Culture and the Arts -- Article 01
STEPPE BY STEPPE WITH BORIS
Every year, in celebration of their nomadic traditions, they hold a cultural festival, the Jangariada, a kind of Mongol eisteddfod, named after the warrior hero of a Kalmyk epic. In song and verse, weird ululaic renditions of the exploits of the great Jangar ring out across the boundless steppes; and feats of archery, javelin throwing, wrestling and lassoing are performed. Sheep, munching contentedly around the yurt tents, are slaughtered. And there is vodka. But the great centrepiece of the festival is the horse race to end all horse races: a 35-mile flat-out gallop across the steppes, completed in scarcely more than an hour and a half. It is a cavalry charge of epic proportions, for which men, women and boys train all year, competing in 20-mile races far out in the wilderness for the right to represent their region. The race is a siren call to horsemen across the flatlands. Somehow, I heard it on the Sussex Downs, and resolved to answer the call. Just getting to Kalmykia demands reserves of guile and stamina to find a way through the Soviet-style bureaucracy. Finally, permission to enter the state was granted by the president himself, Kirsan Ilumshinov, with the further promise of a personal audience. The promise of a white Volga that would meet us at the airport, however, came to nothing, but at least we found rooms in a hotel in Elista, the capital. They were a little spartan, admittedly, and it was several days before the secret of hot water was revealed: it was available, in buckets, from the babushka down the corridor, who could also provide early morning calls by shouting from the end of the bed at the top of her voice, emitting a noise like a bullhorn. In the hotel's bar and restaurant, regarded as the epitome of chic, there was vodka galore. The prospect of a European riding in the Jangariada proved to be exciting news - some doubters thought it a little ridiculous. How could it be possible? A demonstration of the Lester Piggott seat (shortest possible stirrups, bum in the air) attracted great interest and a spirited rival version by a huge Kalmyk who referred to himself as Budmar - "Me Bad Boy". To prove his point, he ordered several platters of caviar and vats of wine and vodka, with serious consequences for his mount, a chair. A table of Buddhist priests looked on tolerantly, lining their stomachs in preparation for the conference they were to attend the next day. The following morning we were greeted by an overcast sky, an interpreter - a Kalmyk student - and a representative of the president's press office, who announced, with great charm, that almost nothing was immediately possible, nor was likely to be in the near future. A horse to ride in the race began to seem an unlikely prospect. But there is a racecourse in Elista, with horses in the stables, a stand, and a weed-strewn trackmarked out in an erratic way with logs and string around its perimeter. The horses were not Newmarket types, to be sure, but they were still horses, not the hard-bitten ponies of the steppes that work all day with the sheep and cattle. The stables were arranged in long barns, their central aisles cool and swept, while the boxes had earthen floors with a meagre covering of shavings and sweet-smelling hay. In the tack room, next to the lair that served as an office for the stable manager, there were bridles with eggbutt snaffles, some with running martingales, and leather saddles from Moscow and Rostov-on-Don, where there is serious racing. From various doors along the way peered curious heads, equine and human. Who were these strange people who had come to see them? Some ragged childrengathered in corners to watch what would happen. Put the fellow on a horse and see what happens appeared to be the plan. First, a good-looking seven-year-old chestnut stallion was produced, whose fate by all accounts was to be a show-jumper. Next, a sweet thoroughbred yearling bay filly, with cow hocks and an odd-looking near fore; a granddaughter of the French stallion Behistoun, she had come down from Moscow. Then a bay mare was led out and saddled up, and it seemed time to make a fool of myself. There was a misunderstanding regarding the length of the leathers - they clearly thought that all modern Europeans ride like Frankie Dettori, with their knees underneath their chins. The mare was kind and walked well on a long rein, so that it was possible for me to leave the assembled group of onlookers; a Kalmyk jockey with the air of a man who knew what he was doing, rode alongside me on a coltish chestnut. The mare appeared to enjoy her outing, comfortably falling into an easy canter, light on the hands and very decently ignoring the chestnut, which was making a meal of it. After an hour she was back in her box with her pride, and mine, intact. I received assurances that the following morning there would be a specialist distance horse waiting for me, ready to take on the great challenge of the Jangariada. Horses were being shipped in on the back of open trucks to prepare for the race. Russian trucks are formidable, with high chassis, monstrous snouts and growling engines. In the back of one was a camel, its humps showing above the tailboard and its head stuck over the cab. Many hours later he was discovered eating one of the felt yurts, the peak within