Urker Releases New CD

This past Saturday (May 17), KZ "ethno-pop" trio Urker released Tolgau, their first album since 2004's Best of Urker. According to the press release on the group's website, the 11 new songs on the album, including the wholly instrumental title track, are the result of two years of work for songwriting duo Aidos Sagat (music) and Nurlan Alban (lyrics). In the meantime, Aidos has been busy with charitable work, teaching show business management at KIMEP and is also a member of the national Author's Copyright Council.

The band has been leading up to the album release with a series of live performances -- Urker's Nauryz concert was their first live outing in five years, and on May 8 they played at London's Ministry of Sound music club, their first time to play Britain (Tolgau was recorded & mixed in Almaty, but mastered in a London studio) and their only European date for all of 2008.

"Mature" is a word that the press release uses to describe this album, rightly so. The first 'single' from the CD is Asel, and it's pretty darn good. Oh, it definitely sounds like Urker, but the video and a something about the way it sounds make me think of Bryan Ferry and Roxy Music -- or maybe it's just the skinny 1980s ties.





Urker played a hour-long CD release concert on Saturday at Almaty's new mega-mall (aptly named MEGA), outside the Meloman music shop. Mashenka of Getting Kazakhified was there, and says that performing live, the band rocked!, a lot harder than they do on CD. (Read about her interview with Roksonaki, too, while you're over at her site). According to the Urker website, the band is off to Shymkent (May 24) and Karaganda (June 18) for personal appearances, probably at Meloman stores in those cities.

The one thing I don't have is a source for getting the CD unless you're within driving/horseback/walking distance of a MEGA mall. When I find out how to get a copy, I'll let you know too.

Urker live at the 2008 Nauryz party in Almaty

Koryo Saram Update:10 Minute Trailer Available

The recent news of a South Korean astronaut/cosmonaut blasting off from Baikonur to the international space station had at least a couple of news outlets proclaiming a surge of national pride among Kazakhstan's ethnic Korean population.

And I've been waiting a long time for the public release of Koryo Saram, a documentary that "tells the harrowing saga of survival in the open steppe country and the sweep of Soviet history through the eyes of these deported Koreans [sent into exile to Kazakhstan], who were designated by Stalin as an "unreliable people" and enemies of the state."

It's just shown at Harvard, it won a "Best Documentary" award in Canada, and has been screened in several international cities and academic communities, but I've gotten no reply to two requests to be added to the mailing list for more information. Perhaps the "work in progress" is progressing slowly?

There's now a 10-minute trailer available on the film's website, and it's really worth a look. Negative, hopeful, nostalgic, clear-eyed; the film promises to be an important addition to an understanding of the multi-ethnic, multicultural, mixed-identity nation that is the reality of contemporary Kazakhstan.

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Koryo Saram: The Unreliable People
Directed by Y. David Chung & Matt Dibble
http://www.koryosaram.net/

Adai, 3 Ways

Kurmangazy Sagyrbaev (Russian)
Курмангазы Сагырбаев

Kurmangazy Sagirbaiuly (Kazakh)
Құрманғазы Сағырбайұлы

Kurmangazy was a brilliant 19th century Kazakh composer and musician. Various reputable sources give 1806-1879, 1823-1896, 1818-1889, among others, as his birth and death dates. He lived in the western area of what is now Kazakhstan, and is buried just over the border in Astrakhan, Russia.

Renowned for his courage, cunning and skill on the dombra, Kurmangazy wrote numerous kui, brilliant 'mood' solo instrument pieces, of which some 60 are known and played today. Kui or kyui are musical narratives -- traditionally the musician introduces a piece with a summary of the story illustrated by the music, and some information about its history.

Kurmangazy's music is woven into the fabric of Kazakh/Kazakhstani culture. His kuis tell stories of Kazakh warriors (Adai), of the land (Sary Arka, 'Golden Steppe'), and of courage and resistance (Kishkentay is about an 1836 folk uprising). His music is played not only in its original instrumental forms, but is also adapted into popular music. Just today I stumbled across Getting Kazakhified, the blog of a ethnomusicology doctoral student living in Almaty -- her dissertation is on "how the struggle over ethnic/national identities is literally playing itself out through music." This is fascinating stuff, and I'm looking forward to following her ideas and research.

But for now, listen to three different versions of Adai. Whatever the embellishments, pounding hoofbeats across the steppe come through loud and clear.


Kali Zhantleuov on solo dombra. His dombra teacher had been a student of Kurmangazy.




Asylbek Ensepov on dombra & synthesizer.
According to Werner Linden, the German "mad musicologist," Ensepov describes his music as "dance music, made from kuis, played on the dombra, with computerized accompaniment." Syntho-classical? Does anyone remember Classical Gas? It's next to impossible to find anything about Ensepov, and his 2003 debut disc is out of print (each of the 5,000 copies was numbered and packaged in a tooled leather case), but there are several videos on YouTube: check out Adai & Sultan (where the musician gets the girl!). The kid rocks, and he's not bad to look at either.



