A Magpie’s Tale: Ethnographic and Historical Perspectives on the Kazakh of Western Mongolia 9781800737815

Table of contents :
Contents
Illustrations, Figures and Maps
Notes on Transliteration
Introduction
Part I. First Introductions
Chapter 1. Beginnings
Chapter 2. Relations
Chapter 3. Ölgii Town
Chapter 4. Drive to Soghakh
Chapter 5. First Days with the Family
Chapter 6. Two Horsemen
Chapter 7. Night-Time and Morning Rituals
Part II. Transitions
Chapter 8. The Young Accountant
Chapter 9. The Letter
Chapter 10. The First House in the First Street
Chapter 11. Thinking about the Past
Chapter 12. The Age of the Market
Chapter 13. Thick as Cream
Chapter 14. Saving Graces
Part III. Decisions
Chapter 15. Living Arrangements
Chapter 16. The People Who Move
Chapter 17. The Winter Slaughter
Chapter 18. Silver Flower
Chapter 19. French Extraordinaires
Chapter 20. Daughters-in-Law
Chapter 21. The Young Uncle
Part IV. Into the Past
Chapter 22. The Shaman’s Son
Chapter 23. The Closure of the Steppe
Chapter 24. The Mongols of the West
Chapter 25. New Year’s Eve
Chapter 26. Kazakhs and Western Mongols
Chapter 27. Night-Time Walk
Chapter 28. Cossack Warriors and Settler Pioneers
Chapter 29. A People Frozen in Time
Chapter 30. Four Brothers
Part V. New Futures
Chapter 31. Across the Border
Chapter 32. A Scar Necklace
Chapter 33. A New Homeland
Chapter 34. Family Ties
Chapter 35. Kazakh Rebel Fighters of the Altai
Chapter 36. One Hundred Per Cent Kazakh
Chapter 37. The Red Terror
Chapter 38. Kurban Ait
Chapter 39. Mongolia’s Rich Cradle
Part VI. Broken Ties
Chapter 40. Stuck
Chapter 41. The Strong-Willed Girl
Chapter 42. Dimpled Bakhytbek
Chapter 43. A Short Break
Chapter 44. Broken Crown
Chapter 45. The Visitor
Chapter 46. Journey to Kazakhstan
Part VII. New Worlds, Old Ties
Chapter 47. Two Worlds
Chapter 48. Brave New World
Chapter 49. A First Wedding
Chapter 50. Elnara’s Journey
Chapter 51. An Autumn Wedding
Chapter 52. Conclusion: A Magpie’s Tale
Bibliography
Index

Citation preview

A Magpie’s Tale

Lifeworlds: Knowledge, Politics, Histories Series Editors: Narmala Halstead, University of Sussex Eric Hirsch, Brunel University London Knut Rio, University Museum of Bergen Lifeworlds: Knowledges, Politics, Histories aims to capture anthropological explorations of contemporary social life around the globe. The series editors welcome manuscripts on pertinent happenings and movements of people in diverse contexts with an emphasis on fine-grained ethnography. An openness to the study of knowledges, politics and histories – to small-scale as much as large-scale contexts – is central to making sense of peoples’ habitations. Thus, the series is interested in the tensions between scales of social life; lifeworlds are as much about the intimacy of social relations (including in digital worlds) as wider socio-political institutions including the law and state. The series invites studies that explore connections as much as tensions between the social and the political and how this unfolds in contemporary settings. Volume 1 A Magpie’s Tale Ethnographic and Historical Perspectives on the Kazakh of Western Mongolia Anna Odland Portisch

A Magpie’s Tale Ethnographic and Historical Perspectives on the Kazakh of Western Mongolia

 Anna Odland Portisch

berghahn NEW YORK • OXFORD www.berghahnbooks.com

First published in 2023 by Berghahn Books www.berghahnbooks.com © 2023 Anna Odland Portisch

All rights reserved. Except for the quotation of short passages for the purposes of criticism and review, no part of this book may be reproduced in any form or by any means, electronic or mechanical, including photocopying, recording, or any information storage and retrieval system now known or to be invented, without written permission of the publisher.

Library of Congress Cataloging-in-Publication Data Names: Portisch, Anna Odland, author. Title: A magpie’s tale : ethnographic and historical perspectives on the Kazakh of western Mongolia / Anna Odland Portisch. Other titles: Ethnographic and historical perspectives on the Kazakh of western Mongolia Description: New York : Berghahn Books, 2023. | Series: Lifeworlds : knowledges, politics, histories ; volume 1 | Includes bibliographical references and index. Identifiers: LCCN 2022036425 (print) | LCCN 2022036426 (ebook) | ISBN 9781800737969 (hardback) | ISBN 9781800737815 (ebook) Subjects: LCSH: Kazakhs—Mongolia—Social conditions. | Kazakhs—Mongolia— History. | Kazakhs—Social life and customs. | Mongolia—Social conditions. | Mongolia—Ethnic relations. | Kazakhstan—Social conditions. | Portisch, Anna Odland—Travel—Mongolia. Classification: LCC DS798.422.K39 P67 2023 (print) | LCC DS798.422.K39 (ebook) | DDC 305.894/3450517—dc23/eng/20220830 LC record available at https://lccn.loc.gov/2022036425 LC ebook record available at https://lccn.loc.gov/2022036426

British Library Cataloguing in Publication Data A catalogue record for this book is available from the British Library

ISBN 978-1-80073-796-9 hardback ISBN 978-1-80073-781-5 ebook https://doi.org/10.3167/9781800737969

Since brass, nor stone, nor earth, nor boundless sea, But sad mortality o’ersways their power, How with this rage shall beauty hold a plea, Whose action is no stronger than a flower? O, how shall summer’s honey breath hold out Against the wrackful siege of battering days, When rocks impregnable are not so stout, Nor gates of steel so strong, but Time decays? Oh fearful meditation! Where, alack, Shall Time’s best jewel from Time’s chest lie hid? Or what strong hand can hold his swift foot back? Or who his spoil of beauty can forbid? O, none, unless this miracle have might, That in black ink my love may still shine bright. —William Shakespeare, Sonnet No. 65

Contents

List of Illustrations, Figures and Mapsx Notes on Transliterationxi Introduction1 Part I.  First Introductions Chapter 1.  Beginnings

7

Chapter 2.  Relations Chapter 3.  Ölgii Town Chapter 4.  Drive to Soghakh Chapter 5.  First Days with the Family Chapter 6.  Two Horsemen Chapter 7.  Night-Time and Morning Rituals

12 14 19 25 33 36

Part II.  Transitions Chapter 8.  The Young Accountant Chapter 9.  The Letter Chapter 10.  The First House in the First Street Chapter 11.  Thinking about the Past Chapter 12.  The Age of the Market Chapter 13.  Thick as Cream Chapter 14.  Saving Graces

43 48 51 60 63 72 77

Part III.  Decisions Chapter 15.  Living Arrangements Chapter 16.  The People Who Move Chapter 17.  The Winter Slaughter

87 90 96

viii



Contents

Chapter 18. Chapter 19. Chapter 20. Chapter 21.

Silver Flower French Extraordinaires Daughters-in-Law The Young Uncle

100 107 109 113

Part IV. Into the Past Chapter 22. The Shaman’s Son Chapter 23. The Closure of the Steppe Chapter 24. The Mongols of the West Chapter 25. New Year’s Eve Chapter 26. Kazakhs and Western Mongols Chapter 27. Night-Time Walk Chapter 28. Cossack Warriors and Settler Pioneers Chapter 29. A People Frozen in Time Chapter 30. Four Brothers

119 122 125 128 131 135 138 145 148

Part V. New Futures Chapter 31. Across the Border Chapter 32. A Scar Necklace Chapter 33. A New Homeland Chapter 34. Family Ties Chapter 35. Kazakh Rebel Fighters of the Altai Chapter 36. One Hundred Per Cent Kazakh Chapter 37. The Red Terror Chapter 38. Kurban Ait Chapter 39. Mongolia’s Rich Cradle

159 163 168 172 175 178 181 186 190

Part VI. Broken Ties Chapter 40. Stuck Chapter 41. The Strong-Willed Girl Chapter 42. Dimpled Bakhytbek Chapter 43. A Short Break Chapter 44. Broken Crown Chapter 45. The Visitor Chapter 46. Journey to Kazakhstan

199 201 204 208 211 216 220

Contents



ix

Part VII. New Worlds, Old Ties Chapter 47. Two Worlds Chapter 48. Brave New World Chapter 49. A First Wedding Chapter 50. Elnara’s Journey Chapter 51. An Autumn Wedding Chapter 52. Conclusion: A Magpie’s Tale

227 231 238 242 245 249

Bibliography Index

253 260

Illustrations, Figures and Maps

Illustrations Illustration 3.1. Street in Ölgii. Illustration 4.1. Street at the back of Ölgii’s open market. Illustration 4.2. The road to Ulaankhus. Illustration 5.1. Houses in the village of Soghakh. Illustration 5.2. Working on a felt carpet. Illustration 7.1. Tea brick. Illustration 9.1. Soghakh Valley in summer. Illustration 10.1. Border region with the Russian Federation. Illustration 11.1. The old post office building in Soghakh. Illustration 12.1. A block of ice props up a bed. Illustration 13.1. Graveyard, Soghakh Valley. Illustration 15.1. Apartment building in Ölgii. Illustration 16.1. Selling syrmakh outside Ölgii market. Illustration 38.1. The mosque in Soghakh. Illustration 44.1. The crown of a yurt (shangyrakh). Illustration 48.1. Winter house, Bayan-Ölgii province.

15 20 22 27 29 37 49 56 61 64 75 88 93 187 215 232

Figure Figure 0.1. Family tree of close family members who appear in the book.

xii

Maps Map 0.1. Central and Inner Asia. Map 10.1. Bayan-Ölgii province (aimag). Map 23.1. Historical map showing Manchu and Russian expansion into Central and Inner Asia, c. sixteenth to eighteenth centuries.

xiii 55 123

Notes on Transliteration

Kazakhs who live in Mongolia use the Kazakh alphabet based on the Russian Cyrillic alphabet, but with nine additional letters. These additional letters accommodate particular Kazakh sounds. There is a hard ‘g’ in Kazakh, for instance, and a softer, more guttural ‘gh’. Kharlyghash, the eldest daughter in the family, has such a soft ‘gh’ in her name. It is pronounced a little like the ‘ch’ in the Scottish ‘loch’. There is also a soft and a hard ‘k’ in Kazakh. The soft ‘k’ is here transliterated as ‘kh’ (some authors transliterate it as ‘q’). ‘Kazakh’ is written with two soft ‘kh’s, because in the Kazakh language there is something called vowel and consonant harmony: certain letters go together, their sounds go together. You would not, normally, have a soft and a hard ‘k’ sitting together in one word. However, in European-language literature, it has become convention to use ‘Kazakh’ (rather than ‘Khazakh’), and I have kept this for ease of reading. Otherwise, I use ‘kh’ and ‘gh’ to denote soft forms. In the main I follow the transliteration system outlined in Öztopçu et al.,1 but diverge in a few instances. I use ‘j’ instead of ‘zh’ in words like jyz and names like Erjan. I use ‘y’ (and not ‘ü’), and an accented ‘ĭ’ for the second ‘й’ in the alphabet (usually used directly after another vowel). I therefore spell the Kazakh word for ‘house’ yĭ. This means, I’m afraid, that there are some double uses: I use ‘y’ for both the Kazakh letter ‘ү’ (as above in ‘house’) and the letter ‘ы’ (here it should be clear from the rules for vowel harmony which letter ‘y’ replaces); and I use the plain ‘i’ for both the Kazakh ‘и’ and ‘і’. The Kazakh term for ‘yurt’ is therefore spelled kiiz yĭ. I hope this will not cause confusion for those readers familiar with the Kazakh language. Mainly I have made these choices for ease of reading, and have tried to make the names of people and places easier to recognize and become familiar with.

Note 1. Öztopçu et al., Dictionary of Turkic Languages.

Figure 0.1. Family tree of close family members who appear in the book. © Anna Portisch.

Map 0.1. Central and Inner Asia. Bayan-Ölgii province (aimag) is indicated in grey. The Kazakh are the largest ethnic minority in Mongolia, constituting just under 4 per cent of a total population of approximately three million. Most Mongolian Kazakhs live in Bayan-Ölgii aimag. © Anna Portisch.



Introduction

W

here the borders of Mongolia, Kazakhstan, Russia and China meet lie the Altai Mountains. Deep in the mountains on the Mongolian side there are lush, green pine forests, canyons, glaciers, snowfields and dark green, almost black, alpine lakes whose icy sheets only begin to thaw in summer. Here in the high pasture, a few Kazakh families take their herds of sheep, goats, horses, yaks and camels to graze in the warm summer months. In winter, they move down to the valleys and towns where most people live. When I met Adilbek and Elnara and their children, they had only just come back from their summer place further up the valley. They had taken down their felt-covered yurt, with its large round crown, seventy roof poles and large lattice walls, and packed it all away in a small storehouse next to their winter house. Their winter house lay snugly in the valley, next door to a cousin’s house and just metres from a clear stream that stretched its silver fingers across the green valley floor. This book is the story of my encounter with Adilbek and Elnara and their family and of our year together in the little house by the stream, along with stories of four generations of this Kazakh family.

