Genghis: Birth of an Empire: Book Review

Genghis Khan seems to be the rehabilitated man of the new century. In the past few years, a series of historians (Jack Weatherford's Genghis Khan and the Making of the Modern World), cinematists (Sergei Bodrov's Russian-Kazakh-Mongolian film Mongol), and novelists have re-written (or re-ridden) the story of Temujin, the steppe prince-done-wrong who grew to become an adept political warrior and the creator of a multi-continental empire. Wasn't it not too long ago that we were supposed to fear and revile the bloodthirsty Mongol hordes?

Sergei Bodrov's Oscar-nominated Mongol, released last week in New York and Los Angeles and nationwide on June 20, has gotten positive reviews for its epic storytelling and gorgeous vistas. As far as I can tell (not yet having seen it), Mongol follows the same basic storyline as Conn Iggulden's excellent historical novel Genghis: Birth of an Empire, which in turn is heavily based on Genghis Khan's own Secret History of the Mongols. Temujin is the second son of Yesugei, khan of the Wolves, a powerful nomadic tribe. After Yesugei is murdered by Tatars, his bondsman seizes power and turns 12-year-old Temujin, his mother, brothers and infant sister out of the tribe to die in the brutal steppe winter. Denied his birthright of influence and comfort, Temujin's experiences in sheer survival harden him into a man of unflinching practicality and unwavering purpose. Criticism of both film and novel lie in the ways each artist has shaped and turned the facts to suit his storytelling purposes, abandoning strict history whenever necessary. And that is why this medium is called "historical fiction."

The reality is that historical fiction (whether visual or written) is as much a reflection of the society in which and for which it was created, as much as it tells the historical truth of its subject. The contemporary reality going here is nation-building, the Central Asian re-creation of self. As in last year's Kazakh cinema epic Nomad, which pushes the idea of a single Kazakh identity forged by a visionary leader, Iggulden's Temujin has a vision of uniting the multitude of steppe tribes and solitary outsiders into a single people. After his escape from captivity and certain death by the treacherous leader of his former clan, Temujin has a recurring dream:

"There was only one tribe on the plains. Whether they called themselves Wolves or Olkhun'ut or even tribeless wanderers, they spoke the same language and they were bound in blood. Still, he knew it would be easier to sling a rope around a winter mist than to bring the tribes together after a thousand years of warfare."

Later he proclaims, "I tell you we are one people. We are Mongols . . . We are the silver people, and one khan can lead us all."

This Temujin kills and conquers, yet every act has a practical motive. As a child, he murders his own brother, who isn't very admirable anyway, because Bekter's greed threatens the survival of the entire family. He slaughters and eats the flesh of Tatars who had violated his wife, because he had vowed such vengeance to his mother. He is an original thinker, open to new and better ideas, not bound by the way things have always been done. He sees a new kind of body armor, copies it and creates an army of invincible mounted warriors. He is quick to recognize, respect and learn from superior skill. He absorbs former enemies into his Mongol nation, prizing new loyalty and talent over former allegiances. He creates a united Central Asian empire, including all of current Kazakhstan, whose enemies are the Tatars to the north (Russia) and the Chin to the east (China). And if recent DNA studies are accurate, he is the progenitor of 1/12 of the all the men in Asia. After 2 centuries of Russian domination, what's not to like about a genuine homegrown, fabulously successful Central Asian steppe warrior?

The beauty of an historical novel is the author's Afterword, where he can explain his sources and tell where strict historical accuracy got sacrificed for the sake of a good story. Iggulden based his novel on the Waley translation of The Secret History of the Mongols. The original Mongolian version has been lost, but a Chinese transcription has survived, and translations of this work provide the earliest written record of Genghis Khan and his exploits. Supposedly commissioned by by Genghis himself, the Secret History is history in the way that the Iliad is a history of the Trojan War -- a mythic epic of larger-than-life heroes, grounded in real people and events.

Coincidentally (or not?), Sergei Bodrov plans a film trilogy, and Genghis: Birth of an Empire is Conn Iggulden's first in a trilogy on the life and empire of the "king of the sea of grass." Genghis: Lords of the Bow was published this spring to starred reviews, continuing the saga as Temujin turns his attention to the empire of the Chin. Bones of the Hills, the final entry in the Conqueror series, is scheduled for U.K. release in the fall (no word on the American publication date). Birth of an Empire was published in the U.K. as Wolf of the Plains. Quite a different image, isn't it?