comfortable reach of his slavering mouth. The racecourse was beginning to fill with tents of Kalmyks from outlying regions, each decorated with distinctive displays. Over at the stables, the horses were settling in, each embodying the hopes of its district. The course for the race had been marked out across the steppes, and it was time for a preliminary inspection. For a fee, one of the horse breeders who had come into town offered to drive us around. His name was Bassan and he was already solid with drink, his impassiveness as broad as his shoulders. The start of the race was on the edge of town, just past the prison. Bassan lurched the Jeep off the road and steered towards the interminable landscape, featureless but for a line of telegraph poles that stretched out to nowhere. "Here," he announced with portent, "this is where it begins." There was nothing there, no marker or sign, just a track that disappeared into a great unknown. For the first time the prospect seemed chilling - this was going to be no merry chase around a sylvan Fontwell Park. Bassan stamped on the pedal and the Jeep roared off down the track. The ground was bone-hard, and made the vehicle racket along with fantastic jarring jolts. Bassan was in no mood to ease off, as if to prepare us for what lay in store the next day. After about 10 miles, he screeched to a halt. "If you win tomorrow, we'll slaughter an ox and drink for three days," he declared. We'd covered not a third of the course. Then he was off again, gunning along the track as if the hordes of Genghis Khan were on his tail. An hour later he breasted at speed the rise leading to the crumbling walls of the racecourse, where the race was to end, and drew up by the stables. He said nothing for a moment; then grinned, shook his head and stepped into the dust cloud surrounding his Jeep with an enigmatic expression. Our interpreter took it to mean that each man was responsible for his own fate, which did not bode well. There followed a meeting with the organiser of the Jangariada, conducted with the utmost pomp and dignity. It took place at dusk in the centre of the track, cohorts to our right and left, as if we were discussing the rules of engagement for a great battle to be fought the next day. We were reminded of the remarkable history of the Kalmyk people, of their journey from the Mongol lands far to the east, of their culture, their nomadic husbandry, their plight at the hands of Stalin and, above all, of the significance of the race the following day. It was impressive stuff. But it was growing cold and many of the assembled group disappeared into their tents. Everything the organiser said was true, something well understood by Ilumshinov, who has skilfully played on the Kalmyk national identity to bolster his popularity. He knows that after the battle of Stalingrad Stalin shipped the entire Kalmyk population to Siberia, 300 miles to the north, as punishment for their supposed collaboration with the Germans, and that only half of them came back alive. There is a monument to this genocide on the south side of town, facing out into the wilderness, and not far from Ilumshinov's own self-aggrandising Chess City, a weird model village that would sit easily in Swindon. Ilumshinov has, through his support of the chess world and the expenditure of a sizeable portion of his state's GDP, earned himself another term as president of Fide, the international chess federation. He also sponsored the Kasparov-Fischer match to the tune of $1m, purportedly from his own pocket. Quite how this 36-year-old native Kalmyk came by his wealth - amounting to billions, he claims - in a state poor even by Russia's standards is hard to fathom. The promised interview with him did not materialise: first, he was reported to be in Minsk and then in Sydney for the Olympics. There was more bad news to come when the director of the racecourse, himself a former steeplechase jockey (he rode in the 1986 Pardubice in Czechoslovakia), regretfully announced that my horse had not arrived. It was a bitter blow. I pleaded, cajoled, tried not to weep. Finally, he smiled, and agreed to let me ride his own horse, but warned that I should take care of it since it was not fit. I promised him that my hands were like silk, that his horse wouldn't even know that he'd been in a race. "Yeah, yeah," his face said, "I've heard all that before. Just take care of him." The evening wore on. Improbable deals were suggested by the men in the bar, chiefly involving the export of illegal caviar, while I was voted the Housewives' Choice on the dance floor. Decorum was impeccable, but they certainly enjoyed themselves. The great day dawned, cool and sullen. At the stables, horses were being groomed, tunics unpacked, fires being lit by the tents while the tethered sheep looked on in ovine ignorance. A stable groom gingerly led the way to the box of the racecourse director's horse. "Be careful when you go in," said the groom. "He bites." That sounded promising - a tiger of the steppes awaited me. The door swung open. There in the box stood a surly and malevolent grey, ears laid back, a veritable Boris of a horse, with thick shoulders and cojones you could play football with. There had clearly been a mistake; I turned to the groom, who had taken several steps backwards. Out of the corner of my eye I saw Boris swing his head