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: Trip to Turkmenistan :
A. Ibold
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A ride in Turkmenistan by Amrita Ibold // View Trip PictureBook //
I had decided to go to the 4th Annual Akhal Teke Conference in Ashgabat, and with a month left to go I thought I had plenty of time to get things organized...the short version of the story is that I got my passport back 3 days before I left, I now have some gray hair, but everything worked out. On the 22nd of April I flew to Amsterdam, with the 9 hour difference between Seattle and Amsterdam this means I arrived on the morning of the 23rd. I spent the day with my childhood friend and caught up on stories. Slept in a bed for one night and left in the afternoon to meet Siggy at the Amsterdam airport. She is the author of the new book "'Akhal Teke 1 past and present''. She drove from Germany to hand me 6 of her books to give to several people in Ashgabat. Flew to London to catch the plane to the final destination. According to my travel agent, Baloo travel of Birmingham, England, the plane left at 6 or 7 PM. So I opted to get there at 5. The Turkmen Airline check-in ( which doesn't exist according to my local travel agent ) was at the very end of the airport. There was no one there, except for a voice calling out to me; Amrita! So Allegra made it! She had to go to her post office and dig through the mail to find her passport the day she had to leave. Soon enough Sue Waldoc, president of the British AT Association, Maria Marquise and Jerry Watkins showed up and more travelers, we checked in and boarded a pretty empty plane. My plan was to sleep the 6 hour flight so I would be fresh arriving in Ashgabat and ready for the day. But my curiosity and excitement was to great. Besides people from India there were some other westerners on the plane, I had to find out their story. There were 2 ladies from England, past their fifty's I could guessed. They had planned a riding trip through the mountains on AT's for 10 days. I asked if I could contact them on my return and she gave me her email address. Then there was a young couple, she had blond hair and turned out to be from Ashgabat going to visit her family with her Russian boyfriend. Her mother was given 3 AT's as a thank you for either doing some work or helping on a project. She told me to contact her once we knew where we'd be staying to get together. Her Mom's horses were going to be in the race on Sunday, the National day of the horses. Then there was the lady missionary on her way back to her post. Allegra talked mostly to her, and she warned us we'd be on TV, and she'd be looking for us. Day 1
The road from the hippodrome to the place in the desert skirts town a little and then it's irrigated plantations and wheat fields. People drive pretty fast, and every now and then there is a police car by the road that flags people over at random it seems, to....well, they seem to talk and shake hands a lot. Everything that isn't irrigated is yellow sand. And everywhere there is yellow sand there seems to be building debris, pieces of concrete, metal straps, rebar sticking out off the ground at different angles. The bus stops by the side of the road and we get out, leave all our belongings except camera's on the bus, cross the street and on to a dirt road toward the Kopet Dag mountains. In the distance there are some cars and horses. It is hot, I already stink, we are sweating and none of us have water. Whose endurance race is this anyway. Looking back, this was not my favorite day. The horses looked beautiful, super shiny but skinny. Finally some trot in from the race to be checked. Vets are there. The only concern seems to be to take a heart beat. Everything else is ignored. The horses are given water and alfalfa, and go back out. It is very different from an endurance race in America. Also the equipment of the riders is old, poor quality and ill fitting. There is a table set up with drinks in glass bottles, pita style bread and dishes with sliced tomato, cucumber and cilantro, garnished with flies. We got so thirsty that together we raid the bottles, managing to knock the tops off on the side of the table. It's hot but it's liquid. About some hours later Geldi arrives, cheers us up and invites us for lunch. He walks to the table we raided the drinks off earlier and we politely sit down. In the back someone is starting a small wood fire and soon they serve us tea and mutton stew, that we eat with the now toasted bread and garnish. We ate, we drank, and felt much better. After another hour, the wind had come up and started blowing quite hard we left to our hotel. With the same tape playing in the bus Allegra and I were dropped off at hotel Turkmenistan. We where going to share a room. Sasha showed us the room, nice but one bed. So in gestures we let him know 2 beds. We get 2 beds. We were told to be ready by 6, I believe we had one hour to freshen up before dinner.