Some folks fuss that historical fiction, with all its inaccuracies, shouldn't be a first experience with important events and lives. I say that, in the hands of a good writer, historical fiction will intrigue and motivate readers to learn beyond the confines of the novel in a way that straight history can't often do. Birth of an Empire is a captivating, thrilling page-turner for teens and adults alike (and a best-seller to boot). How many other books related to Central Asia can claim that??

Genghis Khan . . . good guy or bad guy? It's all up to the the writer, and to you, the reader.

---

Recent reviews of Mongol:
• New York Times
• Christian Science Monitor
• Los Angeles Times

Review of Genghis: Birth of an Empire
• Christian Science Monitor

Excerpt from Chapter One

Author Interview (video)
Author Interview (mp3 audio)

The Little Jockey by Dukenbai Doszhanov

A couple of years ago a neighbor gave me this book/pamphlet containing two clearly Central Asian short stories. My neighbor is a traveller and a thinker, definitely an internationalist, but I have no idea how she came by it. I wasn't even sure it was Kazakh except for the author's name, which has that certain Kazakh-something about it.

Since then I have found out that Dukenbai Doszhanov is indeed a Kazakhstani author, and he's been writing for a while. I guess he was Party connected -- these stories were published during the Soviet era and translated into English by a Moscow press (the date on the cover is 1979). Doszhanov (or Doszhan, the Kazakh version now used) is still a high-profile writer. He is editor of the museum journal of the Presidential Center of Culture of Kazakhstan, laureate of the State Prize of RK, a fan and resident of Astana. In 2005 he published a novel, Ak Orda, relating events in the history of Kazakhstan with the main character being President Nursultan Nazarbayev. He has written numerous novels, though I can't find reference to any in English.

The Little Jockey contains two stories, "Good Old Granddad Beknur," and the title story. In the first, a young man riding home across the steppe stops at a lonely yurta, and finds an old shepherd he had known as a child. The story ends with "There's nothing dearer to man than than his homeland and countryside."

"The Little Jockey" moves back to the childhood of that same young man.

Dalabai has been racing horses since he was six. Now he was ten and had got the hang of it. . . he had been entrusted to ride Kerkiik and defend the honor of the whole district of Karatau.

Starting with "Go!" and ending at the finish line, Dalabai rides the race of his life to hear his father say," You're a worthy son of your great forefathers!"

Intrigued? You can download a PDF file (11.5 mb, with colour illustrations) of the title story here.

---

Duszhenov, D. The Little Jockey (Мальчик-жокей).
Translated by Janette C. Butler; ilustrated by V. Shulzhenko.
Moscow: Progress Publishers, 1979.

Kazakh Cooking Experiment #3: Plov

I can't really claim plov as an experiment, since I've been working on getting it right for almost a year. Plov/pilaf/pilau is a rice-and-stuff dish with variations from Asia to South America. I have seen several Central Asian recipes -- fancy dishes with cumin (Uzbek) or apples or dried fruit (wedding plov?) -- but nothing that approximates the plov greatly anticipated and often served at local Kazakhstani expat gatherings. We have 'everyday plov,' a basic dish even my meat-and-potatoes father likes, of carrots, onions, rice & meat, with garlic flavoring. The original one-pot meal.

KZ folk are die-hard 'know it when you see it' cooks -- a handful of this, some of that, add until you have enough. If you don't have a KZ mom to guide you, it can be hard to get it right. Last summer, Kazakh cooks extraordinaire Yuriy and Tatiana (of Russian extraction) kindly wrote down for me a plov recipe with more-or-less proportions of ingredients. I've made, watched and adjusted it enough times to finally satisfy myself and the family, and now to share it with the world.

For me, the two main tricks are getting the meat tender and the carrots sweet (instead of tasting like boiled carrots). Don't skimp on the times. Plov takes a while, but needs relatively little tending. Though traditional KZ plov is made with mutton or lamb, I use beef-- if you've read my recipes before you know that neither Gulnara nor I like lamb (for the record, I think it tastes like dirt) -- but you are welcome to substitute lamb or mutton if you prefer.