Structure of the Book The book alternates between my experiences of living in western Mongolia and stories about the family members and the historical context of the events that shaped their lives. In this sense, there are two parallel storylines that feed and shed light upon each other. The book begins and ends with events in the recent past. It gradually delves deeper into the past, following first the parents’ generation, and then the grandparents and great-





A Magpie’s Tale

grandparents’ generations, contextualizing these individual lives within the broader history of the region. In the final two parts of the book we return to events of the recent past. Part I of the book tells the story of the flight of Adilbek and Elnara’s daughter, Ainagyl, with her 1-year-old son, from her husband, with whom she lived deep in the countryside. The chapters in Part I go on to describe my first encounters and time with the family and to introduce the family members. Part II introduces the father, Adilbek, who worked for the local collective during the state-socialist period. It describes his youth and education in the Mongolian capital Ulaanbaatar, his marriage to Elnara and the birth of their first child. It also begins to tell the stories of their children growing up in the 1980s and 1990s, the time of the collapse of the Soviet Union and the macroeconomic crisis that affected the wider region. Part III looks at the decisions of two of Adilbek and Elnara’s children about their future. In this context, it describes how, in the 1990s, thousands of Mongolia’s Kazakhs decided to ‘return’ to the recently independent Republic of Kazakhstan. This part continues the story of Ainagyl and looks at issues around being a young woman in Bayan-Ölgii, and at the position of the daughter-in-law within the social hierarchy of her husband’s home (marriage is virilocal) and the choices that were open to Ainagyl. Part IV begins with my encounter with Elnara’s older brother and his stories about the family’s past. Here the book delves deeper into the past to look at the historical circumstances that brought tens of thousands of Kazakhs to seek refuge in western Mongolia. This section of the book introduces the grandparents’ and great-grandparents’ generations. It sketches the historical background of the position of the Kazakhs, who from the 1600s came under increasing pressure from a Western Mongol Confederation and later from Russian expansion into Central Asia.1 Part IV ends with the story of the great-grandfather, Khairat, who in 1916 was drafted for military service in the Russian army during the First World War. Part IV also takes up issues of alcoholism, violence, loyalty to family, the practicalities of conducting fieldwork in the depths of winter and popular notions of Inner and Central Asian peoples as ‘unchanged by modernity’ or ‘without history’. Part V continues the story of the great-grandfather, Khairat, who fled into Chinese warlord-ruled Xinjiang and later into western Mongolia. The story of the great-grandfather is set in the context of the changing historic status of western Mongolia and the power struggles in this region between the Soviet Union and China. It also describes early-twentiethcentury Mongolia (Khairat’s new homeland), the political and social upheaval of the late 1930s and Khairat’s eventual death during Mongolia’s

Introduction





political purges. This part concludes by considering the tragic consequences of collectivization campaigns in Kazakhstan from 1928, the failure of the first Mongolian campaign and the creation of Bayan-Ölgii province. Part V also continues the stories of Adilbek and Elnara’s children. It tells the story of one of their sons’ experiences of studying in a neighbouring, predominantly Mongolian province, and that of another son’s decision to emigrate to Kazakhstan and join relatives. Finally, it describes a visit to the local mosque and the friendly administrations of the local imam, whose own grandfather perished in the purges of the 1930s. Part VI looks at some of the difficulties faced by the children who moved to Kazakhstan, and returns to the birth of Adilbek and Elnara’s first child and the ways that adoption affected the family. In so doing, it looks at the role and responsibilities of the youngest son. Part VI also explores the practice of bride kidnapping through the story of the experiences of a close cousin. It continues the story of the eldest daughter with her visit to London. Finally, it describes Elnara’s journey to Kazakhstan for her son’s wake. Part VII draws the different storylines to a close. It ties the story of the parents’ generation together with the story of the eldest daughter’s visit to London, her marriage and finally her mother’s long journey to her wedding. Due to the shortness of the chapters in the book notes sections can be found at the end of each part. The personal stories that form the core of this book have come out of my fieldwork, and in contextualizing these stories, I have drawn on secondary historical sources, primarily in English, to give the reader a sense of the confederations, empires and peoples and their shifting roles in the historical, geopolitical and societal events that have shaped this region. The book is not intended as a comprehensive historical study, nor is it an anthropological study focused on a period of time in the recent past. Rather, by focusing on individual people’s lives across generations, the intention is to give a sense of the scale of the historic changes that have shaped this region by tracing these from parents’ to their children’s and grandchildren’s generations. The book is based on anthropological fieldwork, and combines ethnographic, personal and historical perspectives. It does not aim to engage with theoretical debates within anthropology. It is my hope that a wide readership will be able to relate to the issues brought up in the book, regardless of background, discipline or area of specialization, and that the stories of family members going back four generations will bring to life the human side of the fascinating and turbulent history of this area. By including ethnographic, historical and personal perspectives, the book tries to capture and convey what it means to experience a very different social world as an





A Magpie’s Tale

anthropologist and to grasp some of its complexity. For this reason, the book is not chronologically structured, but follows the path of discovery that I embarked upon through fieldwork and my subsequent relationship with the family. I have also endeavoured to show what everyday life was like in this remote Mongolian region and to relate with honesty and, I hope, humour some of the difficulties of conducting anthropological fieldwork, and of accommodating an anthropologist who is conducting fieldwork. Most of all, I hope to show the things that connected us across linguistic, cultural, religious and historical differences.

Note 1. I use the term ‘Central Asia’ to refer to the region popularly known as the ‘Stans’, that is, Kazakhstan, Kyrgyzstan, Tajikistan, Turkmenistan and Uzbekistan. This vast region gradually came under Russian influence and colonial rule and eventually became part of the Soviet Union. I refer to ‘Inner Asia’ as regions that were incorporated by the Manchu into their empire, that is, Outer and Inner Mongolia, Xinjiang, Tibet and ‘Manchuria’. (See Atwood, ‘Is There Such a Thing’ for a discussion of the many and changing definitions of ‘Central’ and ‘Inner Asia’).

PART

I

 First Introductions

1



Beginnings

T

here are two views from a winter’s night that I remember particularly clearly. In my printmaking classes I have tried to make prints of them. Etchings with starry skies made of French chalk. The light from a window on the snow painted with stop-out varnish. The darkness of the rough mountainsides rendered in the tiny dots of wax that make up aquatint, and then, like those rugged mountainsides, the plate was deeply bitten and eroded. But the prints lack the depths of the darkness, and they never look cold enough. That night, we were going to bed as darkness fell. Ainagyl and her mother Elnara were already in bed. Ten-year-old Bakhytbek was brushing his teeth vigorously. The father was sitting on the side of his bed, tuning the radio to catch the evening news in Kazakh. Amanjan, the young uncle, was making up his bed on the floor in the middle of the bedroom between the other beds. I had made my bed next door in the living room. I went outside to go to the toilet. I wore my woolly hat and heavy sheepskin-lined coat against the cold. A few strands of my hair fell out from under the hat. As I stepped outside the front door, breathing in the night air, little crystals immediately began to form on the loose strands of hair. There was no moon and the air had an opaque, inky feel. I let my head drop back, looked up and was surprised to see a million stars. A thin, cloudy veil of light was stretched across the sky, holding innumerable minuscule sparkling dots just above this little house, above this valley in the Altai Mountains. Making my way blindly, looking into the darkness but not seeing, I moved towards the makeshift enclosure that had been erected around the hole in the ground that was the toilet. Halfway there, I bumped into something solid yet animate in the darkness. It was the sleeping yak. It had been sitting close to the pen, quite still, probably fast asleep. We both started and





A Magpie’s Tale

the yak raised itself heavily from its sitting position, its hairy body, humped back and sharp horns rising to an unexpected height. I rushed past and whispered my apologies. A guard dog started barking not far away, setting off others. A chorus of vicious barks lasted a little while but then died out. On my way back to the house, my eyes had adjusted to the darkness. I stopped in the now quiet darkness and looked at the house. It was a small mud-brick house. The neighbours’ house lay in darkness behind it. There was a pool of light on the ground beneath the living room window. Inside I knew a candle was burning on the table and the last embers from the coal fire were dying in the stove. A thin streak of smoke drifted quietly from the chimney in the still night air. The ground was covered with a thin layer of snow that reflected the faint light of the starry sky. The mountains on either side of the valley seemed to absorb any light and stood like a great wall of darkness. The house in its solidness, its little dark compact presence on the greywhite valley floor, with a thin streak of smoke streaming from the chimney, looked like a small steamship forging ahead into the darkness on an arctic sea. As I stood there a little distance away, I felt suddenly moved. I thought of everyone getting ready for bed inside the little house and realized, I love them! Those are the two views. The Milky Way and the house. It was not yet midwinter. Perhaps it was a night like that when, a few years later, Ainagyl fled from another house, her new home, in the mountains near the Russian border. The moon must have been out, otherwise it would have been difficult to see and to walk with any confidence. This is how I imagine it might have been: the moon shone on the plain in front of the house. Ainagyl had put on her lambskin-lined waistcoat and wrapped it around her son, Erkin. He was still sleeping in her arms, his head rested on her shoulder, his warm cheek against the hollow of her neck. Over the waistcoat she had put on a winter coat. Twisting her arm back to reach the sleeve and put on the coat with Erkin sleeping in her other arm, she felt momentarily that she couldn’t breathe for the pain in her side where she had been kicked. Her cheek felt swollen around her eye and she had a throbbing feeling at her temple. Erkin had slept most of the evening and had not stirred at the noise. As she had got Erkin out of bed and dressed him, she had worried that he would wake up and cry. If her mother-in-law woke, she would not be able to leave. If her husband, Älemkhan, woke, he too would stop her from leaving. But Erkin had flopped against her body as she picked him up. She moved slowly and gingerly through the house, partly because of the pain in her chest and head, partly because of the weight of Erkin, who was a big

Beginnings





1-year-old boy. Each step away from the bedroom was small and fragile and tentative. She knew where the floorboards creaked. She passed the sideboard cupboard with the dinner bowls still sitting, stacked up, waiting to be washed. She put a couple of lumps of dried curd in her pocket for Erkin. She was shaking inside. Her hands were shaking. She knew how the front door stuck and then gave. She felt for the handle and gently pushed. The ground outside the house was rough and pebbled and however softly she trod, each step made an audible incision in the stillness of the night. The guard dog stirred and sniffed the air and then buried his nose between his forepaws again. She knew the terrain from her daily comings and goings around the house. She had walked far on the plain in search of dried cowpats and horse manure, which they used as fuel in the stove. She had travelled in cars to the village in the valley below, Kök Moinakh, but she had never walked the distance. She knew it was some twenty kilometres. The landscape ahead of her was entirely still. The moon cast a grey light over the plain and hills beyond. She walked a few steps to get out of the orbit of the house and the front door. The cold air ripped into her lungs when she breathed and made her stop. She stood a little way from the house, with Erkin attached to her under the coat and the unborn child forming a gentle bump that supported Erkin. In the moonlight her silhouette was like a pillar with a softly rounded attachment at the front. For a moment it was uncertain whether the attachment would topple the pillar. This was how the three of them appeared from the bedroom window. Then the curtain fell back into place. No one came after her. Ainagyl walked through the night. She passed two houses, those of their immediate neighbours some kilometres down the hill. She kept her distance so that she would not attract the attention of the guard dogs. She was scared of the dogs and she worried that if the neighbours saw her, she would be made to stay with them, to wait for morning and be brought back home. She slipped several times in the dark on the pebbled ground and fell with Erkin. He woke and cried but she was surprised how quickly he was calmed and reconciled to being carried. Her side ached where she had been kicked. It was a spot just above the baby, and the ache seemed to extend down across her stomach in waves. Her hip ached from walking and from carrying Erkin. It normally ached if she walked far or ran. With the first pregnancy, and then the second, her hips ached most days. Now, with each step, the pain seemed to extend and stretch down through her legs. She walked short distances and then rested. In this way she crossed the moonlit plain and began the descent into the valley below. The mountainsides stretched ahead of her, and in the distance began to slope down towards the valley. She walked in the light of the moon, along the edge





A Magpie’s Tale

of the shadows thrown by the hills. This was the area where her husband Älemkhan hunted. He had brought back foxes and hares, and on one occasion a wolf. The wolfskin hung on their wall next to his bed like a trophy and a testimony to his skill as a hunter. She knew, too, that these were the hills where Amanjan, her uncle, had encountered a wolf and had fallen from his horse. At the time, he had gone into the mountains in search of the family’s camel, which on a whim had gone off with a herd of wild camels. In his search for the camel, Amanjan had come upon a lone wolf. His horse had taken fright and reared up, throwing him off. Amanjan had only told the family about his encounter days after eventually getting home. He wasn’t proud of having fallen off the horse. He was also puzzled. He had scrambled to his feet to recapture the horse and by the time he had got back in the saddle and looked around, the wolf had disappeared. Perhaps they had each been as startled by the encounter as the other. Ainagyl knew these hills were also home to jinns and spirits. The spirits of the dead inhabited certain areas, and jinns played tricks on lone travellers and made them lose their way. They made travellers see things that were not there, and they could conjure alien sounds that sent shivers down your spine. Even people who were familiar with the area and had lived there all their lives might be led astray and lose their way. Spirits roamed at dusk and at dawn. Ainagyl knew that at night-time the spirits of the dead came to visit the sleeping. They appeared to them in their dreams, trying to tempt them to come with them. They were lonely. They wanted the company of the living. They missed their parents, their siblings, their children. If you agreed to follow them in your dream, you wouldn’t wake up. To venture out into the night was to venture into the realm of such beings. Passing below the shadowy hills, Ainagyl thought she heard a horse approach. She crouched in the shadows. Her heart pounded so, she thought it would explode in her chest, and her breathing was so laboured she thought it must be audible for miles around. But the sound of the hooves grew distant and eventually disappeared, and she wasn’t sure if what she had heard had just been her own heart pounding in her chest. The jinns and the spirits who inhabit the hills above Kök Moinakh helped and guided her, and the stars and moon lit her way. She opened the door to her relatives’ house in Kök Moinakh as they were having their morning tea. She looked half-dead and she was covered in bruises. They sat her down by the stove and put more coal on the fire. They gave her warm tea and started making soup. They rubbed Erkin to warm him up and gave him hot soup. They didn’t rub Ainagyl because of the bruises. She slept after that.

Beginnings





Ainagyl stayed with her relatives in Kök Moinakh for a few days. Then she and Erkin got a ride for the forty or so kilometres down the Soghakh Valley to her parents’ house. Altynai, her younger sister, said Ainagyl’s arms were blue and black when she got there. Her rib was broken, her face was swollen. Elnara nursed her daughter and cooked for her and they all told her she could stay with them from now on, she need not go back, she must not in fact. Ainagyl would not be any trouble to them. Altynai pleaded over the telephone with the eldest sister, Kharlyghash, then living abroad, to persuade their parents not to allow Ainagyl to go back to her husband. Ainagyl’s husband Älemkhan came to Ulaankhus a week or so later. He went to the police to report an incident. He stated that his cousin had paid them a visit, had got drunk, shot his horse and beaten Ainagyl. After reporting this to the police, Älemkhan went to collect his wife.