The bus picked us up and before we had dinner at one of the bigger AT breeder's house we went to see Geldi's horses. He has many, and they all looked superb. I video taped instead of taking pictures. Never have I seen so many AT's, and all so nice. Our dinner host had a huge long table set up in his courtyard, with an open air kitchen. The table was beautifully set up, with little side dishes of different delicacies. We all sat down and talked and got to know each other. There was a French man with his daughter, she had ridden in the endurance race, Maria Solidad and her husband, Sue, Maria and Jerry, Geldi and his wife, his wife's sister Diana who translated for us as well, Tony Watkins from Ireland, there to help Geldi set up a lab for blood typing and DNA testing, some more people, I didn't catch everybody's name. The food was delicious ( I am vegetarian, hence the order of descriptions ), potato salad, an eggplant dish, smoked sturgeon, caviar, another little bean salad, egg salad, on our plates we were served stew then a soup, then more barbecue, and when you think dinner is over there is more. With plenty of vodka and assorted soda pop. And above all, the toasts. Toasts to thank the president, the host, congratulate the riders, the horses the breeders. Toasts to get to know each other, and the toasts to hint to wishes for each other. We had a wonderful night. The bus took us home, always playing the same tape, always the same driver. I slept that night not moving once. It was that morning we discovered we did have hot water in our room. It just takes a while to get there. And Allegra had her coffee making stuff. Day 2 We got picked up by the bus with our favorite tune playing, Sue, Maria and Jerry already waiting. We were taken to the hippodrome again. Sat around in the lobby, waiting. Then it was time for the auction. We walked through the building to the winners circle, in the middle of the stadium. There was a long table with chairs set up and we all took a seat. All of us received a program in English, with the names and pedigrees of the horses. I had my video and camera ready, my note book and pen.
The first horse arrived, and looked nothing like the description in the catalogue...turns out they didn't follow the order printed in the catalogue, and pure-blood means a pure AT, pure-breed stands for half bred. The last 10 + horses were not mentioned in the catalogue. So we where all scrambling for names, numbers, translatioins, taking pictures... The horses were quite a sight, I'd like to take them all home! To add to my personal frantic effort to get the right name with the right horse the TV crew started to interview me, in Russian. I freeze. I don't understand the questions, so I start to mumble, beautiful horses you have, and a lot of uuuuh. I call Allegra in a very demanding voice and unsuspecting she comes over and is thrown into the interview, relief! She is doing a great job talking 80 miles an hour. What a team we are! I resume my picture taking duty and information gathering, luckily I sat next to Luise Firouze's friend who speaks Persian/Russian and English and I manage to get all the non catalogued horses information. For lunch we went up to the VIP room in the middle of the stadium, overlooking the racecourse, mutton stew with bread and fresh tomatoes, cukes and cilantro, vodka for those who wish and soda bottles. When finished eating Geldi asked us if we would like to see some horses again. We all made a list and gave it to him. Back to the winners circle we went and the horses showed up, for us to touch and ask questions and photograph some more. That night we had dinner on the huge plaza behind our hotel, but we were still picked up by the bus. We laughed when we got out, we could have easily walked! The night was warm, a beautiful table awaited us, we could hear the music from the wedding party in the restaurant below the terrace wich was in full swing. We overlooked fountains galore, statues and impressive buildings. It was like we were in a dream. Again the table was full of food, and we had many more toasts. During the auction I had fallen in love with a stallion and finally I decided I should at least inquire how much money the owner wanted for his gorgeous stallion. A lot. Crushed I went back to the table, reasoning that with a starting price so high, there is no sense to pursue this. Day 3 The day of the congress. Allegra woke up sick. Throwing up and bathroom visits one after the other. She gave me her speech she had prepared in America so I could give it. She was very bummed out she couldn't go. In the bus, the music blaring as always Jerry looked extremely pale, Maria too, and Sue was hanging in there. It had hit them too. The meeting was held in the Sheraton conference hall, a big room with tables in U shape and a podium and microphone. In the lobby old hand written records where on display and sketches. Also paintings of horses by local artists that were for sale, and some statues. The old records I could not read, but some of the dates seemed very old, early 1800. These and the sketches I was told are usually locked up. The sketches were beautiful pen and ink drawings of mostly horses heads. We were called in the meeting room to take our seats, and the national hymn was played. The TV crew was there filming. We had some hot discussions about Turkmenistan taking back the stud book, having a lab for blood testing and DNA, making it a world organization with a yearly newsletter. We discussed artificial insemination, and how important it is to have, and voted on people filling office positions within the new MAAK. During break I called Allegra to see how she was doing and she decided to come. I asked Geldi's driver to pick her up and she managed to hold up long enough to give her speech and go back to bed, sick. Todd gave his speech, and presented Geldi with 2 pictures of AT's. The one of the horse jumping a tall fence, the picture taken straight on got translated as Turkmenistan taking on the world got a big roar of approval. Maria Soledad was voted in as representative for Europe and Allegra Steck for America. It was an exhausting meeting. Then we bussed to the memorial statue errected to remember the thousnands of people that died in the terrible earthquake and we laid flowers down in a ceremonial way while being televised. After that we went to another memorial for soldiers and again we laid flowers down. Then we went to the hippodrome to have a late lunch, it was about 4 by now. First we had to grade their horses. About 30 horses were in a group, and 7 or so would walk in the winners circle. The ones we