A note about the oil -- I've seen heated discussions about what's appropriate to use. Corn oil is a definite no-no. Cottonseed and sunflower are preferred vegetable oils, though we use canola without the world ending. Traditionally, the fat used to brown the meat would be a lump of fat from a sheep's tail, melted. Just so you know.

If you have a Kazakh (or Kazakhstani) parent, disregard all this and make it the way you learned. If you don't, give this a try.


Kazakh Plov
(these are party sized-proportions -- be hungry, have folks over or halve everything but the garlic!)

1 cup (or more) vegetable oil
2 big (fist sized) onions, chopped
2-3 lbs. beef (chuck, or stew meat), cut into 1/2" - 1” pieces
2 lb. carrots, quartered and chopped into 1” pieces
(quick American trick: get "baby carrots" in a bag and slice each one in half)
2 lb long grain rice ( approx. 4 cups; basmati or “Uncle Ben’s" -- heresy, but it works)
1 large head garlic

A pot with thick walls and a lid (kazan, dutch oven or heavy 8 qt. soup pot; 4 qt. to halve recipe)

----------------

Heat oil in kazan over medium-high heat. Fry several pieces of the onion until burned at edges; discard onion (this releases onion flavour into the oil).

Add the meat. Cook until well browned on all sides. Add 1/2 to 1 cup water (enough to completely cover the meat by at least 1/2"), cover, and cook for 30 mins. (This step allows the meat to cook in the lower layer of boiling water, while keeping the oil in the pot for sauteeing the onions and carrots later. Don't skimp on the time, or the meat won't be tender.)

Uncover the kazan, and increase heat. Cook until water evaporates.

Add carrots. Lower heat to medium. Cook 5 min.

Add onion. Stir, and cook until carrots begin to caramelize (maybe slightly burned at edges, definitely turning sweet), maybe 5 - 10 minutes.

Add salt and pepper to taste (you can always add more later). Cook 5-7 min.

When the carrots taste right, add the rice and water.
(For 1 part of rice add 2 parts of water)

So for 2 lbs of rice (around 4 cups), you'll need 8 cups of water. Enough to cover everything in the kazan plus an inch or so.

Cover, turn heat to high. When water boils, stir once, reduce heat to low, place whole head of garlic on top of everything, and cook until water is absorbed and rice is plump and tender throughout (around 20 minutes, as usual for rice).

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.

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

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

Roksonaki on the Air

Spring has sprung, Nauryz is over, and Kazakhstan's first "experimental neo-traditional ethno-rock" band, Roksonaki, is finishing up their Nauryz 2008 tour in the Washington D. C. area. It's been an interesting tour, very academically oriented. The band has done 3-4 day residencies at several different universities, visited schools, and most of the concerts have been free.

Another feature of the tour has been radio interviews, mostly with Dr. Helen Faller, the group's American coordinator and also the producer of Mosaiqa Records, founded last year to promote Central Asian music. Wisconsin Public Radio broadcasts Here on Earth: Radio Without Borders live every weekday at 3 pm CST. Last Wednesday the hour-long program featured Roksonaki, in residence at U. Wisconsin - Madison. You can stream the audio by clicking the Listen button on the Here on Earth Roksonaki program page, or download the mp3 podcast on the March 2008 archives page. The audio stream is available indefinitely; the podcast is available for download until late May. Check out all the other programs in the archives while you're there -- it's a dizzying array of topics and interviews from around the world, well worth exploring.

Highlights of the Here on Earth show are Helen Faller's discussion of instruments and the shamanic tradition, the folk legend of the creation of the zhetigen (a 7-stringed harp/zither), and the hauntingly beautiful "Ak Bayan" (about 36 minutes into the show). This show focuses on acoustic pieces, which is the core of the 2008 tour.

Also last week, Roksonaki recorded a show with WFMU, in New York's Hudson Valley. It was broadcast on Saturday, March 29, as part of a weekly show called Transpacific Sound Paradise: Popular and Unpopular Music from Around the World (great subtitle). The middle hour of the 3-hour program is all Roksonaki, with 6 pieces recorded live in the studio and another 4 from CDs. Helen Faller speaks and translates, but if the chuckles and instant Russian replies are any indication, it seems that Ruslan Kara and other band members understand much more English than they are willing to speak on radio.