2



Relations

A

inagyl was one of seven or eight siblings, depending on how you look at it. There is a photo of most of them that I really like. It is a black and white photo and is a little blurry. I don’t know who took it. It is from the late 1980s or early 1990s. To be honest, I’m not entirely sure who everyone is. The children are not all there, and there are some extra family members. Elnara sits in the middle, with a scarf over her hair. Adilbek sits on the left-hand side in a dark coat, with short cropped hair. There is not a grey hair on his head. Ainagyl stands next to her mother, on the right. She is maybe 9 or 10 years old. She is smiling. Her face is oval and her eyes are like her mother’s almond-shaped eyes. I think it must be Jibek, Ainagyl’s little sister, on her mother’s lap. Altynai, Ainagyl’s younger sister by one year, is pushing in from behind her father, and behind her is Bauyrjan, their younger brother. Erjan, a tall teenager, stands at the back on the right. You can see that he looks like his mother and father. And he looks like his older sister Kharlyghash. They have the same eyes, the same eyebrows. Kharlyghash, the eldest daughter, is perhaps not there. I can’t work out if it is her in the white hat, behind her father. Or perhaps she was away at college at the time when the photo was taken. Amanjan is not there. Then there are some aunts and cousins, an uncle. It looks a little like Erbol, a cousin of Adilbek’s, who was their neighbour in Soghakh, on the right, in his younger days, but I may be wrong. I’m most certainly wrong about a few of them. Behind them all, you can see a large photo frame in several sections hanging on the wall. The frame probably holds more than a hundred family photos. Photos of parents and grandparents, children, cousins, uncles, aunts. The photos you can see are just the top layer. Underneath this top layer are just as many, if not more, that cannot be seen. When new photos

Relations



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came to the family, the frame would be taken down from the wall and the photos would be rearranged, new ones added and old ones tucked behind others. Like this one, my favourite photo of the family gathering. I first saw the photo some ten or fifteen years after it had been taken, displayed in the same frame, which was by then reduced to three sections – a triptych of family photos. I asked Kharlyghash, ‘Who is that in the white hat?’ ‘And who is that waving?’ and so on. She patiently explained who was who to me, and now I have promptly forgotten and can only recognize some of them. I have forgotten some things, and, sitting here in London years later and scrutinizing the photos, I have found new things that I didn’t see or understand the first time I saw them. Writing these snippets of what I understood and often misunderstood of this family that I came to love is a little like entering a big, old house. Standing before the task, I think of its rooms as discrete and easy to identify. Here is the front room, here are the bedrooms, the attic and so on. Each room has its own story attached to it. But as I enter the hallway, I hear something; I turn and go through a door and stand, silently, in an empty room with echoes resonating, some loud and some faint. As my eyes adjust to the darkness, I start to see that there is a pattern in the wallpaper, or that there is in fact a door in the corner that I never noticed before, which leads to another room I never knew existed. I am alone in this house, after all these years, because they have all left, of course. Ainagyl and Kharlyghash, Erjan, Amanjan, Bauyrjan, Jibek, Altynai, Bakhytbek and their parents Elnara and Adilbek. They have carried on with their lives and live in different houses, having studied, travelled, married, had children, grown older. They’re not sitting around dwelling on the past. Some of them have left altogether, and they sometimes seem to me to inhabit this house more so than the living. These are stories about Ainagyl and her family: her siblings, her parents, a few cousins, some uncles and aunts, and what I have heard about her grandparents and great-grandparents. Some of them are based on my experiences and some on what I was told. Stories as someone else remembered them or related them. This happened, then this. They are all of them my reconstructions in some way, of course. And it is this intertwined mesh of people and lives and events that forms these stories. These are relations that somehow also came to involve me, and came to affect all of our future paths.

3



Ölgii Town

I

came to Bayan-Ölgii, the westernmost province of Mongolia, in August. There was beautiful sunshine every day. On first impressions, the small province capital of Ölgii was dusty and dry, sunny and empty. Strangely quiet. For a few days I stayed with relatives of some friends, who were kind enough to take me in. Within a few days, a friend from Kazakhstan, who was at university with me in London, knocked on the door. Nazgyl had arrived via another route, directly from Kazakhstan. We had arranged to find each other and she knew I would be there before her, but I was surprised that she had been able to find me without so much as emailing or calling me to find out where I was staying. On arrival, she had simply asked around and found out where the foreign or yellow-haired girl was staying. She had arranged through an acquaintance in Kazakhstan for us to stay in an office building belonging to the Red Cross on the outskirts of Ölgii. The building was vacant for the summer and we could stay in one of the offices on the condition that we watered the plants. The Red Cross building was a square concrete two-storey structure dating from the 1990s. It sat on the southern perimeter of Ölgii, looking out over the mountains. A few steps led up to the heavy double door and you entered the building into a large entrance hall. The space was cool and dark, the only source of light being a single window where the light filtered through a net curtain. The light was faintly reflected in a large artwork in hammered metal celebrating International Women’s Day. The metal surface showed two women in flowing Kazakh-style dresses framed by the sun and floating over a lotus flower, holding up a bouncing, healthy baby. A small, pleasant, sunny kitchen on the ground floor looked out over grey and brown backyards surrounded by mud-brick walls, and in the dis-

Ölgii Town



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Illustration 3.1. Street in Ölgii, 2005. © Anna Portisch.

tance were the open market and the hospital. Also on the ground floor were a toilet and adjoining shower cubicle, which I’m ashamed to admit I still took for granted. At night a friendly caretaker slept on a felt carpet on the floor in the entrance hall. He came in the evening after having dinner with his family at home, but during the day he was usually out and about. The building felt strangely hollow. Upstairs were the offices. The windows were south-facing and the sun shone full on windowsills brimming with potted geraniums, succulents, and other big and small plants. I found Ölgii disorientating despite the fact that the town centre was not big and the streets were laid out in a perfectly square urban grid, with the main streets converging and extending from the central square. The Red Cross building was on the perimeter of this grid, beyond which were the steppe and the mountains. A growing, more organically shaped neighbourhood extended from this grid and was composed of small streets or dirt tracks lined by residential mud-brick and log houses. This area was almost impossible for me to find my way around. The central square was flanked by the local government building, a large single-storey building fronted by flower beds and two busts, one of Lenin and one of Sühbaatar (1893–1923), Mongolia’s socialist revolutionary hero, popularly cast in the West as ‘Mongolia’s Lenin’. At the top of the square sat the white, gleaming ‘BU Palace’, with mock Doric columns

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A Magpie’s Tale

topped by a triangular pediment (‘BU’ standing for Bayan-Ulgii, as spelled in one variant of Kazakh–English transliteration). Opposite the government building stood the museum, a large modern grey cube decorated with large white-painted geometric patterns, with windows on the ground floor only, making it resemble a mix between a wartime bunker and a cake with elaborate icing. The general post office sat on the south side of the square. All the important buildings were gathered in one central location, like stocky elderly gentlemen sitting around a table, discussing this and that, watching life go by. There weren’t many shop signs, and at first glance the dusty dirt tracks and streets seemed empty and strangely quiet. A solitary Lada would make its way down a street, a motorcycle perhaps, on an errand. It was August, and as I was to find out, most people who were able to left town during the summer months for the countryside. Statistical censuses are taken in the depths of winter in Mongolia. There is a considerable difference between a town’s population in summer and winter. On one of my first days in Ölgii, as I was crossing the square, I was joined by a friendly-looking lady, who introduced herself as Maya. We managed to understand each other by a combination of gestures, laughs and our combined Kazakh and German. Did I know Lottie? The Swiss girl. ‘Yes, Lottie! You must know her.’ No, I lived in London, in another country. But I wanted to learn about felt carpets? Well, so had she! She had come to Bayan-Ölgii to learn about textiles. Even if I didn’t know Lottie, I ought to. Did I want to practise making felt carpets?! So had Lottie! Maya was genuinely surprised. She offered to bring me a small piece of felt that I could practise on. Maya herself made felt and embroidered crafts to sell in the museum shop. ‘Just over there’. She pointed to the museum building. ‘Come and see me any time.’ She would bring a piece of felt in the next few days. The next day, when I came out of the Red Cross building I noticed a dusting of snow on the peaks of the mountains to the south-west of Ölgii. When I bumped into Maya in the square again, it was the first thing she commented on: ‘It has snowed! Already. Have you seen?’ She pointed to the mountains. I was silently jubilant that I could understand what she was telling me. I smiled. ‘Yes, I’ve seen it.’ She gave me a piece of felt to practise on and explained briefly what to do. I took it home and sat stitching in the sunlight in the quiet Red Cross building with the August snow glinting on the distant mountaintops. That evening there was a power outage. We were prepared for this to happen, and Nazgyl had stocked up on candles from the market. She was out for the evening attending a performance. As it was getting dark, I was sorting through my things. I had brought a small album of photographs to

Ölgii Town



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Mongolia, on the advice of a senior anthropologist, who had explained that it was nice to show the people you met a part of your life, your family, your home. That evening, in the empty, quiet building I took out the photo of my mother. I leaned it against the wall on a shelf and put a candle in front of it. As I struck the match to light the candle, the lights went out. The candle flared and lit up my mother’s smiling face in the surrounding darkness. I went to the window and looked out over the quiet, dark neighbourhood. There were two internet cafes in town, one on the avenue leading from the south side of Ölgii to the central square and a second one inside the general post office building. The post office building had its own generator, and was mostly open even if there was a power outage. People would bring their chargers to the post office and charge their mobile phones while they were sorting out other things. One morning, as I sat in the post office internet cafe writing to a friend, someone next to me asked, in English, if I was new to Ölgii and what I was doing there. I looked up and saw a tall, bearded young man. He introduced himself as John. He was an American Peace Corps worker stationed in the village of Buyant to the south of Ölgii. He was in Ölgii for the summer, as it was livelier, more connected. I was struck by this. ‘Livelier’? A few days later, John invited me to his flat to meet a young Kazakh woman who he had been working with. When she arrived, Kharlyghash seemed somewhat annoyed. She had come several times to meet John but he had not been in, she said in perfect English. She was staying with an aunt, who lived a good long walk away. As if impervious, or perhaps used to it, John ignored this and explained that the two of them had been working on a research project on local ‘environmental ethics’. As part of this project, they had collected people’s stories and tales about animals and nature. Kharlyghash had helped with this project and translated all the stories. In an attempt to strike up a conversation and show interest, I asked her what sort of stories they were. Kharlyghash seemed ever more annoyed. Then she reeled off one of the stories. It was about the creation of the first human by the gods: a long, long time ago, before there were humans, two gods set out to create the first human, but they could not agree what humans should be like. One wanted to make humans in the image of a black raven. The other objected. Humans would be evil through and through. That would not do. He wanted to make humans in the image of a white swan. Beautiful and good. But the first god objected. Being only good, humans would soon perish. They argued over this for some time. In the end, they settled on this: they made humans in the image of the magpie. Both black and white, capable of good and evil.

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A Magpie’s Tale

Kharlyghash looked at me intently. I said, ‘What a great story. I didn’t know that story.’ As I said this I thought, ‘Of course, how obvious, how could I have!’ I really did like the story, but Kharlyghash seemed ever more unimpressed. I wanted to say something that would interest her, and so I kept chattering without knowing what I should say, wanting to make a good impression. ‘I had a magpie when I was little’, I carried on, thinking all the while that this was totally irrelevant. ‘My father found it one day when it had fallen out of the nest and the cats were about to get it. We tamed it and I used to play with it. It used to follow my mother around the house because she was the one who fed it. She stuffed food down its throat with her little finger. It left droppings on the floor as it followed her around.’ I rattled on. Kharlyghash looked at me seriously. John eventually intervened and explained that I was hoping to live with a Kazakh family and that apparently I wanted to learn about the textiles they made for the yurt. ‘Fairy tales, felt carpets. Whatever next?’ I imagine Kharlyghash thinking. John introduced the idea that I might visit Kharlyghash’s family. He had stayed with them for a few weeks in their summertime yurt and had loved it. And so it came about that I was to visit the family. Kharlyghash said, ‘Sure, come and see me in Ulaankhus’, the village where she lived and worked at the local school as an English teacher. From there she would take me to the village of Soghakh, where her parents lived.

4



Drive to Soghakh

U

laankhus was some forty kilometres away, across the mountains northwest of Ölgii, or a three to four-hour drive. This would be my first trip alone in a ‘public transport’ car. On the agreed day, I went to the open market in Ölgii. In a dusty corner was the ‘bus station’, if you like, though it was served mainly by Russian-made cars and vans. Rows of four-wheeldrive jeeps, small Ladas and minivans in grey, brown, olive green and oldfashioned ‘Madam Blue’ coffee pot blue filled the dusty transport hub and jostled around one another. Many of the cars had brightly coloured curtains in the windows, tied neatly to the side. Some had pink, red and yellow plastic flowers hanging from the rear-view mirror, some amulets or scented cardboard cut-out trees that had long since stopped smelling of pine trees. Most of the cars had signs in the windows that I, by this time, was able to read: vans headed for Ulaanbaatar, cars for Kök Moinakh, Tolbo, Tsengel, Sagsai, Buyant and Ulaankhus. Having located the driver of a car headed for Ulaankhus and established that he knew where Kharlyghash’s house was, I duly sat down in the back seat and waited for the car to leave. After a little while I asked when we would leave. The driver said he would go when the car was full. I had no notion of how long this might take. I asked if it was all right for me to come back in ten minutes – he wouldn’t leave without me? That was fine, he smiled. I went to the little bakery opposite the car park and bought a bag of sweet, freshly baked buns. I stayed and chatted with the man who ran the bakery for a little while, but felt I should probably stay near the car in case it left soon. I sat on the back seat of the car eating my buns and looking at people coming and going. Along the little street that led into the market from

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A Magpie’s Tale

the main street, a row of people were crouched selling milk in old plastic bottles. On the other side of the street, a row of single-storey wooden cabins housed different shops – one being the bakery. As an extension of these wooden cabins stood a row of old containers that also functioned as shops. One such shop sold nails, screws, bolts, stripy blue tarpaulin by the metre, glue, string, rope and tools. Tables were set up outside the container, with boxes and wares laid out neatly. A little further along was a dusty square with a dozen pool tables sitting behind a row of stalls selling lightweight, movable stoves and chimney pipes of various descriptions. Groups of young men were busy playing pool, seemingly oblivious to the dusty, lively comings and goings of the market. Now and then there was an enthusiastic outburst from one of the tables. In a corner of the square, a cow stood grazing in a half-full skip. In the course of a few hours, more people came to talk to the driver. When would he leave? Did he have space? Gradually more passengers made themselves comfortable in the car. It was another four hours before the car was full. The wide back seat that I had occupied on my own for a good few hours now seated three adults squeezed in tightly, plus two sitting on laps. I was on an elderly lady’s lap, hunched low, one leg squeezed against the door. A young woman was similarly sat on a lady’s lap next to me in the back of the car. In the front seat sat an elderly gentleman with a

Illustration 4.1. Street at the back of Ölgii’s open market, 2005. © Anna Portisch.