Kazakhstan Ethno-Rock Project Ulytau.
Ulytau is a young, all-instrumental folk-metal (yes, folk-metal) band. The trio consists of a classically-trained violinist, a dombrist, and a wailing lead-guitar player. Their first album, Jumyr-Kylysh, consists of traditional Kazakh & classical European pieces (Vivaldi & Bach), all given the Ulytau folk-metal treatment. I saw somewhere that they'd signed with a German label - could they be the first KZ band to make it big in the west? You can find three mp3s on the .ru site (there's also a .kz website). Jumyr-Kylysh is another a traditional Kazakh tune. Asylbek Ensepov has a version of it as well.

On Human Rights & News from Kazakhstan

Still here, still learning & reading, but alas, not finding time to write.

Earlier this week I was fortunate to attend a lunch discussion on human rights in Kazakhstan. The speakers were four human rights activists currently in the United States through a U. S. State Department program. An hour isn't a very long time to cover such a huge and serious topic, so none of the questions could be answered in depth. In short, the guests said that:

1. the Communist era offered significantly more human rights -- as long as you were a Party member or sympathizer, and exercised your rights in alignment with the Party's interests;

2. significant improvements in human rights were legislated in the first years after independence, however human and citizen rights have largely been rolled back since then;

3. Central Asia is unlikely to duplicate western-style democracies, but could develop their own true democratic structures;

4. the government has two faces: the successful business-oriented democratic face it presents to the outside world, and a more oppressive face turned toward its citizens;

5. the personal safety of opposition activists is tenuous (citing the kidnapping allegations against Rakhat Aliev, and the murder of Altynbek Sarsenbayev);

6. they pursue human rights goals, and risk the dangers, for their children's futures, and because it feels right to help people. As one speaker said, "If I don't achieve our goals in my lifetime, my son will take up the fight. And after him, my grandson."

The delegation visiting the United States includes:

• Anara Ibrayeva, Kazakhstan International Bureau for Human Rights and Rule of Law, Astana Office Director; lawyer

• Marzhan Aspandiyarova, Nagyz Ak Zhol Democratic Party, Almaty City Branch Chair; "Save Our Homes" housing protection organization coordinator; journalist

• Murat Telebekov, The Muslim Committee for Human Rights in Central Asia, United Muslims of Kazakhstan, Director; journalist

• Yuriy Gussakov, Kazakhstan International Bureau for Human Rights and Rule of Law, Karaganda Regional Office Director

One encouraging note for those who follow Central Asian politics -- while the speakers said that news from the region, in newspapers and via the Internet, was biased and one-sided, I discovered that I was, in fact, already familiar with amost all of the issues discussed, thanks to news alerts and my RSS reader.

Coverage from sites like Radio Free Europe/Radio Liberty, Registan, newEurasia, KZBlog, Eurasia.net, and a host of smaller sites, really is a good way to keep abreast of current events not found in popular media (US, EU or KZ), and certainly not to be found in official government sources.

Searching for Kazakhstan: A Book Review

In June, I broke down and ordered In Search of Kazakhstan: The Land that Disappeared from Amazon.co.uk, hideous exchange rate, international shipping and all. I'd had my eye on it for months, and still no sign of a US edition in sight. It was worth the trouble. Christopher Robbins (author of Air America and The Empress of Ireland) has written a breezy, affectionate travelogue-style portrait of Kazakhstan, with history and character profiles interspersed among sights and adventures. And don't forget the apples.

The book opens with a portrait of the unnamed man who started Robbins on his quest. On a plane to Moscow, he sits next to a middle-aged American widower, en route to Almaty to meet his Internet fiancee. Naturally, the author knows nothing about Kazakhstan, and his seatmate proudly relates much of what he'd learned about the homeland of his bride-to-be. As they disembarked, the man "turned and made a throwaway remark that seemed insignificant at the time. The last words he addressed to me were, 'Apples are from Kazakhstan.'"

Robbins' travels cover the major areas -- southeast around Almaty, Astana (where he scores a personal interview with President Nursultan Nazerbayev), Karaganda, and the Aral Sea area; west to Atyrau & Baikonur, south to Taraz, and to Semey in the northeast. This is neither a hard-hitting expose, nor a backpacker's view of Kazakhstan. The meeting with Nazarbayev turned into several informal interviews over two years, and many of Robbins' excursions are the result of an invitation to join a presidential touring party. A coup for any writer, but no doubt it colored the author's perspective somewhat. Robbins isn't exactly an apologist for Nazarbayev -- he does acknowledge corruption and scandal in the upper echelons of government -- but he clearly emerges as a fan of the former steelworker who climbed to party boss, then President of a new nation.

