Category: Travel blogs

Go through the high mountains,
Through fast-flowing river,
Through thick, impenetrable forests,
Through the large lake,
In many countries,
Go through the desert,
Where the bird’s wings are tired,
Find the way to off-road,
Be ahead of the troops in battle.
Let it be your horse is always ready,
I wish you this.

-[Kazakh blessing for a child when he first sits on a saddle]

The ubiquitous horse is both a companion and provider for the Kazakhs. The revere it like a god, mythicize it (tulpar, a winged horse), use it for travel and sport, flaunt in popular iconography, and depend on it for sustenance and nourishment. A child is put on a saddle (ceremonially) at the age of three, and blessed (as in the poem above), to become a lifelong friend of the horse.

In a story of many firsts, as in the story of the apples (Part 1), the horse was first domesticated in Kazakhstan. Scientists from the University of Pittsburg have identified the settlement of Botay to be the first place where this remarkable transition occurred; and this event went on to change the political map of the world. There is a town called Atbasar near Botay: Atbasar means ‘to ride on horseback’. Kazakhs have been breeding horses for 5600 years, and researchers have even unearthed the model of the first bridles ever made.

Some of us may recoil at the thought of eating horse-meat but when you are a nomadic race, and have to travel across vast distances, you tend to maximize and stretch all that have. Waste is a luxury you can ill-afford when the cold wind blows through the steppes, and your next destination is both uncertain and unknown. In a semi-arid land with seasonal extremes, cured foods tend to become your dietary staples and animal hides your protection against the elements.

While Americans in general avoid horse-meat, it is quite popular in some countries in Europe, South America and Asia. Incidentally, Kazakhstan is the second highest consumer of horse-meat in the world after China! Besides meat, both horse and camel milk (shubat) are the source of year-round nourishment and health. Fermented horse-milk, called Kumis, a staple of yesteryears’ nomadic life, is now extremely popular and artisanal versions (in plastic bottles) are available on the roadside!

Herodotus, the Greek historian, mentions the Kumis in his writings about Greek and Scythian horse-raiders of the mountain-steppes. The curative powers of the Kumis is the stuff of legend: from leprosy to impotence and almost anything else in between!

In Almaty I had a local host, and I was overjoyed when he invited me to have lunch with his family. At last I would get to try some horse-meat and kumis, but honestly, I was a bit apprehensive. The Kumis was too pungent for my urban palate, but the besbarmak (the most popular and national dish of Kazakhstan) looked appetizing. It is essentially boiled horse-meat (can be substituted) served on a bed of flat, rectangular, noodle sheets, alongside a broth. The texture and fat-quotient was new to my palate, and I have to confess that I struggled: it is an acquired taste, after all. I feasted on the Manti (minced lamb dumplings), Baursak (close to a fried doughnut) and Pilaf (a close cousin of the Biryani).

Post lunch, as I walked outside my host’s house, I could see a few horses grazing in the distance. Then my host pulled up in his Datsun to give me a ride to my hotel. As I stepped in, an inevitable observation crossed my mind: The old Kazakhstan was fast disappearing; a new one teetered on the edge of modernity!

See Kazakhstan Part 4.

The only recognised personality from Kazakhstan is Borat, and he is a fictional character! Sasha Baron Cohen’s parody is world-famous but the locals don’t take very kindly to it for the gross misrepresentation it inflicts on their society and culture.

I became aware of this very soon after I flew into Almaty (earlier Alma-ata), the second-largest city in Kazakhstan. The people are friendly and helpful, though constrained by the language barrier, which is essentially Russian. Women drive cars, dress well, many are outgoing and smoke, some are doctors or professionals, and are quite independent with their views on any subject ranging from domestic issues to political ones. The crime rate is low and travellers are free to roam the country without fear.

Such a beautiful and large country and not many of us know much about it. It is the size of Western Europe; and is ranked 9^th largest in the world, just after Argentina and India. It has borders with Russia, China, Kyrgyzstan, Uzbekistan, and Turkmenistan.

The physical geography of the place is in your face; the low density of the population gives its vistas an eerie beauty filled with calm and tranquillity.  The gorgeous steppes, dotted with horses and yurts (round tents); Yester-world villages nestled between high mountain passes; and scores of glaciers, canyons, and lakes abound everywhere.

It has a rich biodiversity: remember it is the original home of the apple and many other food crops, it has vast stretches of steppe grassland, cold desert-scapes, and conifers line the mountainsides.

This surreal place is home to Kazakhs (from the Turkic word for Free Man), Russians, Uzbeks, Ukrainians, Germans, Tatars, and Uyghurs. The reason why this country is shrouded in mystery is because Russian Tsars closed the country to foreigners, and the Soviet Union did no different. They used it Gulags (Soviet Labour Camps), nuclear test sites, and bases to launch their space missions.

Kazakhstan, which is part of the Eurasian Steppe Route, the forerunner of the Silk Route, has been visited by warriors and adventurers over the centuries. In ancient times some myths existed: it was an unexplored and inaccessible world, a place of dragons and monsters. Herodotus wrote about its deserts and impassable mountains wreathed in eternal mists, and of a tribe of fearsome female warriors known as the Amazons!

Originally, the nomadic Scythians resided here, but have since vanished. Alexander the Great fought in the Battle of Jaxartes (Syr Darya) against them. In the 13^th Century, the Kazakhs were subjugated by the Mongols under Genghis khan. By the 18^th Century, they were absorbed into the Russian Empire.