Drive to Soghakh



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toddler on his lap. Between the driver and the elderly gentleman, on the wooden gearbox, sat a young boy. A sheep was wedged between the bags in the space behind the back seat (its legs tied together). On less bumpy stretches it would venture to nibble what coats or collars it could reach. All in all we were ten passengers. The driver, I later found out, was Bolat. He and Kharlyghash had gone to school together, and had been in the same class and learned their ABCs together. As we set off down Ölgii’s potholed (paved) roads, Bolat put on a tape of Kazakh pop songs. The sound was crackly and slightly fuzzy, but you could clearly make out the singer’s voice belting out a love song. We stopped at the petrol station to fill up the tank. Some passengers got out to stretch their legs on this final stop before we left town. We were eventually on our way. At the edge of town, the paved road stopped quite abruptly, as though someone – an urban planner? – had drawn a square shape on the pebbled brown valley floor, marked it as ‘Ölgii’ and then rolled out straight paved roads in a grid. At the edge of town, the roads simply stopped. There was a little bump as we literally left town and continued along a meandering web of dirt tracks towards the hills. A little distance from the last row of mud-brick houses, we passed Ölgii’s ‘Welcome Dombyra’ – a tall, lonely looking, rusty welcome sign in the shape of the Kazakh two-stringed ‘lute’, the dombyra. Along the neck could be read the Kazakh words ‘Ölgii City’. The head of the dombyra had wings, rather than tuning keys, upon which were written Kosh keldingiz – ‘Welcome’. Several passengers asked who the stranger was. ‘Who’s the yellow girl?’ Where was I from and where was I headed? Bolat didn’t know much. As I’d only recently come to Bayan-Ölgii, there wasn’t much to report. Apparently I was stopping at Kharlyghash’s house. Neither was there much to be gleaned from me, since my Kazakh was very limited and I could barely understand (or hear) the questions that were being put to me. I simply didn’t know what types of questions to expect. I smiled and crouched uncommunicatively on the lady’s lap, trying not to squash her too much while also trying to avoid my head bumping against the ceiling. I didn’t live anywhere yet, I didn’t really know anyone yet, I didn’t belong anywhere. How could I introduce myself? The author Alexander McCall Smith, in a talk held at the Foyles bookshop in London, once commented that in the old days, people travelling on trains in the UK would introduce themselves and shake hands with all the people in their carriage. Well, this is exactly what would happen in Bayan-Ölgii. Everyone would introduce themselves, though perhaps not shake hands – something not really done. In Bayan-Ölgii, it was in fact quite unusual to come upon a total stranger. On meeting someone, you

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A Magpie’s Tale

would naturally ask what family they were from or who their in-laws were. And the likelihood was that if you didn’t recognize them, you would nevertheless know someone in their family, and perhaps even be related to them in some distant way. We drove past Ölgii airport, a landing strip with a small combined arrivals and departures building. The dirt tracks led us across a brown and grey, rocky, dusty valley towards the mountains north-west of Ölgii. The sun shone on the foothills and clouds created shapes of shadow across the rugged, treeless hills. Once we had climbed the foothills, we drove across a wide, green plain. A large flock of sheep was grazing along the tracks and Bolat grinned as he chased them, laughing as they bounded straight ahead, their fat tails bouncing as they went. We passed only two log cabins in the distance before descending to Ulaankhus. When we got to Ulaankhus, Bolat stopped at each passenger’s house or destination, until finally even the sheep had alighted and I was the only remaining passenger. Bolat then stopped outside a single-storey whitewashed building on the main thoroughfare in Ulaankhus. Without a word, he jumped out and disappeared into the building. I extracted my rucksack from behind the back seat and stood undecided, unsure if I was to follow or whether this was indeed Kharlyghash’s house. After a little while she emerged, smiling. We entered a dark hallway with several doors on either side. Kharlyghash half-disappeared in the darkness in front of me. The building had

Illustration 4.2. The road to Ulaankhus, 2005. © Anna Portisch.

Drive to Soghakh



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in fact, I was later to learn, been built as a guest house during the statesocialist period. The rooms had been good-sized hotel rooms. A door to the left was pushed open and we entered. The room was large and long, with a window at the end that looked out on a small square with a grove of golden birch trees. In the early 1990s, the previously state-owned guest house had been sold off as private property. It was now divided into three sections. One section was occupied by a childless couple in their fifties. A second section was occupied by Kharlyghash and her younger brother Bauyrjan and younger sister Jibek. Bauyrjan and Jibek, then 14 and 15 years old, attended the local Ten Year School, where Kharlyghash worked as a teacher. In fact, she was their English teacher. In the third section of the house lived Kharlyghash’s younger brother Erjan and his wife Tanatar. They had two rooms on the other side of the house, facing the main thoroughfare of the village. Kharlyghash poured tea into bowls for Bolat and me. Bolat seemed in a hurry and sat down reluctantly at the small table, slurping his tea. Kharlyghash and he discussed transport. Bolat seemed reticent and grumpy and Kharlyghash in turn appeared to be quite persuasive. A young woman came in and topped up a water container sitting in the corner of the room. She busied herself, throwing inquisitive looks in my direction. I did the same. She made more tea and put out bread and jam for us. This was Ainagyl, Kharlyghash’s younger sister. When Kharlyghash and Bolat had reached a conclusion (though not an agreement), Bolat stood up abruptly and walked out of the room with a ‘jaraidy’ – ‘all right!’ I looked around the room. It was bright and the walls were lined with wooden panels along which stood several beds. Woven carpets and embroidered wall hangings hung above each bed. A wardrobe stood in one corner of the room and a little stove sat at the other end, with a wok-like pot of water being heated on top. The room was spotless. The beds were impeccably made, the bedcovers smoothed like the surface of a lake with not a single ripple. The beds were cordoned off with woven bands and embroidered pieces hung perfectly straight at the head and foot ends. They were so neatly made that Kharlyghash and Ainagyl perched on the edge of a bed next to each other. I perched opposite. How had the journey been? Would I like more tea? They looked earnestly at me. Ainagyl asked how old I was; was I married? Now I imagine them thinking, ‘What kind of a person is this? Can she learn Kazakh? Why is she interested in felt carpets? How can you write a doctoral thesis about felt carpets!? Is she perhaps really one of those Christian missionaries? Is she picky about her food? Is she aware of how cold it gets? Will she stay for long?’ I smiled. They both returned my smile with

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A Magpie’s Tale

looks of dead seriousness. As we weren’t quite sure what to say to one another, Kharlyghash took down the dombyra hanging from the wall behind her and began playing. She sang a melancholy-sounding song, of which I understood not a word. All the while she looked straight and unwaveringly at me. Kharlyghash had managed to convince Bolat to take us to Soghakh that evening. When he returned, he was annoyed. He had already driven to Ölgii and back that day and didn’t fancy another evening trip to Soghakh. He didn’t like driving in the dark. Besides, he had no one to pick up at the other end. Would he be able to cover the cost of the petrol? Kharlyghash asked if I would consider covering the cost. I said I would. Kharlyghash talked at him animatedly in an older-sisterly tone of voice. He conceded but grumbled and drove in a helter-skelter fashion all the way to the little settlement, some twenty kilometres north of Ulaankhus. With masses of space in the car, the three of us, Kharlyghash, Ainagyl and I, rattled around. Kharlyghash talked at Bolat the whole time, as if hoping she might calm him down a little or distract him from his own grumpiness. We drove north, into a wide valley. There were no trees in the valley itself nor on the mountainsides. As we neared the settlement of Soghakh, we drove past houses scattered across the valley floor, some in clusters and some sitting in isolation. When we came to Kharlyghash’s parents’ house the sun was setting. The last brightness of the day still lingered behind the mountains in the west and cast a reflection of the day, already passed, across the immense blue sweep of sky. In the east the colour and light of the day faded from white to yellow, then pale blue, a darkening blue and finally night. In the west bright pinks and yellows made a last spectacular stand against the inevitability of night. In this encroaching dusk I sat for the first time and looked out the window in Adilbek and Elnara’s living room. The family’s camel had been brought home that evening loaded with hay. Amanjan, the young uncle, had tied its feet so that it would not get up and escape during the night. At his steady pace, he had made it kneel and then sit, and then he had unloaded it. Now it sat, disgruntled, looking out over the steppe, creating a dark silhouette against the fading blue light. In the distance were the mountains, a rough, grey surface furrowed by crevices carved into its fabric. Not a tree obstructed my view, not a bush furnished the valley floor. The stars twinkled, unmoved, with a white sharpness.

5



First Days with the Family

After a brief introduction, Kharlyghash had to leave. In order to get to work the next morning, she had to return to Ulaankhus with Bolat. Kharlyghash was an excellent translator and cultural interpreter. In fact, all throughout the year that I lived there she would work with me, conducting interviews, helping with practical problems and explaining situations and events to me. That first evening, when she left, we were left to our own devices, the family and I, to get to know each other and establish a means of communicating. I felt a little like something the cat had unexpectedly brought in during the night and left on the kitchen floor for the family to discover. They took it kindly. Adilbek began by inquiring if I spoke Kazakh. ‘A little’, I replied. ‘Do you speak Mongolian?’ He brightened at the thought. ‘I’m afraid not.’ ‘Ah’, he said with regret, ‘. . . you see, Peter spoke Mongolian.’ Peter, it transpired, had been an American Peace Corps worker who had worked with Kharlyghash at the school in Ulaankhus. He had spent two years in Ulaankhus, and had left only a few months before I arrived. ‘I speak Mongolian on account of my work, my studies . . .’ Adilbek continued. There was a pause. ‘How about Russian? I can manage some Russian – Strastvuitje!’ he said flamboyantly, with a smile. He had worked with many Russian colleagues and advisors over the years. I replied with my own ‘Strastvuitje!’ and we both laughed. I could manage a ‘How are you? My name is . . .’, but a little beyond that, we were both stuck. I ventured – ‘I only know a few phrases in Russian. I speak English, ehm, and Danish . . .’ (I said this more in an attempt to show that I wasn’t completely inept) ‘. . . and

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A Magpie’s Tale

French! or German . . . ?’ (I had once known a young man from Azerbaijan who spoke very good German on account of having studied in Switzerland) . . . ‘and a little Kazakh.’ And so we were left with this impressive array of languages between us, but only a very small shared window of Kazakh. During the first few months, our mealtime conversations were halting, and often excruciatingly slow. I constantly consulted an increasingly dogeared photocopy of a Kazakh–English dictionary that a kind-hearted professor in Ulaanbaatar had photocopied for me the previous summer. The first evening we made some progress. I was from Denmark. In Europe. But I lived in England. Yes, Danish and English were different languages (not close, like Italian and Spanish, or Kazakh and Kyrgyz). Although both were Indo-European and Germanic languages, yes. I was a student and I hoped to learn to make felt carpets. So far so good. Did I like meat? Tea? I must drink at least three bowls of salty milk tea at each mealtime. Even more if I could manage it. Five. Minimum five cups of tea at each mealtime! It would sustain me. I was welcome to stay with them all year, yes. Amanjan, the young uncle who had slept on the bed, which served as a sofa in the front room during the day, would just sleep in the bedroom next door with them. I would have the front room to myself. I should bring all my things and put my suitcase under the bed, there was plenty of space. There was no need for me to return to Ölgii at all. Should I pay them rent of a sort? ‘No! No, no, no, never. Absolutely not.’ I objected. I was after all an extra person to take care of and feed. It would only be fair. I wanted to contribute with something. No! Under no circumstances would they accept any sort of payment from me. It sounded like I had insulted them. That was that. During the first year of my PhD in London, I had had a Kazakh language teacher, the wife of an embassy employee. She espoused the Grammar First Approach. I had therefore gained a fairly good understanding of the seven cases in Kazakh and the different uses of affixes to express the nominative, accusative, genitive, et cetera. But when I arrived in Bayan-Ölgii, I could only just about say ‘Hello’ and ‘My name is Anna’. I was gratified and surprised to find that some words were the same in Kazakh and Danish – kartop (potato), for instance – being Russian loanwords (that originally come from German). A few Arabic loanwords were also familiar to me, such as kitab (book) and mughalim (teacher). But apart from a handful of terms, there was really no way I could guess the meaning of words, and because I had no prior knowledge of the family, no expectations of what they might be talking about, the meaning of what someone was saying was more often than not totally lost on me. I had no thread to grasp that I might pull to get at the substance of what was being said. I

First Days with the Family



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Illustration 5.1. Houses in the village of Soghakh, 2005. © Anna Portisch.

found later that if I could catch just the general gist of the conversation, or the meaning of one or two key words, I could follow what was going on. This made me realize how much conversations, in any language, rely on prior knowledge, guesswork and assumptions. It still baffles me how a combination of mere snippets of phrases or even words, prior knowledge of a person and of their range of expressions, and the context together enable us to understand each other. I did not have any of these key ingredients of understanding during my first months in Mongolia. In Soghakh, I was surprised to find that the neighbours, Erbol and Saule, happened to have a Kazakh–English language-learning book, published by the Peace Corps. It had been Peter’s, Saule explained. He had left it with them to help their children learn English. The first time I went for tea at their house and was introduced to them, Saule must have found me on the quiet side, and asked helpfully if I wanted to borrow the book. Perhaps it could help me. And so every day I sat with the book and studied new words and phrases. One sunny morning after breakfast, I went outside and sat in the sunshine on the log that lay, like a long bench, alongside the house. Little birds were chirping and the sky was a beautiful clear blue. My back leaned against

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A Magpie’s Tale

the warm whitewashed wall. I was enjoying the sunshine, absorbed in conjugating verbs quietly to myself. All was quiet: men baramyn, sen barasyn, ol barady . . . Then I heard a voice, quietly reading out the very words I was practising, reading with me as if, oddly, I had unintentionally read aloud the words my eyes were seeing and my mouth was shaping. But I hadn’t spoken the words, had I? I looked around. No one was near. There were no windows on this side of the house. The front door was shut. Elnara, Adilbek and Ainagyl were inside the house. Bakhytbek had gone to school. Had I read out the words? I sat for a moment, puzzled, looking accusingly at the birds perched on the wall of the animal pen opposite. After a while I continued reading, my index finger following the words as I read. I heard the words again. There was a pause, then a soft laugh. I looked around again. There was no one! Finally, I looked up. I saw Amanjan’s smiling face. He was lying on his stomach, on the flat roof, two metres above me, looking down over my shoulder through a set of binoculars, over the edge of the roof. He had been up on the roof that morning to turn the hay, which he had brought back a few days before. I laughed in surprise, looking up into his face, framed by the blue sky, bits of hay stuck in his dark hair. Those first few weeks with the family were warm and sunny. We sat outside on the grass, next to the stream, on my suggestion, which in retrospect was an odd one. I never saw anyone else heave their large, heavy half-made carpet or embroidery frame out of the house to sit in the sunshine and work on it. It was slightly exhibitionistic. But for a few days we sat like that, Elnara, Ainagyl, some curious neighbours and I, as Elnara and Ainagyl took it in turns to show me how to stitch on the embellishing cord that holds a felt carpet together. Elnara hoped that I might be good at sewing, since I wanted to learn about felt carpets. It would be nice to have someone around the house who had a knack for sewing. She had worked as a professional seamstress in a workshop in Ulaankhus for many years. The ladies working there had produced a variety of products: embroidered clothes and skullcaps, sturdy Mongolian-style leather boots with pointy toes and felt carpets. Elnara had a Singer sewing machine at home, the exact same model my mother had when I was a child in Copenhagen. It was black cast iron decorated with swirly gold patterns and had a hand crank. I could manage simple things like turning up trousers that were too long, darning, and mending moth holes, but I was no seamstress. I could not knit or crochet. I wasn’t really any good at embroidery. What was more, I wanted to learn to make felt carpets not because I wanted to be an expert

First Days with the Family





carpet-maker. I wasn’t too concerned about whether I would excel at this task, which I had come halfway across the world to learn. I wanted to learn the many different techniques that went into making these carpets, in order to piece together a picture of the many components that were part of this skill. I wanted to think about and document the learning process involved. I must have made for an odd pupil! What was more, I was obviously nearly beyond the marriageable age (I was 31 years old at the time), but in terms of learning elementary sewing and needlework techniques, I was only really as good as a 10-year-old beginner. Many months later, when Kharlyghash and I interviewed the home economics teacher at the Ulaankhus school, she told us both reproachfully that if she’d been my teacher, she would have made me work much harder and made sure I’d become much better at these techniques. But as it was, Elnara let me sit quietly with my work, and I was grateful for this. I did not push her to teach me more than she seemed to volunteer. Some of my happiest memories from that year are of sitting in the sunshine in the front room, working on a felt carpet, being part of the goings-on of the household. Elnara showed me the stitches and techniques. In the autumn, she immediately let me take over the work on a red and green carpet that was made up half of felt and half of a sturdy fabric she had bought at the market that summer. She wasn’t concerned that I might make mistakes and

Figure 5.2. Working on a felt carpet while Amanjan experimented with my camera, 2004. © Anna Portisch.