Fascinating anecdotal history makes up much of the narrative. While Robbins tramps the southeast in search of wild apple orchards, we learn about the rise and fall of Russian geneticist Nikolai Vavilov, who identified the birthplace of more plants than anyone else in history. In Semey, we read of Fyodor Dostoyevsky's doomed love affair and of the Polygon's nuclear physicist Andrei Sakharov, who created the Soviets' hydrogen bomb. Trotsky lived in Almaty; in Karaganda, Alexander Solzhenitsyn. A long section relates the adventures of Captain Frederick Gustavus Burnaby of the British Army, who in 1875, on a whim, travelled from St. Petersburg across the steppe to Khiva and back again -- in the middle of winter.

This is all great reading, but begins to feel like a litany of things that have been done in and done to Kazakhstan, by outsiders. The real jewels in the book are the portraits of Kazakhstanis, none especially famous, but all fascinating in their lives and achievements:

• Krym Altynbekov in Almaty, the master restorer of almost all the archeological treasures found in Kazakhstan in the past 25 years, including the Golden Man and all the objects found with him;
• Gabit Sagatov in Kyzlorda, the remaining member of the "Kazakh Beatles";
  
• Boris Gudonov in Karaganda, Ukrainian by birth, who at age 8 was sent into the Gulag with his father, political scapegoat for a mining accident.
• Ykaterina Kuznetsova, a journalist, born in China to Russian parents, and raised in Karaganda, who has dedicated her life to documenting the Kazakh Gulag and the people who inhabited it;
• and the fruit that started it all, the legendary Aport apple, large as a baby's head, once famous throughout the Soviet Union for its scent and flavour, but now "uncool" (though no less delicious), and found only in markets around Almaty.

The book is illustrated with small sketches, including one of that wonderfully goofy ungulate, the saiga, in a discussion of Kazakh wolf overpopulation. Though there are no notes or even an index, it appears to be well researched.

Whether you're headed to KZ for business, adoption or adventure, living in Kazakhstan and wanting a positive, contemporary look at the country for overseas friends, family & colleagues, or an armchair traveller ready to explore, you'll enjoy the engaging writing, range of information, and a level of description and history lacking in the travel and political books. Christopher Robbins likes Kazakhstan. You'll like his book.

In Search of Kazakhstan: The Land That Disappeared. Profile Books, 2007. £12.99

Update: In Search of Kazakhstan was published in the US under the title Apples are from Kazakhstan. Atlas & Co, 2008. $24 (hardcover)

Koryo Saram Premieres in Almaty, July 15 & 17

Browsing through old news items & links, I just saw that a Kazakhstan screening of the new documentary, Koryo Saram: The Unreliable People, is scheduled for next week, on July 15 (Sunday) and July 17 (Tuesday). This film traces the history of Koreans forcibly deported from coastal Far East Russia to the steppes of Kazakhstan in the 1930s & 1940s. It sounds fascinating, uncovering the history of one of the many hyphenated-Kazakhstani ethnicities. From the film's website comes this description:

Koryo Saram (the Soviet Korean phrase for Korean person) tells the harrowing saga of survival in the open steppe country and the sweep of Soviet history through the eyes of these deported Koreans, who were designated by Stalin as an "unreliable people" and enemies of the state. Through recently uncovered archival footage and new interviews, the film follows the deportees' history of integrating into the Soviet system while working under punishing conditions in Kazakhstan, a country which became a concentration camp of exiled people from throughout the Soviet Union.

A quick search hasn't come up with any more information, such as location or times. Anyone in Almaty who can find out (Gulnara? Leila??), please comment!

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Links:

Koryo Saram: The Unreliable People website

"Koryo-saram" article at Wikipedia

"Forced Deportation and Literary Imagination": an article exploring the effects of deportation to Kazakhstan on the Soviet Koreans, and how these experiences are realized in Soviet Korean literature.

Musicola: Between Almaty and Moscow

Since exploring the nifty online jukebox of KZ music, I’ve been listening to Musicola, a smooth jazz-influenced pop duo from Almaty. Since their first single & album (Girl in a White Dress / Dyevochka v platitsye byelom) debuted in 1996, Musicola has stayed on pop charts in the CIS; I realized that one of my favorite songs on a Moscow-produced “greatest hits of the year” CDs is a Musicola track. In 2005, they released a Kazakh-language album Arman Zholdar (Road of Dreams); other albums are in Russian.

Musicola is Karina Abdullina, 32, vocalist and songwriter, and Bulat Sazdykov, 51, arranger and guitarist. Karina was born in Almaty into a family of professional musicians, and began singing at age four. Her mother, Olga Lviv is a classical pianist, her father, an operatic baritone. Karina’s grandfather and his twin brother, Rishat and Muslim Abdullin, were stars in the Soviet classical constellation of the 1940s-1970s. Karina’s family name is pronounced “ab-DOOL-in-a.”