didn't like, we had to throw out, and new ones would come in, until only the best ones remained. I started to video but then it hit me, I had to find a bath room fast, instead I found Geldi's driver and he quickly took me to the Hotel. Once done with my business in the bathroom I went to bed early and had a good nights sleep. Day 4 Allegra and Todd are still discussing the issues of the conference over coffee in our room. As they did late last night. Today the bus takes us to market! It's a bit of a drive, but it's fun to see the country side. Very dry. Camels here and there. By the time we get there it is quite busy already. There are these huge walls with big arched doors to get in. Outside the walls people are selling everything. From Barf laundry soap to jewelry, household items, spices, home made goodies and so on. Our escort/translators told us to go through the doors, and that's where most of the carpets and robes were. And the telpek hats, necklaces for the horses, some old silver decorated tack we all admired but knew we couldn't take out of the country. After market, we went to the historical museum. It was a great building and we had a guide from the museum. Her English was great, and her passion for history even greater. The things I remember most fondly are the miniature recreations of Nissea, beautifully done with painted backgrounds and several other early settlements. Looking at those small scale fortresses I could just picture life there, a 100 years ago or 3000, it almost doesn't seem to matter, things don't change very fast in these parts. The vitrines with the ceremonial dresses and saddles and tack, the biggest carpet in the world, the stuffed wild life, tigers, leopards, all kinds of big cats. Incidentally Geldi has lost 2 foals this year to tigers. His mares with his stallion roam the hills. Unfortunately you are not allowed to take pictures in the museum. Then we went to see a mosque, just recently built. For dinner we were invited by one of the breeders again at a restaurant. Again we had a lovely meal, while entertained by belly dancers. Funny concept since most of the foreign conference attendees were women. We all had our turn with speeches, which got better and more touching as the week progressed. But I must say, it was a great group of people. And they had delicious fresh fruit juices that night, I dared to try the vodka in it, very good indeed ! Day 5
This is the big day! The national day of the horse, races all day, entertainment with dancers and singers, food vendors. It was already pretty crowded in the stands when we got there. We where seated in the VIP area just above the row of Turkmen dressed in traditional clothes, all wearing their telpeks. In this section which is in the center of the hippodrome, with below us the winners circle, above us the private viewing room, all the concrete tables were covered with rugs, and decorated with fresh flower vases, and we had chairs to sit on. The TV crew was there and the national hymn was played, as Janardag and another horse were standing on the track. Then they were brought to the winners circle and given a carpet which they tried to put on their back. Each time they reared the crowds went crazy, which was a lot, the carpets didn't last long. There were a lot of races planned for the day. I saw Tanya from the airplane and she didn't know when her horses were on, the races didn't follow the program. It is quite a site, beautiful horses, the roaring crowd, horses jumping big fences next to the track. Justin Tait from the Brittish Embassy was kind enough to go buy us some programs. The winners come to the circle and receive a carpet. The jockey has it rolled up over the horses neck and rides back to his stable like that. We had lunch in the private viewing room again. Jerry, Todd and I decided to visit the stables at the opposite side of the track. We walk along the track and in between races on the track. It is hard. The sand is coarse and compact, with little rocks mixed in. The stables are made of concrete. Isles are wide, the stalls are roomy, the floors concrete. They do have a little dusting of sawdust. The sawdust must be expensive here in the desert. Water comes from the irrigation ditch outside, out of a hole in the line. Young stable boys feed the horses buckets of water at lunch time. They also feed the horses 2 types of whole grain and mustard seeds and a white powder (sugar?). The grain is stored in the feed room, in piles on the floor. We saw some beautiful horses. That night we went to Geldi's house, Sue, Maria, Jerry, Allegra, Todd and myself, and discussed the disagreements we had. Thanks to Geldi's wife he understood our need for artificial insemination and it's importance. We talked about how to set up the stud book. It was a very fruitful time. Geldi is a great man, passionate for the breed, and a good business sense and understanding. We also had our first sweets served, puff pastry filled with custard and a cake, chocolates and tea. Day 6 We went to the hippodrome in the morning. Allegra, Sue and I walked the stables again, ooing and aahing over the horses. They gave us the race programs from the day before with all the results hand written in. The afternoon we were on our own, finally a chance to explore! Allegra opts to catch up on sleep. The thing that always surprised me is how European some of the people look. And some times dressed quite westernly in mini skirts and tight Tee's. And to my 5 year old son I reported that there are no toy stores in Ashgabat. Until I found the little mall where the internet cafe is. How exciting, sending home an email...but the doors where locked and the room empty. There was a children's store up there with mostly clothes and some toys and baby items. I found the Russian market with a huge indoor area where perishables are sold. Time flew, and I returned to the hotel to get ready for our last dinner sad but true. Our crowd had diminished, some people had left for home already. Again we had a great meal, with many toasts, and gifts given to our host ( this happened almost every night ). Allegra had the honor of tasting sheep brain. Day 7 Our last morning! Sue and Allegra went to see Geldi's stallion Djanali, who was retrieved from the herd in the mountains for them to see. I decided I had to take my chances and go see Keramately, the stallion I would love to have one more time, Maria came with me to translate. I asked if I could ride him and they were very hesitant, but agreed in the end. He is as magnificent to ride as he is to look at. We also drove to were he keeps his mares and showed me one he'd like to sell.