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A Magpie’s Tale

ruin the carpet, or if she was she didn’t show it. She didn’t hover over me to inspect my work. I, in turn, would come to show her my work if I thought I was doing something wrong, and she would help me. The carpet was unwieldy and large. Because the felt pieces were quite thick, they were hard to fold, and it was therefore difficult to reach the middle section. As I focused on the top layer, my stitches turned out to be terribly crude on the back of the carpet. I would often stab my thigh putting the long needle through the thick layers of felt. Just as often, I would drop the thick camel’s hair thread from the needle’s eye, and I sometimes felt that I spent as much time trying to thread the needle as I did sewing. But it was pleasant work. It wasn’t back-breaking. It was useful work that had to be done. It was something that I could do alongside everyone else’s work and in that way it created a space for me within the family. Somehow it allowed me to be part of the household without too much awkwardness, without being so hopeless at something that I would require help or attention all the time. I did try to make myself useful around the house. I began to help Ainagyl with whatever she might be doing. I watched how she did the dishes, warming up water on the dying embers of the morning’s fire. It became my job to clear up and do the dishes after meals. In the morning I would heat water and use a little of it to wash each tea bowl with my fingers, then dry them with the tea towel – a tea towel that served as a general household rag and often as a serviette as well. I remember clearly the first time we had finished an evening meal of bes barmakh, ‘five-finger food’, a feast and a treat that consisted of freshly slaughtered mutton arranged on a large plate. We each had our own section of the plate and we ate using our fingers (hence the name of the dish). It was delicious meat, dripping with fat. At the end of the meal, the serviette-tea towel was passed around the table to the family members, who took it in turns to enthusiastically wipe their hands and mouth. Finally the serviette came to me. They all watched me with smiling faces. My first inclination was to say, ‘I’m fine thank you, I don’t need it’. But my fingers and face were as greasy as anyone’s. I looked at them all and thought, ‘Well, I suppose no one seems to be ill . . .’, and I wiped my hands and mouth energetically. The house was built from mud bricks and logs. It sat by a stream, only a stone’s throw from the neighbours’ house, with the front door facing south, away from the neighbours. Opposite the front door was a pen for the animals, which was built from rough mud bricks. The house consisted of two main rooms and a small entrance room.

First Days with the Family



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When I came to the family, in late summer, they had just moved back to the house after spending the summer near the river some kilometres away in the family yurt. They showed me the huge felt covers for the yurt and its wooden crown, folded-up lattice walls and roof poles, all packed neatly and stored in a shed that adjoined the house to the back. The front door to the house was a padded metal door that led to the little entrance room, a space that was no more than a few square metres. A wooden door led to the front room. It was a bright room with sunlight streaming in through the windows, and the floorboards were painted a sunny yellow, like in most Kazakh winter houses. A low dining table stood in the sun near the window with stools and one upright chair around it. On the wall behind it hung the triptych frame with family photos. There was a bed that served as a sofa during the day, on which I slept at night. The base of the bed had seen a lot of use and obligingly shaped itself into a hammock when you lay down on it. During the day, the bed was covered with a section of red and green carpet runner – the type you would find in Mongolian office buildings. Over the bed, Elnara hung a large embroidered wall hanging (called a tus kiĭz in Kazakh): this was a black cotton piece framed by a red velvet border on three sides, and densely embroidered with flowers framed by heart shapes. It was Kharlyghash’s tus kiĭz, which Elnara hung over the bed for my benefit. ‘Sleeping under a tus kiĭz makes you have good dreams’, Kharlyghash explained. After a few weeks, Elnara took it down again. It wasn’t such a good idea to leave your embroidered wall hangings on the walls over winter in the same room where you did the cooking. In late summer, the stove had stood in the small entrance room, where there was a latch in the ceiling directly above it that could be opened to let out smoke and steam. But now the stove had been moved into the front room where it stood in a corner. It was a low metal stove with rings on the top that you could remove or add depending on the size of the pot being used. In the first few months we used dried dung as fuel. During winter we used coal. Coal dust in particular is not good to expose your tus kiĭz to, repeatedly, four or five times a day all winter, until April. Next to the stove stood a stand-alone washbasin. It was a kind of sink, to all intents and purposes: it had a washbasin with a drain and a tap above it that was attached to a water container at the very top. Water drained out of the washbasin into a bucket concealed inside a cabinet underneath. I thought it was the most ingenious contraption I had ever seen. We used it sometimes, though more often than not an old kettle of warm water would just be placed outside the front door for everyone to wash their hands and faces in the morning and before mealtimes.

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A Magpie’s Tale

The bedroom was large and sunny. Four single beds stood alongside the walls, each with a carpet hanging on the wall behind it and decorated with an embroidered bed valance (tösek ayak). There was a wardrobe in the corner, and the sewing machine was stored here. Everyone’s clothes were kept in suitcases stored beneath the beds, and any mess under the beds was concealed by valances. Adilbek had his own bed. Elnara and Bakhytbek shared the bed next to the warm wall adjoining the front room, where the stove stood on the other side. Ainagyl slept in a third bed and Amanjan a fourth, unless some of the other children visited, in which case he slept on the floor on a couple of felt carpets. Everyone normally went to bed at the same time, as darkness fell. There was a single light bulb in the front room, but the solar panel that supplied the electricity did not work for long. Besides, everyone was tired by eight o’clock. We would lie, each in our bed, look into the darkness and listen to the one-hour-long news broadcast in Kazakh between eight and nine o’clock. One night, when I had stayed with the family only a few weeks, I had just learned the term ‘needed’ or ‘necessary’, as in ‘is it needed?’ Everyone dozed off as the sound of the radio filled the darkness. I lay listening to the Mongolian-language broadcast that followed the Kazakh one for some time. After an hour I decided that everyone else must be asleep, including Adilbek, who normally switched off the radio. Something had to be done or the radio would carry on all night and I would never sleep. I was in the next room and didn’t feel I could intrude on the bedroom space. Besides, I didn’t know where the radio was. I might bump into Amanjan on the floor. I couldn’t be poking around in the darkness in their bedroom. I lay undecided and hopeful for some time, expecting someone to wake up and turn off the radio. Then, as if prompted by something, I blurted out in the darkness, ‘Is the radio necessary?’ Elnara’s sleepy but certain voice replied that it was not, and all was soon still, apart from a mild snoring coming from the bedroom.

6



Two Horsemen

The first school day in September is a day of celebration for the whole community. On that morning, I was quietly rolling up my sleeping bag and tidying my corner of the living room when I happened to look out of the window and saw a motorcycle going past, not far from the house. A sheep gazed at me in a melancholy kind of way as it rode past, irreverently slung over the back of the motorcycle behind the rider. I thought, ‘How funny! To be a sheep and find yourself travelling so fast along the bumpy tracks’, and yet the sheep seemed unperturbed, as if it were quite used to this kind of travel. Later that morning, the whole family walked over to the local Eight Year School for the party. It was Bakhytbek’s school – he was starting in year four. It was also the workplace of a cousin, Gylnar, who worked as the music teacher at the school. Gylnar lived with her parents in Ulaankhus, but during term time she stayed with the family in Soghakh, or sometimes with the neighbours, Erbol, Saule and their children, who were also relatives. Erbol and Saule came to the party too, of course. Their son was in the same class as Bakhytbek and their youngest daughter was a year below them. Erbol worked at the school as a caretaker. It was the school that Erjan and Tanatar had gone to and where they had met. Kharlyghash, Altynai, Ainagyl, Bauyrjan and Jibek had all attended the school. Every year, the first school day was a kind of school fair, community celebration and performance all rolled into one. The whole community was there, and that had also been the sheep’s destination. It was a beautiful, warm sunny day. The school was only a few kilometres away from the house, on the other side of the valley. Parents, relatives, friends, teachers and pupils were all gathered at the school. A stage had

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A Magpie’s Tale

been set up and everyone watched the new schoolchildren entering reception year parade around the schoolyard in their finest suits and dresses, often passed down and a few sizes too big. Everyone clapped and music blared out from a speaker set on the stage. Teachers and the head of the school gave stirring and lengthy speeches. Pupils performed songs and dances. Gylnar, the music teacher, was busy trying to get the sound system to work properly. Amanjan was there helping his cousin. Elnara, Bauyrjan and Jibek were there to see Bakhytbek perform. He took to the stage with a winning smile and belted out his song. Gylnar accompanied him on keyboard. After his performance, Elnara and Ainagyl walked home to prepare lunch. When the performances were over, sweets were thrown at the crowd as a token of good luck (this is called shashuw in Kazakh), and children and adults alike scrambled, laughing and jostling, to pick them up. While the performances had been going on, a couple of sheep had been slaughtered and a meal was being prepared for the teachers, the children who would be boarding at the school, and their parents and relatives. Gylnar needed to go back to our house, however, and we set off together, back across the valley, just the two of us. We had walked for a little while and were coming to the small bridge that crossed the silver stream when two horsemen rode up from behind on either side of us. They talked to Gylnar, looking down at her from high on their horses. I fell behind and watched as they spoke. I couldn’t understand what was being said, but could see that the conversation was becoming increasingly one-way and aggressive. The two young men were harassing Gylnar, but I had no idea why they might be doing so or what they were saying. I had never seen anyone ride up so closely to someone who was just walking along. They towered over Gylnar and seemed to be herding us both along. Gylnar answered their questions in her soft voice, saying ‘No, no’, looking at the ground and waving her hand by her ear as if protecting herself. The horsemen kept riding close next to her and jeering at her, and she kept gently repeating ‘No, no’. Can’t they see she is saying ‘No’? I thought to myself. Why are they bothering her? She is so polite to them and they are clearly intimidating her. I suddenly felt anger welling up inside me at the way they were treating her. When would they stop? She was clearly not comfortable. What did they want? Without thinking, I stopped abruptly and shouted at the top of my lungs, my anger surging out like a wave at the surprised young men. ‘Can’t you SEE she’s saying No!? Are you complete IDIOTS? F**K OFF the two of you! GO! GO!’ I was gesticulating wildly at them, pointing and waving my arms to indicate that they should leave. I was shouting in English (I hadn’t learned how to be rude in Kazakh) but they understood

Two Horsemen



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my meaning. I felt I would have happily punched the two of them had they come just a little bit closer. They looked at each other in surprise, turned their horses and rode off at a gallop. Gylnar let out a little surprised laugh. She looked scared and hunched and yet she was laughing incredulously. She took my arm and we ran across the little bridge and hurried all the way back to the house. She kept looking over her shoulder to see if the horsemen would come back. But we didn’t see them again. Elnara was at home making tea and Gylnar told her what had happened in a hushed voice. She didn’t tell me who the horsemen were. No one tried to explain what had happened. I had no idea whether what I had just done might cause worry for the family. Did they think I had offended the young men, and that some sort of consequence would follow from my actions? Did Elnara think me totally unpredictable and crazy, or did she like me a little better because of what I had done? Did they know I had no idea who these men were or why they were harassing Gylnar? It wasn’t until the following spring that I began to make sense of what had happened on that first day of school.

7



Night-Time and Morning Rituals

I am not a very good sleeper and I was a terrible sleeper in Mongolia. Despite the family’s best efforts to make me comfortable and warm, I was cold at night. I worried. I was woken up when anyone went outside to the toilet during the night, and then I could not fall asleep again. In the living room, a square Chinese-made plastic clock hung on the wall above the bed. It was battery-operated and ticked determinedly throughout the night. The ticking kept me awake. I began to take it down as quietly as possible after everyone had gone to bed and remove the battery. I had to balance precariously on the creaking bed to reach and lift it off the nail in the wall. I tried to be as discreet about this as possible, not wanting them to feel that I was dismantling their possessions every night. Years later I found out that Peter, the Mongolian-speaking Peace Corps worker, had done exactly the same whenever he had stayed with the family. I am sure someone noticed the sounds of my clandestine nightly activities. It must have made them think it was slightly bizarre that both Peter and I refused to sleep under a ticking clock. They may have put it down to some culturally specific practice or belief. Once under the covers I would lie awake for what seemed like hours, unable to get warm. Finally, having drunk at least three bowls of tea at the evening meal, I would have to go outside to the toilet. I would extract myself from inside the rustling sleeping bag, the duvet and the winter coat, then feel quietly for my boots on the floor. My jacket hung on the back of the chair by the bedside, which I used as a bedside table for my glasses, notebook and pen. However quietly I made my way across the room, a few

Night-Time and Morning Rituals



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floorboards would creak. The front door would join in the chorus, but I did know how to lift it slightly so that it wouldn’t creak outright. Then I would fumble for the hook-and-eye lock, and once out, the outer (metal) door would need to be closed quietly. I was as quiet as I could be, but I am sure I woke some of them up every night. Only a flimsy floral-pattern piece of fabric divided the bedroom from the living room. In a small house like that you were always aware of the movements and little sounds of others. On occasion we tried to see if I could make a decent pot of tea. That way, I would have been able to prepare breakfast while Elnara was busy milking the cows. What you had to do first was empty the tray under the stove. It would be full to the brim of ashes from the previous day. I was not very good at this. You would have to carefully extract the tray from under the stove and then carry it through the two doors leading outside. The last door you would need to kick, but only gently, because if you created a blast of air you would be covered in ashes. Similarly, if it was even vaguely windy, you had to pick your moment of exit well. Once the stove was clean, you needed to get a good scoop of dried dung from the pile outside the house. You would fill the small stove with dried dung – and in winter chopped coal was added to this – to get the fire going. Then you would fill the pot on

Illustration 7.1. Tea brick, 2005. © Anna Portisch.