Bulat Sazdykov is originally from Karaganda. His family wanted him to be a doctor, but at 14 he took a course in jazz guitar, and has been a musician ever since (even during his obligatory two years in the military). Before Musicola he was in successful bands in the 1980s, worked as a session musician for top artists in Moscow, and now is also a producer for young musicians in his own studio. In the “small world” category, Gulnara met Bulat in Almaty a few years ago; they have friends in common.

It's practically impossible to buy Musicola in the US, and I've even had a hard time finding their music on Russian sites (which all got shut down in February anyway) . Most of their CDs/albums are out of print. But never fear! The band's official website has downloadable MP3s of all the albums, with lyrics (in Russian). Listen to Dyevochka, Won't Forget You (great dance tune) or Arman Zholdar, and see if the jazzy, haunting melodies don't follow you around (in a good way).

If you've been captured by the Musicola sound, right here on News from the Caravan, you can download the 2006 Best of Musicola CD (71 MB zip file) for your very own. (EDIT - link updated 2/19/2008) It's all freely available on the band's website, but I've packaged the lyrics (I can't predict whether the Cyrillic will display properly, though), artwork and all 18 songs together. Enjoy!

Serzhan Bashirov in America

Arts professor and master silversmith Serzhan Bashirov, whose work inspired the start of this blog, is in the United States this month. He exhibited his work at the Pueblo Gem & Mineral Show in Tucson, and is now in town visiting Gulnara and exploring local galleries. Handmade jewelry from Kazakhstan is rarely found outside Central Asia because not enough is made for large-scale export.The opportunity to see an artist's collection here in the US is a rare treat.

On Saturday Gulnara hosted a private reception to showcase Serzhan's work. Yes, I came away with a pair of modest but beautiful silver earrings, with Serzhan's signature spiral motif. But what really struck me is how the photographs just don't do justice to his work. The bone incorporated into several pieces is brighter and creamier than the pictures show, and the silverwork is both sturdier and finer. He also had many newer pieces not shown in the store; one large filigree pendant, with green and blue gemstones, is just stunning.

Serzhan is currently Professor of Applied Arts at the State University of Almaty. He has been working metal by hand for most of his life, beginning as a child watching his father work in their home workshop. In his studio now, Serzhan works alone, using the old simple tools employed for generations by Kazakh craftsmen. His contemporary jewelry is firmly rooted in historic Kazakh traditions, often using signs of the four elements -- sun, fire, water, & earth.

Fire and the sun are both enduring, radiant, pure and life sustaining for the artist; the cross and spiral are their symbols. A spiral symbolizes eternal life and spiritual growth; Serzhan's spiral is always clockwise, following the sun's movement. Ancient Kazakhs went round their yurts only with the path of the sun; otherwise, chaos.

A cross with four equal points represents the 4 directions: south, west, east, north. The four elements enclosed by a circle represent the sun. Other motifs often found into Serzhan's work are the ram's horns (richness & fertility), and the shanyrak (the crown of a yurt, and symbolic center of the family).

Serzhan is married and has 2 daughters. His hobby is collecting antique rugs. In 2004 Serzhan's "Umai" silver jewelry was the first from Kazakhstan to be awarded a UNESCO Seal of Excellence; in December 2006 he won the award again for a silver bracelet. His art is in museum collections in Astana, Moscow and Warsaw. Serzhan showcases his art at a gallery/shop in a yurta in downtown Almaty.


More information on Serzhan and his work:
West-East Dialogues
Bio at Karavan-Art
Review of Gallery Opening ("interestingly" translated)
Artist Info at the Tumar Art Group site (Kyrgystan)
Photo of a piece shown in Tucscon
Description of a 2005 joint Navajo-Kazakh exhibit in Almaty

Le Seigneur des Aigles

Synchronicity abounds. I found this 30-second clip from "Lord of the Eagles" today during a random search (my first) on Google video. This version has French-accented French narration, but all the major players appear -- Alik, son Nurlan, and the mighty Tengere.

Father of Eagles

Every so often, when at the public library, I’ll type “Kazakhstan,” or 'Kazakh” in the catalog search box, just to see what shows up. A few months ago, this casual search turned up a real gem -- a documentary video called Lord of the Eagles, that I’d never heard of, or seen any reference to at all. This 26-minute film, originally released around 1991, is a strange and beautiful animal -- French-produced, filmed in Soviet Kazakhskaya, with Kazakh dialogue and French-accented English narration. Nonetheless, this documentary won a couple of nice awards when it was released in the US.

After keeping it for a while (and racking up some overdue fines), I watched this short film, which then became part of my more-or-less circumnavagatory tour around KZ.