towards me. Luckily, I got my elbow up into his teeth before he could get any purchase on flesh. He jerked his head back at the parry, but then stood back, content with this opening skirmish, like a boxer first tasting blood in his mouth and looking forward with relish to the fight ahead. You'll hear more of this, he seemed to be promising. Outside, horsemen were milling around the tents, while the camel disdainfully sat on a carpet - there was no doubt that he intended to eat it, and was trying to hide it. Bunting fluttered in the wind; children, dressed in outlandish costumes, ran back and forth. The churlish Boris was led out and saddled up, and then proffered by the groom, who was clearly curious as to what I would do next. I checked the girth; it was a move Boris resented and he quickly let me know. But once I was in the saddle he was solid beneath me, or possibly asleep. The saddle was comfortable, the leathers again a little short but easily adjusted (Boris resented this, too). Then we tried to take a few steps forward. Squatting in the shade of the stables, three young Kalmyk boys, each wearing a bandanna and tunic, watched with interest. Boris disappointed them. He proceeded agreeably in the right direction, stopped when I asked him, and sighed heavily, quite uninterested in the lean and fleet racehorses circling about us. On the course, the field was wheeling around, ready to canter in a parade in front of the stands before being led out on to the steppe for the start. In all, there were 54 horses competing. There were men with gnarled, weather-beaten faces, young boys and several women - half the field dressed in tunics, the rest in whatever clothes they probably woke up in, some with boots, some with gym shoes or sandals, many without saddles but all bearing a cloth with a number on. It was a circus sight, all of it lost on Boris, who had turned his head to sniff my foot a couple of times and was now thinking of other things. The field moved off at a trot, then a canter, then a gallop, with shouts and cries from riders and onlookers alike. Boris perked up; he was enjoying himself, and shouldered aside several in his path, even trying a playful buck. Unfortunately, he took away the back legs of a light bay on his nearside, which stumbled, throwing the young boy who was riding him bareback. I grabbed the back of the boy's shirt, heaved him back on, and was rewarded with a nervous smile - and this wasn't even the start. The stakes were high. The winner would receive the sensational prize of a Russian four-wheel drive; second, a fridge; the third would take home a horse as a trophy. I wondered if fourth place might garner me a hen. A two-mile walk still separated the field from the edge of the steppe and the start of the race. The riders around me chatted amicably enough, possibly about the price of sheep, until Boris kicked an innocent-looking gelding, which he clearly felt was encroaching on his path. I seized the moment, and hit him hard several times on his quarters in a tight turn. There were warning shouts from the other riders, which I took to mean that I should leave him alone. Actually, I had already been told that it was perilous even to show Boris a stick, let alone hit him with it. As it turned out, he was unruffled. If he felt the stick at all, he didn't begrudge it. I began to realise why he was so dear to the director's heart. At last we reached the plateau. At the front of the pack stood a ramshackle, moustachioed man barking instructions as if we were in the weighing room before the Grand National. The riders began to concentrate, muttering incantations to their horses. Then the tide swept forward and submerged the starter, gathered to a rush and charged. The game was on. To his credit, Boris proved to be a rock, but not much faster. He preferred a kind of sedentary, comfortable motion, covering the ground with dignity and a fearsome knee action. This was easy on the hands, even a pleasure, despite the dirt being thrown up in the headlong flight. We went on like this for a while, perhaps a mile or so, as small boys sped past us, cocked up like weasels over the mangy withers of their mounts, bouncing and smiling, with their coats and tunics flung out to the wind behind them. It was exhilarating, and I shouted out to a passing rider, just for the hell of it. He shouted back, but his words were blown away across the steppe. We were going a decent clip at this point, certainly as far as Boris was concerned. His locomotive powers were more diesel than high-octane. But already the field was thinning. Off to the right one horse careened away into the middle distance, before coming to ahalt, solitary and panting; the rider's silhouette was slumped forward, his legs dead and dangling. The image lasted no more than a moment as a horse checked and stumbled in front of us. Boris neatly changed legs and went past with a yard to spare, no doubt to accommodate his girth rather than my leg. This was going tidily enough. I seemed to have beneath me, if not pace, then at least resolution. We had settled into a good canter, two or three other competitors were within a hundred yards ahead of us, and the leaders blistering a dusty trail perhaps a furlong beyond. Most had fallen away; I was now in the company of riders with grim determination, their horses breathing regularly even