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A Magpie’s Tale

the stove with water (usually the large container in the corner of the living room would be filled with water from the well outside the night before). In winter, there would be a layer of ice on the top, but that was easily broken. You would then go outside to hammer away for a few minutes at the tea brick (held inside a cloth bag) to get a small cupful of tea leaves and twigs and then add a suitable amount to the boiling water. You would add an appropriate amount of salt, and then Elnara would come in with a small pail of fresh milk to be added to the tea. I was pretty useless at most of these tasks. The hammer had a metal handle and on cold mornings, simply holding it sent painful icy waves up my lower arm. I could start a fire and fill the pot with water, but adding a suitable amount of tea leaves, twigs and salt categorically defeated me. When pouring the finished, boiling salty milk tea from the large wok-like pot into the large aluminium teapot, I would always spill at least half a tea bowl’s worth on the floor. At breakfast everyone would politely drink the tea that Anna made. But no one enjoyed it. It was too salty, or too weak. Or perhaps too strong or not salty enough. It was a bad start to the day. So we came to an arrangement whereby I set the table, cut the bread and kept an eye on the boiling tea. In the morning, each family member would emerge slowly, with messy hair and sleep in the corners of their eyes, smiling sleepily. Elnara was the first to get up. She had been brought up to be the first. When she was a little girl, her parents decided to take her out of school after the (then) four compulsory years of schooling. Her mother was not well at the time and needed extra help with the housework. Elnara was the youngest daughter, but at 11 years, she was old enough to help with most of the housework. Now, every morning, with the first light, she sat up quietly in bed, careful not to wake up Bakhytbek who slept next to her. She felt for her kerchief, which lay folded neatly under the pillow, and covered her hair. She put her dressing gown on over her clothes. It was a soft, stretchy black velvet dressing gown with a pattern of large red roses. Dressed like this, she cut a striking figure in the cold morning air, gathering a bucketful of dried dung from the heap just outside the front door or milking the cows. Perhaps it should have been Ainagyl’s task to milk the cows, and perhaps also her task to get up first, being the youngest daughter to live at home. But Ainagyl was nervous of the large, long-haired half-breed yaks, and it was Elnara who milked them every morning. In midwinter she went outside in minus forty degrees Celsius and struggled with the long-haired yak as she tethered it to the pen so that the calf could feed. She then heaved the strong calf away from its mother halfway through its breakfast and pulled it into the pen. She milked the yak, sitting on a small stool and holding the pail between her knees, pulling hard at the teats. Milk ran over her

Night-Time and Morning Rituals



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fingers and froze as she leaned her forehead into the side of the big hairy animal. This was milk for our morning tea. The family bought the tea bricks at the open market in Ölgii. These bricks, imports from Georgia, consisted as much of twigs as leaves. Looseleaf tea could be bought at the market but it was more expensive, and besides, it didn’t have the right flavour. The family preferred the tea bricks. It was their main drink, summer or winter. In summer, we did have homemade yogurt (airan) and on occasion fermented mare’s milk (khymyz). No one drank plain water, and certainly never unboiled water. No one drank coffee, although you could buy sachets of Russian instant coffee mixed with milk powder and sugar at Ölgii market and from some of the little shops in Ulaankhus. The first time I asked Kharlyghash if she wanted to try a cup of herbal tea (a friend had sent me a box of peppermint teabags), at my flat in Ölgii, she heard ‘horrible tea’ and was rightly puzzled. She quite liked ‘horrible tea’ and we kept the name. No adults drank fresh milk directly from the cows, sheep or goats. Only babies had ‘plain’ (boiled) milk. Toddlers and young children had salty milk tea along with everyone else. We had tea five times a day, and at least three bowls at each sitting. Early in the morning, before anyone else was about, I got changed still lying inside my sleeping bag – a feat I am still quite proud of being able to pull off. I would be making my bed when Elnara got up. I set the table and supervised the water on the stove. Bakhytbek would get up next. He would sit next to his mother and have breakfast and discuss the day ahead. Adilbek would inquire from his bed if tea was ready. If it wasn’t yet, he would wait and inquire a few minutes later. Amanjan got up quietly and went outside to wash his hands and face. Ainagyl got up last. She was always grumpy in the morning. She said little and smiled less. Her hair was fuzzy on top of her head and she would go outside, even in minus thirty degrees Celsius, in just the T-shirt and trousers she had been sleeping in. She would go outside and wash her hands and face, pouring a little lukewarm water from the kettle left outside the front door for the purpose. Eventually they all sat at the low dining table with sleepy eyes and warm red cheeks, hair combed with a little water, further layers of clothing having been added on top of nightwear. Sometimes, though rarely, we forgot to tell Adilbek that the tea was ready, and he would inquire from the bedroom, ‘Is the tea really not ready?’ as we sat slurping hot tea and dipping our bread and butter in it. He would emerge, a little grumpy, muttering under his breath, and join the breakfast table. We started each day like this together. ‘Did you sleep well?’ ‘Yes, did you?’ After breakfast Adilbek would turn on the radio. ‘The weather forecast says it’s going to be around minus thirty today. Minus thirty . . . and it’s

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A Magpie’s Tale

only December. Normally it’s not this cold in December. They say it’s going to be a bad winter . . . . You must drink more tea. You must drink at least five bowls.’ After breakfast, as everyone went about their work, Adilbek would sit in the bright, sunny living room in his upright chair at the table and tune the radio to the state radio station transmitting from Ulaanbaatar. It was a scratchy signal with more static than signal, to my ears. His eyesight was badly affected by cataracts, and his movements were careful as he looked straight ahead. He found his small tin of rolling tobacco. Under the patchwork pillow on the chair he kept neatly torn pieces of newspaper, which he rolled the tobacco inside. He would look for the matchbox and then he would sit, looking intently into the air before him, listening to the world he had once belonged to, while the smoke filled the streaks of sunshine with patterns and swirls.

PART

II



Transitions

8



The Young Accountant

A

dilbek was one of seventeen siblings. Some of these children were adopted into the family when his parents had already become grandparents – or rather because they had become grandparents. Adilbek was one of the middle children. There is a photo of him as a young man with his mother. They are both smiling. His mother is wearing the old-fashioned white embroidered headscarf that her generation of women wore when they had married. It frames her smiling face and she has smiley wrinkles around her beautiful almond-shaped eyes. Adilbek’s head is inclined towards hers. The photo reminds me of a photo I took of Elnara and Bakhytbek. In both photos, mother and son are beaming, their heads together. Adilbek was his mother’s son. I am pretty sure of this. Each child is ‘claimed’ by their mother or father. Parents obviously love all their children. But one parent claims a child and becomes their proponent, I guess you could say. They give treats. They argue their case when new shoes are needed. They insist on their child going to college. They help them leading up to school exams, and they are particularly proud when their child does well. They ensure that their child gets the best. They proudly tell others that this is their child. You could say it is a question of who the child’s spokesperson is. It has to do with how each child fares in relation to the other children and the myriad concerns that come into play in the daily lives and fortunes of large families. Adilbek was born in 1949. I am not sure what the village of Ulaankhus looked like before the 1950s, but I imagine it in the early decades of the twentieth century, and perhaps during Adilbek’s early childhood, as a small settlement sitting by the river, with its clear, cold, grey water sparkling in the sunshine. Along the banks of the river, groves of birch trees turned flaming orange, yellow and golden red in autumn. Ulaankhus is the Mon-

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A Magpie’s Tale

golian name meaning ‘Red Birch’. The Kazakh name has the same meaning: Khyzyl Khaiyng. Until the 1950s, the settlement by the Red Birches may have been made up partly of yurts, or ‘felt houses’ (kiiz yĭ, as they are called in Kazakh, literally means ‘felt house’),1 forming shifting, seasonally changing constellations, perhaps clustered near the river in summer and in the vicinity of the Ulaankhus school and other permanent buildings in winter. Perhaps the ruins of the small mosque and madrassa still stood in the 1950s, or had they been entirely razed to the ground? I imagine Adilbek taking the family’s herd of sheep and goats out to pasture and collecting water from the river, like his own children would do later. I might be wrong about this. His right arm was crippled from childhood and perhaps he was spared doing chores because of this. He might have been encouraged to focus on his studies, just like he would encourage and help his eldest daughter, his child. Adilbek grew up during the 1950s, a period that saw huge changes across Mongolia, many of which would influence the choices that were available to his generation. Across the country, even in the remotest parts of Mongolia, economic and political changes were under way and villages like Ulaankhus acquired new administrative and economic functions, infrastructure and buildings. In the 1950s, Mongolia as a whole was divided into three hundred newly formed districts.2 These were each made to coincide with the administrative and economic unit of a collective. Some fifty of the Mongolian districts had state farms devoted to crop production.3 The majority, however, were devoted to mobile pastoralism, and this was also the case for the Ulaankhus Collective. The small settlement by the Red Birches became the district and administrative centre for the largest collective in the province. In the centre of Ulaankhus, a square was built, surrounded by new buildings that housed the local government, the administration for the collective, a post office, a theatre, a museum and a guest house. These were single-storey, whitewashed buildings that shone brightly in the sunshine. They had slanted, tiled roofs, and large windows with blue wooden frames. The square was planted with birch trees, and pipes were laid in order to irrigate this small park. A stone’s throw away, a new, larger building was also constructed to replace the existing school building. This constellation of public buildings around a square, as well as their architectural style, resembled those of many other villages across Mongolia, and more broadly the Soviet Union. As a child, Adilbek attended the large secular state school. He did well, particularly in mathematics and the Mongolian language, which was taught as

The Young Accountant



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a second language in most schools in the ‘Kazakh province’ of Bayan-Ölgii. Later, Adilbek was enrolled in the Mongolian School in Ölgii, one of the best schools in the province, for his final years of school (equivalent to the final years of secondary school in England). This was a boarding school, and a good distance from his family home. Perhaps it felt like a rupture to him, at the age of 15, to have to board at the school so far from his family, just as it did to his eldest daughter when she, some thirty years later, was enrolled in Ölgii’s best new school, the Turkish College, also a boarding school. Adilbek had grown up speaking Kazakh at home, in the street, in shops and with friends and family, and being taught in his native language at school. In contrast, at the Mongolian School all subjects were taught in Mongolian. In order to go beyond the first nine years of schooling to a tertiary, technical or university education, Kazakhs from Bayan-Ölgii had to learn Mongolian or Russian. Further education was simply not available in the Kazakh language. Attending the Mongolian School in Ölgii enabled Adilbek to apply for a place at college in the capital, Ulaanbaatar. He sat entry exams to study accountancy, and was accepted. He spent three years studying in Ulaanbaatar. He lived in halls of residence with other students, the majority of whom were Khalkha Mongolians.4 All his studies were in the Mongolian language, and, of course, everyday life in the capital required fluency in Mongolian. When he left for Ulaanbaatar he had the support of his teachers and family. In the 1970s, the Mongolian government provided stipends to students, and Adilbek had a ‘maintenance grant’. His studies were free. But I still imagine his mother being worried about him. He was her child. His mother perhaps put on a show of grief at his departure, like he himself would do years later at the long-term departure of any of his children. Ulaanbaatar is situated over one thousand six hundred kilometres from Bayan-Ölgii. His departure for the capital was probably his first trip outside of the province. There were no relatives in Ulaanbaatar, and only a small population of Kazakhs there. In some ways it must have been like going to a foreign country. When I lived with the family, the most economical route to the capital involved travelling by van or jeep across this vast country criss-crossed by dirt tracks. It was a three to five-day, non-stop journey. During his three years of study in the 1970s, Adilbek only came home to Bayan-Ölgii during summer holidays. He stayed in Ulaanbaatar from the beginning of the autumn term until after his exams in early summer. He sent letters home. When he eventually returned home after his studies, he got the job as accountant for the local collective.

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A Magpie’s Tale

Through his job at the collective, Adilbek befriended an elderly gentleman named Arman who worked for the division of the collective in Soghakh. The two of them sometimes had a chat and a drink together. They got on very well. It transpired that Arman had a beautiful young daughter who happened to be unmarried. Adilbek was already in his mid-twenties and his younger sister wanted to marry. While not strictly necessary, it was clearly best, and seen as proper, that Adilbek, being the older brother, should marry before his younger sister. He had a good job and could support a family. Together with his parents, it was decided that he should marry Arman’s young daughter. When I asked Adilbek and Elnara about their marriage, I expected happy memories and stories of meeting and falling in love. I had only been in Bayan-Ölgii for a few weeks and thought of it as a ‘safe’ subject. I got a very to-the-point answer. They were married in 1976. After the wedding Adilbek went to apologize to Elnara’s parents. This is the custom. Only later did I understand what this sequence of events entailed. Elnara was kidnapped. She was 18 years old. She lived with her parents and siblings in Soghakh, not far from where the family lived when I met them, some thirty years later. One day in summer, a dance was arranged at the village hall. Elnara went to the dance with her sisters. On her way home, she was kidnapped by Adilbek and his relatives. I have no idea how this might have been carried out. Some of Adilbek’s senior family members, all respected people in the community, may have been present. She must have been somehow physically manoeuvred to their house. The two families lived some twenty kilometres apart and I don’t know how Adilbek’s relatives got her from Soghakh to their house in Ulaankhus. On horseback? By car? Whatever the means of transport, it must have required quite some organization. I imagine it as a worrying journey for Elnara. Did she know the family? Did she know who it was who wanted to marry her? In Ulaankhus, Elnara possibly found her wedding party prepared. This is normally the case. Adilbek had found out her plans to go to the village dance. He and his relatives had lain in wait for her. They had prepared all the food and invited family (on the groom’s side). The stakes were quite high: all the preparations – laying one’s intentions bare. Would she refuse? Did she have her heart set on someone else? As far as they knew she did not. Had she noticed Adilbek when he came to Soghakh for work? Would she make relations between her own and his family difficult, or would she seal the relationship by becoming his wife? Would she risk her own reputation, risk being known as a girl who had (symbolically) ‘lost her virginity’ (although in actual fact, of course, simply staying at the groom’s house for the duration of the wedding party did not necessarily entail losing one’s virginity). Would she risk not being able to find another husband, being

The Young Accountant



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seen as a difficult ex-kidnappee, or would she begin to see the qualities in the husband she had been chosen for? Elnara accepted. In fact it wasn’t really her choice, you could say. So many other parties were involved; she was hardly the most important element. The new bond between the two families surely weighed heavier than her personal inclinations. The next morning, Adilbek, with his parents, went to see Arman and his wife to apologize formally for having kidnapped their daughter. He must have been tired after being up all night, going through the formalities of the wedding. Elnara’s father and mother must also have been tired. They hadn’t been forewarned of the kidnapping, had they? When Elnara did not return from the dance with her sisters, they must have known she had been kidnapped for marriage. It was, and still is, a common enough Kazakh custom. Did they know which family had kidnapped her? Did Arman know? I think of her mother sitting up all night worrying. Apparently, when she saw who had taken Elnara, she was angry. She was against the marriage. But Arman was swayed. Arman knew Adilbek. He liked him. Adilbek had a good job, had a good salary and could support a family. They accepted. Their acceptance sealed the arrangement. Perhaps it counted in Adilbek’s favour that he was not a big man, nor physically strong, so he was less likely to be violent towards his wife, as Elnara’s daughters later reasoned in considering potential young men. It also counted in Adilbek’s favour that he was not the youngest son. Adilbek and Elnara got their own home in Ulaankhus. Elnara later advised her daughters, as they grew up, that it was easier to marry someone who was not the youngest son. As a young wife, you would have your own home, you weren’t bound to live with and take care of your husband’s parents. Having your own home and space meant you would be able to make everyday decisions yourself: what to have for dinner, who was to milk the cows at exactly what time and so on. You would not have your parents-in-law always supervising and passing judgement on and interfering in the way you lived, the way you brought up your children, your relationship with your husband. Not always, only sometimes. ‘My father was the smartest man in the village. He used to wear a red shirt and a black fringe leather waistcoat’, his eldest daughter Kharlyghash remembered years later. Her description conjured an image in my mind of her father, a young, well-educated man, recently returned from the capital, completely bilingual, unlike many of his relatives and friends, in tune with the latest trends, with a prominent job in his home town, and married to the most beautiful young woman in Bayan-Ölgii.