This is a wonderful piece, documenting the Kazakh eagle hunters of the Tien Shan (the mountain range south of Alma-Ata/Almaty). Cultures around the world have traditions of training hunting birds, such as falcons and hawks. The Eastern Kazakhs (I assume the Greater Horde) paired with the great Golden Eagle, which, as a bird of prey, is capable of bringing down even foxes and wolves, whose pelts are the livelihood of the eagle masters.

Lord of the Eagles follows Alik, known as “the father of the birds” and his golden eagle partner Tengere, over their last season together. During this time, Alik teaches his young son Nurlan (who’s about ten years old) the secrets of the eagles -- their language, and the rhythms of a partnership. They capture a younger eagle, whom they name Keitan, and Nurlan becomes Keitan’s partner, learning from father to son, teaching and learning from from eagle to boy, how to work together as a symbiotic team. The eagle is symbolic of, as Alik says, “the beauty and the cruelty of the world.”

In a way (intentional? who knows?), Lord of the Eagles is also a metaphor for the journey though parenting. One of the themes of the documentary is that it’s time to set Tengere free, to find a wife and have a family. Alik says “I have been ten years with Tengere. Tomorrow, I will let him go.” Human parents generally have more than ten years, but we all reach the point of letting go. Would that we all do it as gracefully as Alik does his partner Tengere.

I have yet to find a copy of this video for sale. Keep checking Amazon.com and eBay, but in the meanwhile, check the catalog at your local public library (which probably owns more on Central Asia than you thought). You might find your own undiscovered gems. And then, please, pass them on to the rest of us.

Kazakhstan's Nuclear Legacy: Vika's Story

Many know that Kazakhstan was the birthplace of two of the Soviet Union's biggest steps into the modern age and Cold War power. One step was at Baikonur in SW Kazakhstan, where the cosmonauts first launched into space and set off a "space-race" with 1950s America.

Another of the USSR's modern experiments took place in an "uninhabited" area of the northeastern steppe, near the city of Semipalatinsk, now know by the Kazakh name Semey. In 1949, the first of over 400 nuclear weapons tests exploded over the Semipalatinsk Test Site. There are estimates that over 200,000 people, mainly Kazakh nomads living in the fallout areas, died from radiation-related illnesses in the four decades of above- and underground nuclear testing from 1949-1989.

The following piece of oral history was written by former Peace Corps volunteer Ian Woodward, who lived and taught in Pavlodar during his PC tenure. You can read this story and more of Ian's experiences and observations in Kazakhstan on his blog stuck on the 45th parallel.

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12.20.2005

vika's story

imagine:

the year is 1955 and you are vika, a six year old girl living in makaieen, kazakhstan, a small town of 15,000 people on the eastern edge of the vast kazakh steppe. makaieen is the only world you have ever known. your first trip to the big city, pavlodar, is still a year and a five hour car trip away. when you are not in school you play outside with other children from the neighborhood. from time to time you walk with your friends to the edge of town and peer into the distance.

in every direction from makaieen all that can be seen is steppe. no hills. no trees. no buildings. only brush. a flat endless brush. the view into the steppe from makaieen is the same no matter which direction you are looking. the sun rising and setting provide the only perspective against an endless horizon.

one day you are playing with your friends near the broken swings outside your government provided apartment. it is early, around 8:00 in the morning. the air has the spring freshness in it that comes from a morning with a light dew. all of a sudden you stop playing and gather with your friends to look out into the steppe. something has happened, something is different.

a gigantic cloud is growing, apparently from the ground. it is huge, easily the largest thing you have ever seen. its colors are on the edges of color. where orange becomes red and where blue becomes violet. they are vivid, bright, and captivating. you cannot take your eyes from it, it is amazing. it is beautiful.

the cloud, in the shape of a mushroom you have now realized, grows in size until it stands many kilometers into the air. it doesn't move, there is no wind. it also doesn't dissipate. it just stays there, as if it is waiting for you to go along with your day.

after some time you comply and begin to play again with your friends, but all the while sneaking glances over your shoulder at this giant beautiful mushroom cloud standing over your small town.

a few weeks later all of the residents of makaieen are gathered in the main square. they have set up bleachers for the older citizens to sit, and the rest stand around waiting for something to happen. finally a man comes to the podium under a 35 foot statue of lenin and says that today the citizens are makaieen are going to serve the motherland. the people of makaieen will be witness to the might and power of mother russia. you, the people of makaieen, have the rare opportunity not only to bear witness but to show your strength to our comrades in moscow. this man, a member of the local communist party leadership, directs your attention to the steppe and the distance.

you don't know what is going to happen, so you grip your mothers hand with a little extra strength. "vikoninka oo spakoisya" (vikoninka, don't be scared) your mother whispers into your ear.

just then an explosion rips through the silence and you feel the earth beneath you shake. another cloud begins to form on the horizon and the town realizes that it is witnessing an above ground testing of an atomic bomb.