The TSP show highlights include "The Hunter's Lament" on zhetigen, a jammin' acoustic satire about bad stuff that can happen ("Ne Jaman"), a contemporary kyl-kobyz piece, and some insight into the personalities of the band members. The CD tracks illustrate the broader range of Roksonaki that qualifies them as "avant garde," leaning toward what were they thinking? Not everything can hit the Top 40.

Listen to Roksonaki's TSP interview (via streaming audio) on the program playlist page. If you're short on time, listen to opening track, then skip to 1:02:00 for the Roksonaki segment.

And because it's what I do, here's an older, even more traditional version of "Ak Bayan" on zhetigen and kyl-kobyz, from Asyl Mura.




Images from a National Bank of Kazakhstan commemorative series of 500 tenge coins

Nauryz 2008!

After 70+ years of Russian/Soviet holidays, Nauryz has taken hold as a big event in Kazakhstan, and in the international Kazakh/Kazakhstani communities. This poster, for the Embassy of Kazakhstan's Nauryz 2008 celebration in Washington, D.C., certainly is gorgeous. Nauryz, a spring festival with pre-Islamic roots, is also celebrated under varying names across Islamic Asia from Turkey to Kyrgystan.

Tonight in Moscow (it's probably over now, in fact), a beauty pageant/Nauryz celebration was held to select the most beautiful of all Kazakhstani students in Russia. The winner of "Moscow Spring - 2008" will be a contestant in the national "Miss Kazakhstan" pageant later on. Between competition rounds, the audience was treated to performances by no less than A-Studio, Musicola, Asylbek Ensepov and the legendary Dos Mukasan, and other stars of the KZ music scene. arba.ru

Also from arba.ru, folk-pop band Urker will give their first full-length concert in 5 years for the Nauryz 2008 celebration on Saturday night (7 pm) in Old Almaty Square. Fittingly, they'll rock the crowd with their holiday anthem Nauryz, under a massive fireworks display.

I think the Nauryz party in London has already happened, but the big event in the US is a multi-city tour by "the unique neo-traditional avant-garde band from Kazakhstan," Roksonaki, culminating in the Washington, D.C. gala on April 5. Roksonaki made a big splash at the Smithsonian Institution's 2002 "Silk Road" Folklife Festival, with Yo-Yo Ma. Though the group was formed in 1990, there's next to no additional information about them until now, aided by a group member and Central Asian scholar, Dr. Helen Faller, who coordinated the tour. Roksonaki's music is fascinating and exactly as billed -- experimental, scholarly, with contemporary influences, traditional instruments and more. Is there such a thing as Central Asian space music? Check out the Roksonaki blogs (mosaiqa.com, and Nauryz with Roksonaki), and even a MySpace page, which has several music samples. And if you're anywhere near Washington, D.C. in a couple of weekends, there's a party going on that you really shouldn't miss.

A sample Roksonaki track, from the mosaiqa.com site:

When Words Matter

(EDITED - I found the post I was looking for - thanks to Technorati - and have edited to reflect and include links)

I don't usually stray into political matters -- there are far better informed sites for that (and I'm going to add a list of those sites soon). But yesterday I read this post at Window On Eurasia on remarks by Russian President Vladimir Putin about his chosen, I mean elected, successor, Dmitry Medvedev, and it makes me wonder . . .

I'm kicking myself for not bookmarking this page (FOUND IT!), but the gist was that In this speech, Putin described Medvedev's "Russian nationalism" with the word that means "ethnically Russian" -- russkiy -- instead of rossiikiy, which means "citizen of Russia." It makes no difference in English, and perhaps in many European languages -- Russian and Russian are the same. But the post points out that there's a big difference in Russian, especially given the fractured ethnic politics of the country. Saying "Russia for the ethnic Russian," instead of "Russia for the citizens of Russia" signifies a HUGE difference in political ideology.

So how does this relate? I see a correlation in language between Kazakh (as an ethnicity/nationality), and Kazakhstani (as an identity-card-carrying citizenship), but no similar examination in Central Asian coverage on language use. Americans (with whose language I am most familar), blithely use Kazakh to mean "citizen of Kazakhstan," but none of the non-ethnically-Kazakh citizen of Kazakhstan I know would accept that term to describe themselves. Few have commented on the government's recent move to use Kazakh as a term for all "citizens of Kazakhstan," even though the pictures show Asian, Eurasian, Turkic, Slavic and European faces. Ignorance, complacency, or an identity shift I have yet to accept?