9



The Letter

I

n late September we woke up to a blizzard. At breakfast, silence reigned. Adilbek tried to find a radio signal but gave up. Snow swirled past the window in thick grey-white gusts. You could hardly see the animal pen across the way from the front door. The pen was only five or so metres from the house. After breakfast, Bakhytbek put on his winter coat and hat and wrapped a scarf around his face. He smiled and waved cheerfully as he set off for school. The atmosphere was subdued. A few hours later, as the wind continued to howl and the snow continued to whirl past outside, I stood by the window next to Amanjan and asked him if winter was always like this. He was about to answer but then looked at me seriously, and after a little pause he said, ‘Yes.’ I must have looked worried. He continued, ‘In fact we sometimes have to tie a rope between the house and the toilet, so that we don’t get lost or blown away.’ The toilet was only twenty metres from the house. I looked at him in astonishment. Then he smiled. We laughed. Every winter’s day was beautiful and sunny. The sky was vast and wide and clear and blue. The sunrises were beautiful and the sunsets were spectacular. This was one of only a few blizzards we had all winter. A few days later, when the snow had melted and the sun had dried the ground, Elnara, Ainagyl and I went out to collect dried dung. We needed to collect as much as possible before the cold really set in. Neighbours too had been out collecting dung recently. Collecting dried cowpats and horse manure looked easy enough. We each had a pointy stick to pick up dung and a large, empty, woven nylon sack (a fifty-kilo flour sack) on our backs. You simply had to spear the dung and put it in the sack. Of course, you had to know what colour a suitably dry piece of dung was before you could pick

The Letter





it up. It couldn’t be too fresh because it would obviously break up and you wouldn’t be able to pick it up. Suitably dry dung had a certain lightness to it and didn’t fall apart. Then you had to practise actually hitting the sack on your back and not simply throwing the piece on the ground behind you. It was harder than it looked. Ainagyl went in the direction of the mountains to the west to cover an area there. I went with Elnara and we headed south in the direction of Ulaankhus. Not long into the work, the small of my back began to ache from bending down again and again, and I began to bend my knees when stabbing each piece. I was not very fast in filling up the sack, and when we later got back to the house, Adilbek laughed at me, saying it had looked like I was doing gymnastics, bending my knees all the time! He had watched us through the binoculars. I was mildly offended. In the evening, a car stopped outside the house. It was a villager from Soghakh with a carful of passengers. The driver came into the front room briefly and handed Elnara a letter. He wouldn’t stay for a cup of tea, no, his passengers wanted to get home. They had driven from Ölgii. The driver had worked as a post office clerk in Soghakh for many years, and still lived in the village. When he occasionally went to Ölgii, he picked up letters and parcels from the general post office there for his neighbours and fellow villagers in Soghakh. The letter was from Adilbek’s older sister who had moved to Pavlodar in northern Kazakhstan a few years before. An elderly lady in her sixties

Illustration 9.1. Soghakh Valley in summer, 2008. © Anna Portisch.

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A Magpie’s Tale

and a widow, she had moved to Kazakhstan with her children to start a new life. The family had not heard from her in a long time. As it was getting dark, we all gathered around the low dining table. Elnara lit a candle on the table and Adilbek opened the letter. He began to read, squinted, then paused and looked at me. Could he borrow my glasses? Of course! My glasses suited him. He perched them on the tip of his nose and smiled as he read the letter aloud. His sister was getting on well in Pavlodar, she wrote. Her son had found work. Her daughter was enrolled as a student at university. They had been given financial help from the government and a good flat in a housing estate. Adilbek’s sister had enclosed a photo. In the photo she posed with her children and grandchildren on a sofa. In front of them a table was laid out with food and drinks. A dombyra (the Kazakh ‘lute’) sat on the sofa next to them, as if it had just been played. Behind them on the wall hung a carpet featuring a proud mountain goat. Adilbek’s sister had followed in the footsteps of three of their brothers. The letter threw the family into a mild turmoil. Should they consider moving as a family? Or should the older children go? If so, who? Bakhytbek was still at school. Kharlyghash had a good job. Jibek and Bauyrjan needed to finish their last years at the Ten Year School. Perhaps Amanjan and Ainagyl could make a new life for themselves in Kazakhstan? But how on earth was any of this going to be paid for? There was a lingering scepticism, or worry. Was it really true that things were better in Kazakhstan? Was Adilbek’s sister lonely? If they went, how long would they all be able to rely on relatives for help? What if they could not find work? How would they be able to return to Bayan-Ölgii? No one in the family spoke Russian fluently. What kind of work would they be able to get, speaking only Kazakh and some Mongolian? The following day, I was out with Elnara and Ainagyl again, collecting dried dung for the stove. The letter preyed on my mind. I suddenly and unexpectedly felt worried that they would leave. I felt I had only just found them, and selfishly hoped they would stay. It was a warm sunny day. Ainagyl was some distance away when Elnara stopped and spread out one of the old nylon flour bags on the ground. She beckoned me to come and sit down next to her. We sat in the sunshine, looking in the direction of the mountain at the far southern end of the Soghakh Valley. The steppe was still green. The mountainsides on either side of the valley were a thousand shades of brown and grey, but as the sunlight played across their rugged surface and clouds cast ever-changing shadows, shades of purple and blue came out. I asked Elnara if they were really going to leave Bayan-Ölgii. She paused, looking down the valley. ‘No’, she said. ‘I won’t leave this place.’

10



The First House in the First Street

Theirs had been the ‘First House’ in the ‘First Street’. This was how

Kharlyghash described the family home in Ulaankhus. Their house lay in a prominent position at the centre of the settlement by the Red Birches. It was a large house and everyone passed it. Family and friends often dropped by and came for celebrations. It had been a lively household. Adilbek had worked for the collective and Elnara was employed at a state-owned crafts workshop. The children went to the local state school, the largest school in the district, which took many children from the countryside who boarded at the school. As Kharlyghash remembered it, their storeroom was always well stocked. The family was privileged. They always had meat, flour and dairy products: fresh cheeses, curd, butter and yogurt to drink in the summer. There was plenty of salt and tea and milk for each teatime. There were sweets and Russian chocolates. Adilbek brought home pens and notebooks for the children’s homework. Working with Russian and Mongolian advisors and officials, he also sometimes brought home presents or treats for the children that he got through his colleagues and connections. Aunts and uncles studying or working in Russia and elsewhere in the Soviet Union brought back presents when they came home to Bayan-Ölgii for the holidays. Kharlyghash told me how once, one of her favourite uncles, who lived in Ulaanbaatar and worked as a pilot for the Mongolian airline company (MIAT), came to visit the family in Bayan-Ölgii and brought her a beautiful rainbow-coloured knitted wool sweater and matching trousers. She loved

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A Magpie’s Tale

her knitted outfit and wore it as often as she could. Soon one of her aunts began to throw covetous looks at the knitted outfit. ‘Do you really need that outfit?’ she would ask. ‘Is it not getting too small for you?’ The 8-year-old Kharlyghash began to fold the sweater and trousers neatly and keep them under her pillow at night. Her aunt persisted. ‘You ought to give that outfit to me. I need it more than you!’ Kharlyghash stood firm and held on to her favourite clothes, but finally one day her aunt got her hands on them. She needed coloured thread for a wall hanging she was working on. Kharlyghash’s outfit was perfect for the purpose. It was unravelled and recycled, becoming part of a traditional embroidered Kazakh wall hanging. I wonder if it was Juldyz, the aunt who unravelled Kharlyghash’s clothes. Juldyz was Adilbek’s older sister. She was a most ingenious and skilled craftswoman. She made large, densely embroidered wall hangings for the entire family, for newborn children in the family and for almost every wedding in her close family, including those of all her siblings. They were seventeen, don’t forget. Add to this cousins and more distant family members. Juldyz could finish a wall hanging in three to four months. She was faster and devoted more time to these projects than most other women. A good craftswoman was always in high demand, particularly when there was a wedding in the family. Wall hangings and felt carpets were the most important presents given by the bride’s side to the young couple, and these textiles were also given to important in-laws. They were a show of the skill and talent of the bride’s side of the family. I imagine Juldyz’s huge embroideries adorning yurts in distant settlements, and people stopping by for a cup of tea and looking up at her embroidered wall hangings and thinking, slowly, ‘That must be from the bride’s side, so and so married that girl who was the sister of so and so . . .’ And if they knew anything about the family, they would know how to recognize Juldyz’s embroideries. She had her own distinctive style; you could always recognize a piece she had designed and made. ‘No, I don’t embroider any more’, she explained when Kharlyghash took me to see her at her house in Ölgii. She was then in her early sixties. ‘My eyes won’t allow it. I’ve got no embroideries left to show you!’ she laughed. ‘I’ve given them all away to family! And then a foreign couple came and bought up what remained here in the house last year. They took them all to America. You will have to go to America to see them!’ When Juldyz was a young woman and her brother Adilbek was to marry the beautiful young woman from Soghakh, Juldyz made a wall hanging and an embroidered border that stretched round the entire circumference of their yurt. The yurt was twelve metres in diameter at least and the border was over thirty metres long. It was densely embroidered, featured

The First House in the First Street



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a larger piece to frame the door and had a repeat inverted heart pattern. Every summer for over thirty years this border and her wall hangings, along with other embroidered pieces, were put up and decorated the family yurt. When Kharlyghash was born, Juldyz made a wall hanging for her little niece that featured large stars in pale blue, yellow, orange and bright spring green on a red cotton background, bordered by white wavelets and a further border of dark purple swirly ram’s horn patterns. It was quite difficult at times to get hold of thread and other materials, she explained when Kharlyghash and I went to see her. ‘At one point it was really hard to find red thread. I used to pull thread out of red cotton fabric to embroider with. I’d sit up all night embroidering by candlelight. It didn’t do my eyes any good.’ Kharlyghash was born in 1979. Or was it 1980? Later in life she was always annoyed and embarrassed; she was put in an awkward position by the fact that her father had forged her identity card so that she might reach the age of 16 a year earlier and thus receive a state pension on account of what was thought to be hip dysplasia. Her grandmother, Adilbek’s mother, chose her name. Kharlyghash means ‘swallow’ in Kazakh. ‘Perhaps my grandmother hoped I would be graceful as a swallow’, Kharlyghash said and laughed as if to say ‘how wrong she was’. When talking about her childhood, Kharlyghash would say that she was spoilt. She would also say that she spent the first few years as a baby and toddler crying, just crying. Like Ainagyl, when she was a toddler she began to have pain in the hips and joints. This was thought to be developmental hip dysplasia, a condition where the top, rounded projection of the thigh bone does not sit securely in the hollowed-out socket of the pelvic girdle. While hip dysplasia could not have been treated locally in Bayan-Ölgii, it could have been treated at a hospital in the capital, Ulaanbaatar. When she was less than a year old, Adilbek and Elnara decided to take their daughter for treatment in the capital. They made the practical arrangements and got the required referral from the local hospital. They were ready to depart. At the eleventh hour, Adilbek’s mother stopped them from going. She was truly scared that something might happen to her grandchild. She was suspicious of hospitals and modern medicine. They did not go. Throughout her childhood Kharlyghash’s other grandmother, Elnara’s mother, made amulets for her. She collected herbs and sat her granddaughter in a small makeshift tepee covered with felt blankets, with steaming bowls of herbs for her to inhale. She made so many amulets that Kharlyghash remembered wearing seven or eight at any one time. New soft little fabric triangles were attached to old amulets, and they hung down her

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A Magpie’s Tale

chest in a daisy chain in progressive shades of dusty grey. Kharlyghash grew up with a severe limp and couldn’t walk very far or very fast without feeling pain. Kharlyghash was her ‘father’s child’. ‘Kharlyghash is my child’, Adilbek would say with a proud smile and squeeze her tight, even in her twenties. She grew up in the first house on the first street with her parents and expanding cohort of younger siblings, with many of her aunts, uncles and cousins living nearby. She was exempted from much of the housework on account of her hip. Once she started school, she had more time to devote to homework and her father often helped her. She remembered accompanying her father on some of his trips in the big brown open-back truck that belonged to the collective. She always got carsick, and this was perhaps her strongest association with these trips. As the accountant, Adilbek had to travel to all divisions of the Ulaankhus Collective with a driver and sometimes a veterinary surgeon to visit remote herding households. The Ulaankhus Collective covered the largest geographical area of all the western districts, and possibly one of the most naturally diverse areas in Mongolia. This vast administrative unit stretched from the Russian border in the north, south through the Soghakh Valley past the hills where Ainagyl came to live when she married Älemkhan, south past the family home, to Ulaankhus district centre where Kharlyghash and her siblings lived, and then west to Dayan and the border with China some two hundred kilometres away. In Ulaankhus district there are the glaciers, snowfields and deep canyons of the Altai Tavn Bogd National Park, located some 150 kilometres north-west of Ulaankhus district centre. In Dayan, on the Chinese border, there are alpine lakes, and fir and pine forests cover the mountain sides that begin the ascent to the border. The five Tavn Bogd mountain peaks dot the Altai range. The highest of the five, called Khuiten in Mongolian or Ysigen in Kazakh, meaning ‘Frozen’, is 4,374 metres. The summit of its ‘brother’, called Nairamdal in Mongolian or Dostykh in Kazakh, meaning ‘Friendship’, is a triple border point between Mongolia, China and Russia. On his trips to remote herding households, Adilbek recorded the numbers of newborn animals and animals that had perished. Together with the driver he collected a proportion of young animals and other animal produce. This was brought to Ulaankhus for processing and further redistribution to other provinces, the capital and, in some instances, neighbouring countries within the Soviet Union. Mongolian mutton, for instance, was exported to Siberian towns to the north of Mongolia.5

The First House in the First Street



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Map 10.1. Bayan-Ölgii province (aimag). Ulaankhus district (sum) is highlighted in grey. © Anna Portisch.