fast forward to 2005. your name is still vika and you live in a 7th floor apartment in a nice section of pavlodar. after preparing dinner for your house-bound mother you sit down to enjoy a meal in front of the evening news. the president of kazakhstan appears on the screen and part of a speech given earlier in the day is being shown. the president is talking about the nuclear testing that occurred in the area of the steppe that stretches from semi-polatinsk to makaieen. he mentions that over a period of 50 years there were 456 nuclear tests. most below ground, but many above.

you haven't thought of those days in your childhood for quite some time, but the images come flooding back. the giant cloud remains as vivid in your mind as it was that spring day. the colors just as vibrant and beautiful.

the president finishes his remarks by saying that people who lived in the area of the tests will be receiving a payment from the government. the amount will vary depending on how many years you lived in the area, and in which towns.

you, vika, open the paper the next day to read the news. you want to know how much your health is worth to your government. after some careful checking, and a search of your house for the seven required documents, and a trip down to the local offices you know the answer. your bravery, and the possibility of diseases yet to come is being rewarded with a check.....

50 dollars.

~ ~ ~ ~ ~ ~ ~ ~ ~ ~ ~ ~ ~ ~ ~ ~

Read more about the Soviet nuclear testing and continuing social, environmental and health concerns:

Profile and interview with Kaisha Atakhanova, Kazakhstani biologist specializing in the the genetic effects of nuclear radiation and 2005 Winner of the Goldman Environmental Prize.

"Life Under a Nuclear Cloud". Rosemary Righter in The Times (UK), 8/1/2002.

"Cold War Legacy." Sabrina Tavernise in The New York Times, 5/19/2002.

Aigul Ipakchi: A Kazakh-American Hero

Aigul Buyuk Kiereli Ipakchi immigrated to the United States after WWI as a refugee from Russian/Soviet Kazakhstan. She forged a successful life for herself as a professional nurse and found a true life partnership with a fellow refugee (from Azerbaijan). Her granddaughter Minna contributed this story about the exemplary woman Aigul continued to be, in the foreign and new land of America.

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It was 1958, a typical small-town American 4th of July parade. The high school marching band was there, the local fire brigade, some old men from some fraternal organization or another, etc., etc., all marching down Main Street in the heat, nothing unusual. But what no one knew was that some local boys had gotten into the fireworks meant for later that night and they were trying to light them in a field beside the parade route. They went unnoticed, until suddenly there was a flash of light and a loud BOOM!

Everyone watching the parade turned to look, the passing band stopped playing... and we saw a patch of grass was burning and two of the little boys were on fire, shrieking in terror and running in circles. People in the crowd started screaming and some began running toward the field, young men from the local fire company in the lead, but it was far off and the little boys were panicking and thrashing around, only making their clothes and hair burn faster. My sisters and I just stood there stunned, eyes wide and mouths literally hanging open, when in the next second Apa-- about 60 years old at the time -- raced past us on one of the police horses that had been pulling a small float in the parade. A woman standing in front of us literally fainted at the sight of her charging past on the horse. Everyone was screaming and pushing so we climbed on top of a car to look for Apa, to make sure we didn't just imagine it was her. And yes, it was her. People were diving out of the path of the horse as she galloped toward the field at a truly amazing speed, a blur of brown horse and green and pink flowered dress, leaping over all obstacles including, last, a tall metal fence! In the next second she had reached the boys, thrown them both to the ground, and she was beating the flames out with her bare hands!

It happened so fast, none of the men running toward the field had even made it to the metal fence by the time it was all over, the flames were out and she was running, carrying the smallest boy, screaming for the guys at the fence to stop gawking and go get an ambulance. Obviously no one had ever seen anything like that before, and certainly not in a tiny town on the Atlantic seaboard. The little boys had been badly burned and she was burned too (she had scars on the palms of her hands for life) but both boys survived, thanks only to her courage and quick thinking. (The younger boy, who had been the most seriously injured, actually visited her for years afterward, even as an adult. We got to know him pretty well...he always called her "my guardian angel.") Once the initial shock wore off, and we knew she was ok, my sisters and I were just bursting with pride over this rescue. Our grandmother was like a superhero right out of the movies and we figured, well, this is what it must mean to be Kazakh!

The following day the incident appeared in the local newspaper, a front-page story: "Mongol Horsewoman Saves Boys Aged 6 and 9." Back then (not unlike now, really), no American had ever heard of anyone (or anywhere) from Central Asia but Ghengis Khan! This was the '50s, you know -- American women weren't even supposed to work outside the home, so there was also no mention of the fact that our grandmother was a registered nurse -- a high level of education for a woman back then-- and that she had worked for 6 years in the burn unit. No wonder she understood it was only a matter seconds between life and death for those boys. We understood then how much our grandmother had accomplished, but also how much she had to overcome. Not only a non-traditional grandmother, but an Asian woman, from an unknown Soviet nation during the Cold War. She was an amazing woman, and if I am 1/100th the person she was, I'll be happy.