We went back to the hippodrome where the others where already in Geldi's office finishing up discussing the last details on the new foundation. Geldi also gave us each group pictures of us all, a bottle of Vodka, brandy and wine, a box of chocolates and a box of dried fruits and nuts. Then he took us to market were he bought us all hats, a robe a bag and a horse necklace. Then he took us to lunch at an open air cafe under the trees, and we had delicious barbecued food. We said our good-byes, and the bus took us to the airport, playing it's tune for the very last time. Going through customs was a bit of a hassle, we had Todds carpets with us, he didn't have the time to get them approved by the museum before he left, Allegra's felt horse blanket got a strange look. Then we had to check in and pay for being overweight. And overweight I was! The holding room was a whole different scene then in London, as if we had stepped through the door to India. Then I remembered the words of one of the French translators who works for Total oil, one time this plane was so crowded 6 people had to stand in the kitchen. We made a pact that the first one in would save seats for the rest. The doors opened and people ran to the plane! A man from England going home for his one month off working on a oil tower in the Caspian Sea took pity on me and carried my paintings for me, while I hauled my camera bag stuffed now with precious bottles, one of which was already leaking. We all made the plane, said our good-byes in London and Allegra and I got a hotel room together. England is expensive! So we ate a sandwich at the bar and I called home. The next day we helped each other with the numerous heavy bags we had to the airport were Allegra flew home and I went back to Amsterdam, Germany The next day I caught the train to Hanover, Germany and Siggy picked me up. She has her old stallion Perchat and broodmare Dongula who she boards in a beautifull old farm 10 minutes from her house. She has a house full of information about the AT's, tapes and stories. And she breeds hunting dogs, and has many of them, jumping up and down and all around. We did a lot of talking, she gave me lots of photo's and information and copied tapes for me. She had a bag ready for me with 20 of her books I had ordered for America. We visited a friend to whom she sold one of her babies. Traffic jams were so horrendous we cancelled our plans to go visit Sabine Topfer-Gebert and Birgit and Edwin Bauerle. I was pretty tired as it was, and there just wasn't enough time. So instead we talked, ate nice lunches, and still the time flew. When I left I had two heavy bags, to add to my already full bags waiting for me in Holland. The train was packed and all the seats taken, I found a fold down seat in the hall way, and stuffed the bag with the books underneath it. About over half way (6 hour train ride ) I realised the books are holding the seat up, meaning I'm smashing them!!! Luckely Siggy packed them well, with lots of padding and there was no damadge done. At my friends place in Holland I repacked everything, she made me weigh them and declared me nuts, it would be cheaper to by my own jet to get the stuff home she said. I checked in early and not once did anyone comment about my bags, I didn't have to pay overweight charges, nothing broke or leaked and my video and pictures came out good! It was an unforgettable trip. Back at home I couldn't help but compare my 2 mares with the horses I saw in Ashgabat. Their sheen is hard to see. Compared with the horses in Ashgabat their summer coat looks like a winter coat. So fine was the hair on the horses over there, I had to touch it to believe it, as if painted on. Maybe some day I'll succeed in importing a horse from over there...altough it might hate it over here, the rain in the North West, ice in the winter, cold summer nights, and no mustard seeds... |
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