Do Kazakhs eat horse meat and drink camel milk?

See Kazakhstan Part 3.

“It was the first of September and the time when the apple ripen. We could see with our own eyes that here we were in a remarkable centre of origin of apples…”

– From the book, Five Continents by Nikolai Ivanovich Vavilov

The birthplace of the apple has been hotly debated throughout history. Food historians and biologists thought it might have been the ancient Romans, but others peoples like the Nordics, Baltics, Celts, Swiss, and even Americans, have laid claim it. All this was put to rest in 1929 by the great Russian geneticist, agronomist, scientist, and geographer Nikolai Ivanovich Vavilov.

When Vavilov stumbled into the forests on the slopes of the Tien Shan mountains outside Almaty, Kazakhstan, he immediately recognised the area as a ‘living laboratory where one can see the evolutionary process unfolding before one’s eyes.’ He had a simple theory: the likely origin of a species is the place where it shows the greatest genetic diversity. And that’s how the debate ended.

The locals of course had always prided over it: Almaty was called Alma-Ata (Father of Apples). In fact Kazakhstan’s diverse flora has been home to 157 direct precursors or wild relatives of domesticated crops.

Vavilov, who travelled the world collecting thousands of seeds established the world’s largest seed bank in Leningrad.  Celebrated through the 1920s, he was awarded the Lenin Prize, the highest decoration for Science. He has been called a genius for the sheer magnitude of his collection and the simplicity of his theories on agronomy and food security.

Vavilov’s genius could not save him from a disastrous end. He fell out of favour with the Stalinist regime, after Stalin’s failed experiment with farm ‘collectivism’, and was even branded as an ‘anti-soviet spy’ and saboteur. He died in a hard labour camp in 1943.

There is much more to this story of Vavilov: an unheard-of genius of the modern era who did as much work with plant biology and genetics as did Darwin with the animal kingdom.

The story of this literal ‘Garden of Eden’ and Vavilov’s genius fired me up so much that I had to make a quick dash to Kazakhstan!

Why is Kazakhstan shrouded in mystery?

See Kazakhstan Part 2.

“I’m on the top of the world, lookin’ down on creation and the only explanation I can find…”

“…is the love that I’ve found ever since you’ve been around. Your love’s put me on top of the world.”

You have to be of a certain vintage to remember this lovely old Carpenters song.

But it was not love that put me on top of the world. It was a call from the office of the richest man on the planet, the Bezos himself. With an invitation to an event at Vegas, re:MARS. I didn’t decline the invitation. There were many, many highlights to the trip. Some of the robotics on display were truly mind-bending. But for me, the greatest thrill was the Blue Origin Shepard Capsule. The original – named after Alan Shepard, the first American to go into space – is a reusable suborbital system designed to take astronauts beyond the Kármán Line – 100km above Earth which represents the border between Earth’s atmosphere and outer space.

What they had at re:MARS was a replica which gave you a good feel of what an astronaut in the capsule goes through.

So you go through the countdown, feel the engines ignite and push you into space. The windows give you the view as you rise above. Then the engines cut off and the capsule separates from the booster rocket. Then you feel the stillness and the weightlessness as your capsule floats in space. You look out at the Blue Planet below and you get a semblance of what astronauts call the Overview Effect.

The Overview Effect, reported by several astronauts, is the cognitive shift in awareness while viewing our home from outer space. When you see this blue dot floating in space, without the borders and boundaries we have divided ourselves with, without our linguistic and cultural differences, without our old and new bigotries, you feel this urge to protect your home.

This is best explained in the worlds of the astronaut Michael Collins from Voyager 11: “The thing that really surprised me was that it [Earth] projected an air of fragility. And why, I don’t know. I don’t know to this day. I had a feeling it’s tiny, it’s shiny, it’s beautiful, it’s home, and it’s fragile.”

Being on top of the world is a truly wonderful feeling. #robotics #reMars #bezos #space #astronauts #planetearth

Have you heard Compay Segundo sing Guantanamera? If you haven’t, let me tell you a story. 20 years ago, in those ancient days before streaming services and YouTube, I came across a documentary called Buena Vista Social Club. The social clubs were the highlight of Havana’s indulgent nightlife, the hub for musicians and performers. Then came the Cuban Revolution in 1959 and the first President, Manuel Urrutia Lleó – a devout Christian – did what all Puritan forces do, shut down all signs of joy. That was the beginning of the end of the golden era of Cuban music.

The American musician Ry Cooder and British music producer Nick Gold came to Havana in the ‘90s and revived the leading club of the ‘60s, the Buena Vista Social Club. To their surprise, they found that many of the eminent musicians of the ‘60s were still around. They got them all together and released an album called Buena Vista Social Club in ’97 which went on to become the biggest selling Cuban album in history, clocking over 8 million copies. Then came the documentary of the same name, directed by the legendary Wim Wenders.

What stood out for me was Compay Segundo singing Guantanamera. And this man on the doorstep, reminded me of Compay Segundo (who passed away in 2003). Guajira Guantanamera is probably the most famous Cuban song ever. And the most popular lyrics are by the Cuban poet and patriot José Marti. I share here the three renditions I like best – Compay Segundo, Pete Seeger and how can I not mention Joan Baez. This has given me many hours of joy. Gracias Compay!