I'm sure we're missing many important events, too, because she really didn't talk about herself much, she was so humble, maybe too much so. You know, she never talked about the rescue at the parade, either -- she would have seen that as 'impolite' somehow or like boasting or something -- I think in part because those little boys had been so badly hurt, it wasn't a pleasant memory for her. She couldn't escape that story, though, because there were too many witnesses, myself included, so she humored us kids and let us tell the story to our friends. The only condition seemed to be that she had the last word about it, always adding at the end that it was "really an outstanding horse" and that she knew in an instant from his eyes that he was special, she and that horse were "in agreement" on what had to be done, and that's why they were successful. (I'm not kidding about this. She really felt the horse was heroic, not herself!)

When we were kids my sisters and I actually thought of our grandmother as almost super-human or something, too, especially after this one episode -- and I think that single incident really shaped what we kids thought it meant to be Kazakh.

KZ in the NHL

Our next story is about a hockey player from Kazakhstan, Nikolai Antropov. He was born in February, 1980, in Ust-Kamenogorsk, capital city of hockey in Kazakhstan. His father brought him to a hockey school and a kid started his hockey career. "My father was my first influence in hockey," says Nikolai. Soon he became one of the major players of his team “Torpedo Ust-Kamenogorsk”. He played two seasons in Kazakhstanian league, 1996-1998. His scores were not bad at all for the sixteen-year-old youngster; in 50 games he scored 17 goals and made 25 assists. In 1998 he moved to the Russian league, like all the best players from the former Soviet Republics. He played for “Dynamo” Moscow one season (30 games, 5 goals, 9 assists). He also represented Kazakhstan at the World Junior Championships collecting eight points (three goals, five assists) in six tournament games. In 1999 he was ready for the next step. Nikolai’s talent was noticed by the NHL and at age 19 he signed a contract with the Canadian Toronto Maple Leafs as a first round draft choice. Soon he became one of the leaders of the Leafs. In 2 seasons with the AHL St. John’s Maple Leafs and 6 seasons with the Toronto Leafs he has a total of 83 goals and 139 assists, with an NHL total 187 points.

During the 2004-2005 player lockout, Nik went east to Russia, playing for the Kazan Ak-Bars and the Yaroslavl Locomotiv, and by all accounts improved his skating and overall play. He returned to Toronto in fall 2005, and despite an injury plagued season (he underwent knee surgery again in April), Nikki contributed 31 points (12 goals, 19 assists). He is currently one of only two Kazakstanis playing in the NHL. Married to fellow Kazakhstani Lena Synchenko, Nikki is father to two sons. He has also captained the Kazakhstan National Hockey team in the 2002 and 2006 Olympics.


Here are some of Nikki's career highlights:

• Registered his 100th career NHL point (goal) December 23, 2003
• Played his 200th career NHL game April 3, 2003
  
• Best NHL year to date, 2003-2004, with career highs in games played (72), goals (16), assists (29), points and penalty minutes
• Ranked 15th in the NHL for game winning goals (6-tie) in 2003-2004
• Made his first career hat trick in his first season, December 1999
• Made his first career point in his first NHL game, October13, 1999
  

•Team Calls Him: Nikki
•Height: was-6'3 now 6'5
•Weight: was-191lbs now-219lbs
•Born: February, 18th 1980
•Place: Ust'-Kamenogorsk, Kazakhstan
•Contract Status: Active
•Shoots: Both (Prefers Left)
•Position: Centre
•Last Amateur Club: Dynamo (Russia)
•Strengths: Size
•Pronunciation: AN-TRO-POV

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Nikolai Antropov at Wikipedia.com
Nik's lifetime stats at Sportsnet.ca
Profile at Legends of Hockey.net

Aigul Buyuk Kereili Ipakchi (1897 - 1988)

This is the story of the Kazakh grandmother of one of Silk Road Caravan’s first customers. The full epic biography would be a book (she was all over the world, lived "underground" for some time, once traveled many miles of dangerous terrain all alone, disguised as a man, and once in America, she saved the lives of two little boys at a Fourth of July parade!)

Aigul Buyuk (known to her grandchildren as Apa) was born in Bakanas, a village south of Lake Balkash in what is now southeastern Kazakhstan. She was married as a teenager, but had her first husband for only a short time before he was killed, along with his two cousins, her favorite brother and several other men, in an incident with a contingent of Russian soldiers. Aigul’s first husband had been a rich and powerful man, and their group was traveling to meet with an important elder from another village, but the the czarist authorities claimed that they were a group of bandits who had attacked the soldiers and killed three of them.

