, known by nomads as otamal. It was a period of sudden cold that usually occurred in mid-March, just as it appeared the weather had turned the corner. Spring, Baitak told me, was the ‘season of greatest weakness’ for all living things.
For me there was a larger message in all of this, summed up in an oft-repeated saying: ‘If you ever have to rush in life, rush slowly.’ On the steppe, time was measured by the seasons, the weather, the availability of grass, and, most importantly, the condition of one’s animals. To think I could hurry the seasons was as foolish as rushing with horses.
Two days later, the sky had been blown clean and the sun glinted off the frozen streets of Akbakai. After a meal of horsehead, Baitak, Rosa and Abdrakhman escorted me out of town. Baitak’s farewell toast was simple: ‘I suggest you stay away from young people, and stick close to the elders.’
Bundled up in an old woollen vest that Baitak had given me, I hauled myself up into the saddle, whistled for Tigon, and hunched forward into the wind. When some time later I took a peek over my shoulder, the steppe was empty.
Ahead of me stretched nearly 150 kilometres of the Starving Steppe before I would reach the aul of Ulanbel. I hoped to find puddles of remaining snowmelt to get through what was now an arid wilderness.
For the first three days we hugged the edge of salt flats, passing in and out of cloud shadows that wobbled and rippled over the land. There were early signs of spring: yellow wrens jumping towards the tent door and V-formations of geese cutting the sky. What captured me most were the shoots of grass emerging beneath tough desert plants. The horses tried furiously to reach the new growth, often scratching their noses on the tough, brittle plants above.
Tigon was beside himself with excitement. The snow was nearly gone, so his paws didn’t freeze, yet it wasn’t too warm, which meant he could run forever and barely had to let his tongue out to cool down. He galloped about, digging, chasing and sniffing, often running parallel to us on distant ridges, at times returning to give the horses a lick on the face. Taskonir, being the hardened old grump he was, still hadn’t warmed to this, and snapped back, warning Tigon with a hoof pounded into the dirt. Tigon, however, had gained strength. He would ignore Taskonir and then, as if proving a point, take a run-up behind us before turning around and, with ears back and nose forward like the nose of a plane, sprint past so fast and so close to all of us that it was like a bullet whooshing by. There were other signs of his growing confidence. At dinnertime as the horses crowded around to pinch food from my pot Tigon got down on his elbows, tail high, and barked and growled at them to steer clear of what he thought was rightly his.
On the fourth day the temperature had risen and the remaining snow had melted. Dust devils hurled across the flats, sometimes hitting us with a cloud of dust and sand. I became stuck in a series of salt bogs and was forced to retreat. The horses were thirsty, and the absence of sturdy ground made the going slow.
Late in the evening I put my compass away and followed an eagle instead. It took me up into red rocky ridges, from where I looked down on never-ending salt flats to the south and at rising steppe to the north.