as they skipped over a fault in the ground. They were fabulously agile and sure-footed. It had something of the feel of a good five-mile point across open country, except with another 30 miles to go. The cloud of dust kicked up by the leaders' group was beginning to disappear into the distance; I asked Boris to quicken a little in order to stay in touch. The response was immediate. Some truly terrible sounds began to emerge from beneath me, a kind of sobbing and heaving and gasping. It seemed Boris was coming to the end of his tether. He pulled himself up within a few yards, like a disabled half-back shuddering to a halt. I dismounted, loosened his girth and went up to the front end. It was a sorry sight. His head was down, his eyes rolling, like an exhausted clubman who has been asked to run for a bus rather than take his usual taxi. Oh God, I thought, what have I done? The whole thing was a charade, of course, a sort of Russian joke. When Boris had worked out that I was no longer on his back, he lifted his head, nudged me in the chest and looked around. We were alone, with nothing between us and the distant horizon. But then I saw, lying low in the landscape, the squat shape of the prison, which I knew was no more than a mile or two from the racecourse. We set off in that direction, the reins looped in my hand, Boris walking companionably beside me. Had a hawk seen us, hovering high in the huge sky, it might well have wondered what our purpose was. It seemed we had none. The solitariness of our situation heightened a kind of surreal camaraderie that I now felt for Boris. He might have been a Russian general, deserted by his men in a terrible battle, wandering in an empty no man's land but curiously content with his lot. I was touched. His feet kicked at the scrub, sewn with wild lavender, that sent up a heavenly smell. His ears were forward, his belly swung to his gait. I admit that I kissed him. He was surprised. By walking back directly to the prison we were cutting across a large segment of the full course, which formed a circle. After three-quarters of an hour of our idyll on the plains we found ourselves ahead of the field and just a mile and a half from the finish. At this last turn there was a hollow and a small grove of trees. It was a good place to lie low. Sooner than expected, the dust cloud appeared, far down the railway tracks. The shimmering figures of two, three, four, then five horsemen became clear. There was barely time to tighten Boris's girth - with more groans - and get on board before they were upon us. The five leaders came round the bend in a pack, still galloping, the horses soaked in sweat, their riders wild-eyed and pale. Boris reared up like a bear, wheeled round and set off in pursuit. There was a chance that we might make it to the finish with the pack. It was a forlorn hope. Even after a lazy walk, and his rivals exhausted after nearly 35 miles of galloping behind them, he couldn't keep up. As we reached the racecourse, there was just time to see, at the far end, two horses flash past the post, neck and neck. The third had careered off the track and was rudderless in the outfield, its rider helpless to steer any longer. Two onlookers grabbed the horse and dragged it over the line, where the rider fell to the ground almost unconscious. It was heroic. They carried the winning jockey from his horse, a good idea since he couldn't walk. He looked no more than a boy, but was, in fact, Vladimir Berukaev, an 18-year-old from the Ketchenerovsky region, 200 miles away. He was flung up on to the shoulders of his admirers and borne to his gleaming prize, the four-wheel-drive. Family and friends crammed in around him as he stroked the gear lever and fondled the steering wheel. Press cameras flashed in his exhausted and proud face. But not even his pride could conceal the fact that this was his first encounter with a driving seat. Back on the course, as a flurry of wind flung up the thin soil, Vladimir's horse was being walked around, his joints stiffening up but remarkably cool to the touch. Music blared out over a Tannoy system. The minister of culture, there to present prizes, was jostled aside by the press of onlookers. The few sheep still around began to look nervous. Only the camel was unconcerned. He'd seen it all before. At seven the following morning, the racecourse was empty, but still it had the feeling of an arena that had seen great glory. The tents had gone, and weeds and rubbish covered the infield where they had been. Over in the stables stood the winning horse, cool, disinterested. The truck to take him home arrived, its driver falling out of the cab in a stupor. Boris was in much the same condition as when I first met him. I bent down to feel his legs - they were cool and hard. He smelled my back, thought about biting out my backbone, but instead neatly, and kindly, kneed me in the balls.
by Thomas Rees, Saturday, April 14, 2001
Far, far away, beyond the Caucasus mountains and on the steppes that stretch to Siberia, lies the autonomous state of Kalmykia. It occupies almost 30,000 square miles of the vast lowlands of the Northern Caspian Depression, and is peopled by a remote tribe of Mongols from Tibet. They roamed the region from the start of the 16th century, finally settling 100 years later south of the Volga, where they herded cattle and sheep.