It seems to me that until all the native-born citizens of the country speak the same language as they settle into nationhood, words matter a lot. Until employment and educational opportunities are equalized for all citizens, regardless of "nationality" (because everyone speaks the same language), a pan-nationality term -- Kazakhstani in English -- is politically inclusive, as the politicians claim to be. One generation more, and maybe they're there. Is that really so long to wait to make all citizens feel like they belong?

Another Musical Pairing:Sary-Arka

Kurmangazy's Sary-Arka (Golden Steppe), on solo dombra,
by Abdulhamit Rayimbergenov **
(from The Rough Guide to the Music of Central Asia



Ulytau's folk-metal version of Sary-Arka




** Abdulhamit Rayimbergenov is a featured music educator & dombrist in Theodore Levin's
Where Rivers And Mountains Sing: Sound, Music, And Nomadism in Tuva And Beyond

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.

Steppe Rider

The image above is the wallpaper/desktop on my computer. It's from the VladStudio collection of wallpapers offered by young Russian digital artist Vlad Geramisov. The title of this one is Le Cheval. I like it because it reminds me of Wind Rider -- a novel for young adults that imagines the story of an ancient nomadic people from the Northern Kazakhstan steppe, who first tamed and rode wild horses. The artist lives in the southern Siberian town of Irkutsk, so maybe it's not too far fetched a connection at all.

Happy New Year!

It's a grand ol' place that can celebrate New Year's Day not once, not twice, but four times a year. We usually have our New Year's party on "Old New Year" (celebrated in Kazakhstan on January 14, on the Russian Orthodox calendar), and yesterday marked the beginning of year 4706 in Chinese astrological reckoning (though the symbols are a bigger deal in KZ than the date). You may know 2008 to be the "Year of the Rat," but thanks to a link this time last year from Sean Roberts, I am happy to say that from February 7 through January 25, 2009, we're in the "Year of the Earth Rat!" Each of the twelve animals of the zodiac is associated with 5 different elements, so a complete Chinese astrological cycle comes 'round every 60 years.

In our house, we have a Fire Rat, a Water Tiger and a Fire Ox. Based on birth year, we used to think that a friend was also a Tiger, but his early February birthday made him a Chinese Ox instead.

So far in 2008, we've missed 3 opportunities to throw the annual New Year's party. Luckily, there's one more New Year's to go -- this time, we're aiming for Nauryz (Persian-Zoroastrian? New Year/Spring Equinox) in March.