The story of the Basmachi Revolt, a WWI-era uprising against Russian and Soviet rule in Central Asia, is virtually unknown in the United States. The goal was to liberate Turkestan from czarist Russia; imperial soldiers had been terrorizing Kazakhs and Kyrgyz for decades, killing people, stealing food and livestock. At the beginning of the Russian Revolution, the Basmachi movement favored the Bolsheviks because they saw the Russian monarch as the real enemy. From Soviet sources you will read that this was a movement of Islamic radicals, thugs and rabble-rousers; the perjorative term basmachi means “bandits.” Other historians would say that this was a diverse movement of common people, mostly defending themselves against attacks by imperial soldiers, and eventually attacking the soldiers’ bases in retaliation. As the Basmachi movement grew in numbers, though, it became divided, and eventually the Red Army forces defeated them. Their defeat caused hundreds of thousands of Central Asians to flee their homes in the early 1920s.

Among those thousands were Aigul and the surviving members of the family, who knew it wasn’t safe in Bakanas anymore, so they moved south to Alma Ata (now Almaty), thinking it would be a temporary move. It was at this time that Aigul lost her baby daughter to sickness, and then, very shortly after, received the awful news that her mother, who had stayed behind in Bakanas, had died of a fever that was probably caused by grief. She later told her second husband, our customer’s grandfather, that she nearly gave up at this point and wished for her own death, the pain was so great.

Not long after this, her brother-in-law came with the news that there had been witnesses to the massacre of Aigul’s husband and almost all of their traveling party, who told that the truth was the soldiers ambushed the group, and though they fought back, they were terribly outnumbered. The soldiers had even stolen personal possessions from the bodies. Even so, the “official story” had been changed, and the Kazakhs were said to have “resisted conscription” into the Czar’s army. Resistance to Russian rule was gaining strength in Central Asia, and these “conscriptions” were happening all over the place. A large number of men from several extended families began to organize themselves for war against the Russians.

Perhaps her pure rage at the injustices of the Russians pulled Aigul through these painful times. She began to prepare for the future, learning to speak and read Russian in Alma Ata. She also learned some Farsi from her sister-in-law, who had been from somewhere around Ferghana (in eastern Uzbekistan). This girl was her best friend, but she too became sick. Aigul nursed her for a long time, but in the end the fever killed her. By this time Aigul had lost almost everyone she loved, and she always seemed to blame herself for her sister-in-law’s death, although she had done everything in her power to save her.

Because Aigul was one of the few who were really literate at that time, she and three of her late husband’s relatives were sent south, first to a series of towns approaching the border with British-controlled Afghanistan, then actually crossing the border (under terrible conditions) and traveling overland to Charikhar, near Kabul. Her late husband’s family knew people who had arranged passage. This was again supposed to be only temporary, until the Russians had been chased from Bakanas.

At first, things looked hopeful. The Basmachi were fighting back, there were some successful raids on forts, the czarist army was suffering mass desertions in WWI. People believed that if the Bolsheviks won, it would mean the Kazakh and Kyrgyz lands might finally be left in peace. But no. The Bolsheviks did win, but they betrayed the people of Central Asia. Turkestan was divided, and the news Aigul was supposed to translate got worse and worse.

By this time she had begun working with the Red Cross in Kabul and learning English -- her goal was to join the Red Cross nurse-training program. Her late husband’s family was strictly against this (her father-in-law was Muslim and apparently opposed all things British because of England’s involvement in Arabia and against the Ottomans, so Aigul was very much alone until she was accepted into the nursing program. Red Cross colleagues in the British-Afghan wing pulled strings and arranged for her to get something called a “Nansen Passport” -- a special League of Nations permit for refugees fleeing the Bolshevik Revolution. She left Afghanistan for Europe, and later the U.S. She always told her children and grandchildren that nursing is what saved her -- not just physically, but mentally and spiritually. She was able to really help people, even the cases others had written off as hopeless. She believed this was the reason she had survived, when everyone close to her had died. She was meant to help those people (both soldiers and civilians) who had been given up for dead by the doctors. Considering how she always downplayed her own achievements, who can guess how many lives she must have saved? Her early years as a nurse were the one thing she was always proud of and willing to take credit for. Had she been born male, or later, she probably would have become a famous physician or surgeon.

In the U.S. Aigul continued working as a registered nurse, with 6 years in a burn unit. All the while, she must have faced heavy discrimination in America; a strong, independent Asian woman, representative of a Soviet communist place no one had ever heard of otherwise. Eventually Aigul married again. Her second husband, whom she met in a hospital where she had been a nurse, was also an exile, an Azeri. They were together for more than 50 years, to all accounts an amazing marriage. She did not forget her beginnings, and was always looking to make connections with other Qazaq-speakers. She was a wonderful storyteller, with an amazingly vivid memory. Her grandchildren grew up listening to stories abut when she was a girl, the beauty of the land, the way she learned to weave, heal sick animals, even train horses. Even so, there was always the loneliness of never being able to go home to Bakanas.

Aigul Buyuk Kereili Ipakchi died in 1988 at age 91, just a little too soon to see an independent Kazakhstan.