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!

~~~~~~~~~
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.

Wild Kazakhstan: The Rise and Fall of the Saiga

This spring brought two news stories about endangered animal species in KZ. One was the massive die-off of Caspian seals (the only mammal in the Caspian Sea), and the other was the creation of an enormous wildlife reserve in NW Kazakhstan, called the Irgiz-Turgay Nature Reserve.

Anybody reading an basic introduction to Kazakhstan might get the impression that there are two kind of wild animals in the entire country: 1) eagles and what they can be trained to hunt (foxes, rabbits & wolves) and 2) snow leopards, with some wild camels here and there for local color. Wikipedia has a better list, but doesn’t have articles for many. Could it be I want it too easy? Where’s my full-color Field Guide to the KZ Steppe? I’ve been interested in the non-human inhabitants of Kazkhstan for a while, so I followed up on the Irgiz-Turgay story to learn more.

The area of the Irgiz-Turgay reserve is home to several endangered species, which is the driving reason for creating the reserve. One of the main species to be protected is the saiga, an ungulate (hooved mammal) that’s somewhere between a sheep and an antelope. It looks like a critter Dr. Seuss would think up, and the story of the saiga is like that of the truffula tree. From millions to rare, back to millions, and now endangered again, in little more than a century.

There’s a fair amount of information available online, but the most comprehensive English-language article I found on the saiga (in Russian, saigak) is in the multi-volume Grzimek’s Encyclopedia of Mammals. Basic saiga facts: Saiga tatarica is the only species in its genus; the closely related saiga borealis became extinct during the Pleistocine era. They are related to, but very distinct from, the mysterious Tibetan antelope also known as the chiru. Zoologists first classified saiga in the goat family, but now they are thought to be a separate species between sheep and antelopes, and placed on the gazelle family tree.

A mature saiga is around 3 to 3.5 ft. (90-100 cm) tall and 3.5-5ft. (120-130cm) long, weighing 45-110 lbs.(21-51kg). Their coats are short, thick & brownish in summer, and in winter saiga sport a 70% shaggier, nearly white woolly coat. Like the platypus, a saiga seems a pastiche of different animals stitched together -- the body of a sheep or goat, legs like a very short deer, neck like some sort of llama, horns of an antelope, and a big moose- or llama-ish head.

The curious-looking head is due to the huge humped nose, which looks something like a short elephant trunk (a ‘proboscis’). Inside that big hump is a very large nasal cavity, which is a fabulous adaptation to the harsh steppe climate. In summer, this nose protects the saiga’s lungs by filtering out airborne dust; in the winter, icy air is pre-warmed before getting to the lungs. Oddly enough, saigas have a terrible sense of smell, but excellent eyesight, able to detect danger over half a mile away. Saiga seasonal migration is unpredictable, varying with the severity of summer and winter weather. When they go, they go all together, thousands at a time, and in a straight line with the direction of the wind, ignoring all dangers.

While the schnoz makes the saiga interesting, it’s the horns on the males that make them valuable. Since the 19th century saiga have been hunted for their horns, which are ground into a powder and used for aphrodesiacs, and as a fever medicine in traditional Chinese medicine. Grzimek’s says nearly 350,000 pairs of the ringed, translucent amber horns were sold in just two Central Asian markets between 1840 & 1850. There are accounts of Kirgiz/Kazakh hunters hunting them with steppe eagles and greyhounds, and deadly spiked ambush corrals, killing up to 12,000 a day. On the verge of total extinction after WWI, the Russian Soviets banned all saiga hunting in 1919 and the Republic of Kazakhstan followed in 1923. In July 1929, a zoological expedition set out from New York to “Siberia and Russian Turkestan” to collect rare specimens, including Siberian tigers and saiga, for the American Museum of Natural History. The New York Times reported in July 1930 that they returned with 3 tigers, 6 saiga, and “400 other specimens of smaller mammals and birds.” I assume they all came back stuffed; a live menagerie of that scale would be a management challenge, to say the least.

The Soviets were serious about preserving the saiga, so between no hunting (and presumably limited poaching) and the saiga’s incredible fertility rates (right up there with rabbits!), the species made an astonishing comeback. By 1958, the number of saiga in Kazakhstan & Kalmykia (Caucasian Russia north of Azerbaizhan, bordering northwest KZ) was estimated at 2 million. The number of saiga doubled, from half a million to a million, in the 5 years between 1966-1971. Saiga are incredibly good at reproducing -- female saigas mature at less than one year old, an average of 90% of females conceive every season, and approximately 75% of all saiga births are twins! Males mature a bit later, and some of the more experienced bucks collapse exhausted after trying to handle all those wanna-be moms.

So what happened? How did a globally-heralded success story turn to critical loss in such a short time? Two events, happening at roughly the same time, accelerated both the supply and the demand for saiga horn. On the supply side was the 1991 demise of the Soviet Union and its tight controls on hunting and poaching, the ensuing urgent need of the people for food and income, and the opening of previously closed borders. The demand side comes with a twist -- by the late 1980s-early 1990s, the saiga population seemed so large and secure that the World Wildlife Fund, and other environmental groups working to save the endangered African Rhino, campaigned in Hong Kong, China and other Asian countries to persuade pharmacists to use saiga horn as an effective alternative to rhino horn. In an ironic example of successful marketing, in 2002 alone, authorities in Kazakhstan confiscated 6 tons of saiga horn -- from approximately 20,000 slaughtered male saiga. One kilo of horn (from 2-4 males) can bring $80, a fortune to a hungry villager. A dramatic visual: as reported in a National Wildlife article, during the harsh winter of 2000, some 80,000 saiga in Russia migrated south from Kalmykia to Dagestan. “Weeks later, only a few animals returned. Witnesses reported that the snow was red with blood from the slaughter.”

The normal saiga gender ratio is 1 male for every 2 to 3 females. But since it’s the mature males who are poachers’ targets, the ratio has become terribly skewed. One 2003 study reported that male saigas comprised only 1% of the population, down from 25% in 1991. And, to make matters worse, it appears that male saiga need to fight other bucks to keep their fertility high. Nobody to fight, fewer babies made. It’s a downward spiral. The total saiga population in Russia, Kazakhstan and Mongolia has dropped 95%, from far more than a million to fewer than 50,000, in only 10 years.

The saiga has developed over thousands of years, surviving and adapting to a the inhospitable steppe environment, probably contributing to human survival in the region. Saiga bones are almost always found in excavations of steppe sites inhabited by early humans. They do not compete with domesticated animals for food, water or pasture -- they eat over 100 different kinds of plants, primarily herbs & shrubs, and get their water from the plants they eat, or from snow. Thirteen percent of their food comes from plants that are toxic to or rejected by domestic herds.

Why devote money and huge amounts of land to preserve this odd creature? One reason is that we simply don’t know what the result of extinction would be. The use of saiga horn as a fever medicine is actually supported by WWF-sponsored research; what other medical uses might be discovered in the future? The role of saiga migration and grazing in the web of steppe ecology isn’t clear. Perhaps they control the growth of toxic plants, or fertilize steppe grasses. If managed well, saiga could be an ongoing food supply for rural inhabitants, and support other steppe animals such as wolves.

Another reason is that extinction could happen in a dramatically short time span. The animal does not adapt well to zoo life, and attempts to re-introduce them to areas where they used to roam are largely unsuccessful. Grzimek’s lists the saiga life span at 6-10 years, while New Scientist claims a life span of only 3-4 years. In either case, the saiga story could be a closed book within a decade.

The establishment of the Irgiz-Turgay nature reserve will create a long swath of protected land across the central Eurasian steppe, from Southern Russia (in Kalmykia’s 121,000 hectare Black Lands Biosphere Reserve) across northwestern Kazakhstan to the area north of the Aral Sea. I can’t find a map showing the boundaries of the reserve area, but Turgay is a town on the border with Russia, while Irgiz is some 650 mi to the east (in Aqtobe region). At 763,549 hectares (almost 3,000 sq. miles), this is almost as big as the US state of Texas. The area includes lakes and wetlands that are important to 100 species of waterbirds, including two other endangered species, the Dalmatian pelican and the white-headed duck. The wetlands of the Ural River delta (where the Ural flows into the Caspian Sea) is nearby (I’m not sure whether it’s included in the new nature reserve) and is an important flyway for other endangered birds. It would be a fascinating location to explore for anyone interested in steppe wildlife.

Intention and a coalition of international NGOs is good, protected land is a start, but Kazakhstan will have to commit money for enforcement of the hunting bans, and for education and marketing. Local communities need to benefit from protecting the natural resources, through sustainable harvesting and the development of eco- tourism, to outweigh the immediate benefits of poaching.

I would love to hear from anyone with more information about the Irgiz-Turgay nature reserve, the overall implementation of the Altyn Dala Conservation initiative (of which the new reserve is a part), or other wildlife areas in Kazakhstan. In the meantime, I will leave you with a final saiga fact -- when sensing danger and beginning to flee, a saiga first jumps into the air a few times to look around before starting off at a gallop.

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Sources:

Grzimek’s Encyclopedia of Mammals. New York: McGraw-Hill, 1990. Vol. 5, p.485-494.
Find Grzimek's in a library near you.

"Kazakhstan: Government Expands Protection of Steppes"- Radio Free Europe/Radio Liberty, 5 April 2007.
"Kazakhstan “steppes” up protection of endangered antelope." - WWF, 27 March 2007.
"Saga of the Saiga." National Wildlife Magazine, April/May 2004 (source of Photo #1 above)
"Rhino rescue plan decimates Asian antelopes." New Scientist, 12 February 2003. (source of Photo #2)
Endangered Species Handbook.
EDGE: Species 62
Williams, Laura. "Kalmykia: Reviving the Dusty Plain." Russian Life, Sep/Oct 2003.

For further reading:
Saiga Conservation Alliance
ARKive.org (information, video & still photos)
Saiga tatarica Fact Sheet at Ultimate Ungulate (source of Photo #3 above)
Biodiversity Conservation Center (photos & video; source of photo #4 to right, by Igor Shpilenok)