Adilbek was responsible for keeping records, meeting budget targets and delivering produce to set targets. He worked with Mongolian government advisors and representatives as well as Russian advisors. In the triptych photo frame there was a photograph of him at the office. In the photo, he is wearing a fur-lined jacket and sits opposite one of his siblings, who also worked for the collective. They look like they are discussing work. There is a calculator on the table and a map of the district sits on top of a glass cabinet behind them. The Ulaankhus Collective was the largest employer in the province. The central administration alone, where Adilbek was based, employed some two hundred workers including agronomists, veterinary surgeons, drivers, mechanics, cleaners, canteen workers, secretaries, accountants, supervisors and management. A large proportion of the district population

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A Magpie’s Tale

Illustration 10.1. Border region with the Russian Federation, 2004. © Anna Portisch.

The First House in the First Street



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lived most of the year in town, holding service, administrative and government jobs. Households responsible for the large herds of collectively owned animals moved in accordance with arrangements set by their employer, the collective. Those families were responsible for herding large, often singlespecies and single-sex herds. Herds of goats or sheep could be as large as five to six hundred animals. Herds of cows, yaks, horses or camels usually comprised one hundred to two hundred animals.6 Having such large herds to tend, people needed to move three, four or sometimes five times a year to access good pasture, hay, water and other resources. Many had one dwelling for each season, but sometimes more: a mud-brick house or log cabin for the winter months, another spring house in a different location, an area for the summer settlement where they would set up their yurts for almost three months a year, and an autumn house in a fourth location. In addition to herding the collectively owned large herds, people were allowed to have seventy-five animals to cover their own needs for dairy products, meat and wool. These herders were paid a monthly salary. In return, they had to deliver animal products and live young animals to the collective at fixed prices and regular intervals.7 On reaching retirement age, they received a state pension, just like other workers. The collectives owned and maintained the infrastructure to support the economic activities and livelihoods of these mobile pastoralists, who worked as its employees. The Ulaankhus Collective had agricultural machinery, tractors, trucks, cars and trailers to assist herders with seasonal migration. It transported ice to herders in settlements with no access to water in winter, supplied hay and fodder during extreme and prolonged winters, and provided coal for winter fuel at production cost.8 In addition, it provided mobile veterinary services to herding households in their settlements. Some fifteen years after the collective had been disbanded, long after Adilbek had retired, Kharlyghash and I spent a few weeks with an old school friend of hers, his wife and their daughters in their summer settlement in Dayan. This was a beautiful area in the mountains, where the hillsides were green and fragrant with pine forests. The men and children went fishing by a clear lake and we often had fresh fish for dinner. Pasture was abundant, in contrast with the dusty brown and grey hues that characterized Ulaankhus and its surroundings, even in summer. Moving their now privately owned mixed herd of three hundred sheep and goats to the summer pasture area was necessary in order to fatten up the animals and sustain them through the long winter ahead.

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A Magpie’s Tale

Three households of relatives set up their yurts together to form a small settlement in the same location to which they returned, together, each summer. There was a well and they had built a shed for the hunting eagle. The family knew where the best firewood was to be found and where the pasture was best, and their relatives settled nearby across the hills. It was approximately an hour’s drive to the next settlement. One afternoon, an elderly gentleman stopped by. His horse was tethered and he was offered tea and food. He had on a long black corduroy coat held together with a silver-embellished belt and on his nose sat a large, square pair of thick glasses. He looked closely at Kharlyghash. He didn’t recognize her as part of the family and asked whose child she was. Adilbek’s daughter. Adilbek was an unusual name. The old man screwed up his eyes. ‘Ahhh . . .’ He looked at her again. ‘Now I see that you look like your father! . . . I know Adilbek. What a kind man . . .’ In the time of the collectives, the man and his family had been responsible for a large herd of cows. One year, when Adilbek came to inspect the man’s herds, half a dozen calves had been born. The man hoped to increase his own herd size, which only included some thirty animals, by keeping some back which were, in fact, due to the collective. Talking this over, Adilbek agreed and recorded a lower number of newborn calves than there actually were. This allowed the man to keep the ‘unrecorded’ calves as part of his privately owned herd. Having told this story, the old man paused and sighed. This kindness had been to no avail. The following winter had been a particularly harsh one and, as if by an irony of fate, each one of the unrecorded calves had perished. Adilbek had one weakness as an accountant. He liked to have a drink. Not in general. Not on a Monday morning before going to the office. I think his must have been a social problem that was compounded by etiquette. As a host you must provide for guests, be that family or strangers, expected or unexpected guests, long-awaited or unwanted ones. As a minimum, guests are served tea and bread or fried buns. If they can stay for a little while, they are served tea while they wait for the hot meal to be prepared. As a host you should be generous to your guests. You should try to persuade them to stay, to have a meal with you. As a guest, you really must accept the hospitality offered. Honoured guests or highly respected ones who stay for the evening or the night are of course offered hot food, and on special occasions an animal is slaughtered there and then. In summer, respected guests are offered fresh, mildly alcoholic fermented mare’s milk (khymyz). They are offered vodka with a meal, if any is kept in the house or can be obtained from nearby shops or neighbours. Saying no to a meal or a drink, thus obtained

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or kept for a special occasion such as this, is like slapping the host in the face or spitting in their food. Not accepting hospitality is extremely rude and almost impossible. Adilbek was related to a large number of people who lived next door, down the street, in the next village and much further afield. His own and his wife’s relatives all knew him and gossiped about him and watched his every move. He had to work with people, to see the same herding families year after year and get on with them and rely on the fact that they would cooperate with him and the greater authority that he represented in order to do his job. Adilbek couldn’t refuse a drink. To make matters worse, he was in a position of power, being the accountant of the collective. As such he was an honoured guest to most of the herding families he visited in the countryside. Some people may have cottoned on to the fact that he liked to have a drink. In addition, he was the nicest possible drunk. He never got violent or angry. He was sociable and talkative. Perhaps he became a little more pliable, a little more inclined to see your point of view. Perhaps the old man in Dayan didn’t offer Adilbek a drink. He needn’t have. Adilbek would gladly have helped someone he liked, and he would gladly have bent the rules a little to do so.

11



Thinking about the Past

F

or a long time after coming to stay with the family, I thought of them as a long-term, well-established component of the settlement in Soghakh. I thought of the family as having always lived in this place, close to the stream, next to a cousin and his wife, within walking distance of the school. I thought of their house as a permanent fixture. Later, having learned that the family had in fact lived for many years in the district centre of Ulaankhus, where four of their children now lived, I asked Adilbek in which house in Ulaankhus they had lived. I wanted to form a picture of the place they had lived, to perhaps go and look at their old house in Ulaankhus when I was there next. Adilbek sat smoking a cigarette at the table, looking patiently at me. ‘It was this house’, he answered. There was a pause. He hadn’t understood. I hadn’t put the question correctly. I was frustrated with not being able to ask even the simplest kind of questions. I asked again, smiling and apologizing: ‘Not here in Soghakh, but I mean in Ulaankhus – which house was it you lived in, where is it?’ Again the answer came, ‘Osy yĭ bolghan’ (It was this house). ‘No no, I mean in Ulaankhus.’ We went back and forth a few times. Adilbek said decisively: ‘It was THIS house. These logs, these bricks, these windows, this door frame.’ It finally sunk in. ‘Ooooh!’ Some years after our conversation, the little house in Soghakh by the silver stream, next to Erbol and Saule’s house, was disassembled again, when the family moved back to Ulaankhus. The logs were good, and the window frames and floorboards and door and possibly some of the bricks were taken to Ulaankhus and kept for future use. On the ground there was a patch of dry earth and the outline of the house for a little while, perhaps for the summer. Then the grass grew back and the wind and the animals

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and people moving across the patch erased any sign of the house that once stood there. When I first moved in with the family, I spent most of my energy trying to figure out how things worked in the present, and the idea rarely entered my mind that the village might only recently have changed significantly. It was Ainagyl who took me for a walk around the old village centre one day and pointed out the old electricity poles and telephone lines, and the buildings that had housed the shop, the local government, the theatre, and the post office. ‘There was a theatre in Soghakh!?’ ‘Why not?’ she answered. Most of these buildings had fallen into disrepair. The school was the only building from that time still in use. The building that had housed the post office had been small, with a single room. There had been a counter, pigeonholes for post and a public telephone. The telephone line had extended all the way north to the village of Kök Moinakh close to the Russian border. District centres (such as Ulaankhus) and many smaller administrative units such as Soghakh had had a post office and had been connected by telephone lines. In the early 1990s, when the economic crisis set in, the post office had closed, the clerk had been fired and the telephone poles and lines had fallen into disrepair. The post office building had been partly disassembled by villagers who recycled the building materials. All that remained was a shell. The glass in

Illustration 11.1. The old post office building in Soghakh, 2005. © Anna Portisch.

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A Magpie’s Tale

the windows had been removed. If you looked through the empty window frames, there were just a few broken floorboards left and the bare walls. There was no indication that this had been the post office, other than the telephone masts, which could still be seen leading away from the building towards Ulaankhus, where the nearest functioning post office and public telephone now was. They were big poles, and had perhaps been left in place in the hope that one day a telephone line would be reinstated.

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O

ne day in winter, when Kharlyghash was home one weekend, she and I went to have tea with Saule, the neighbour. Her husband Erbol was at the school, working. He worked as caretaker there, his main job being to maintain and keep the central heating going at the school and in the dormitories. Leila, Saule’s 10-year-old daughter, was at home. When we came in, Leila was busy sweeping the floor around the stove. Their living room was large and the ceiling was higher than that in Adilbek and Elnara’s house. A spacious entrance room led to the front room, where the stove sat in a corner. A door led from the front room to the bedroom. We sat down in the front room at the wooden table. Leila went out to get water from the well, came in and filled up the wok on the stove to make tea. Saule put out tea bowls, bread and butter and a bowl of rock-hard dried curd (khurt). Kharlyghash and Saule talked as the tea was being prepared and we all soon sat around the table with steaming hot bowls of tea in front of us. Kharlyghash put a lump of curd in her bowl and told me to do the same. You have to leave it in there for at least half an hour, she said, smiling, otherwise the lump of curd will be impossibly hard to chew. After having her tea, Leila retreated from the table and I went to see what she was doing. She was sitting in the bedroom finishing a small piece of embroidery. It was her first embroidered piece, in fact, and she had decided to give it to her father. It would hang on the woven band that enclosed his bed during the day. It featured a large flower in bright orange, pink and green on a white satin background. She showed me where it would hang, and as I looked down I noticed that a large, neatly cut block of ice was propping up the bed. It seemed out of place to me: something that belonged categorically outdoors was indoors, next to Leila who was embroidering

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A Magpie’s Tale

Illustration 12.1. A block of ice props up a bed, 2004. © Anna Portisch.

flowers. But of course it was very cold at floor level, I made myself reason. We too had our own snowman, who lived indoors. As the difference in temperature between inside and outside had increased, we had begun to wake up in the morning to see crystal-like flowers on the windowpanes. Soon a whole forest of furry, swirling, crystalline flowers would grow from our combined night-time breath and cover the entire window. In the morning, Bakhytbek would use a spoon to scrape off the icy layer and collect it in a plate so that we could see out of the window. One morning I helped him and we made a small snowman, perhaps fifteen centimetres tall, out of our collected frozen condensation, and at first set the small figure down on the table as a visitor to our morning tea. Later we moved our snowman to the floor just inside the padded front door leading to the small entrance room. This was less than two metres from the stove. Our snowman became quite dusty and a little lopsided, but he did not melt and stayed in position guarding the doorway until April. On that winter’s day at Saule’s house, I returned to the front room and sat next to the stove for a little while longer as the others chatted, sipping my hot tea, fishing out my lump of curd and chewing it cautiously. It was still very hard. It had only been fifteen minutes.

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Their view from the front room mirrored ours, their window being orientated towards the mountains on the north-west side of the Soghakh Valley. As I looked out over the snow-covered ground and the mountainside, I noticed a small white porcelain figure sitting near the window on a little table. The statuette was of an elderly man with a long white beard, and a girl, also dressed in white, standing at his side. Here and there blue and silver accents had been added to their robes and hats. The porcelain pair looked fragile and somehow incongruous in Saule’s front room, and a little while later I asked who they were. ‘Grandfather Frost of course!’ said Saule with a smile. Kharlyghash and Saule both looked at me in surprise. ‘Don’t you know Grandfather Frost?’ Saule got up to top up our bowls of tea. I must have looked puzzled. ‘Grandfather Frost and the Snow Girl . . . He is a bit like Father Christmas’, Kharlyghash explained. ‘He brings presents on New Year’s Eve. It’s a Russian tradition.’ Ever more puzzled, I continued to sip my tea and make inroads into my still rock-hard lump of curd. I had never heard of Grandfather Frost and the Snow Girl. I hadn’t seen them in anyone else’s house. Why were Grandfather Frost and the Snow Girl here, in Saule’s front room? On our way home I asked Kharlyghash and she explained that Saule had bought the porcelain statuette in Kiev. Saule had studied for her degree in Ukraine during the 1980s and had qualified as an engineer. When she graduated in the late 1980s, the Mongolian and wider regional economy had been changing in unprecedented ways and there was far less investment in the collectives. She had never found a job in Bayan-Ölgii and had considered staying in Ukraine and working there. She had considered job prospects elsewhere. She spoke Russian fluently. Her parents had wanted her to come home to Bayan-Ölgii, and that was perhaps the main reason that she had returned. She had married Erbol on her return. The state-socialist system, within which Saule was educated, had its roots in political and economic developments of the first half of the 1900s. From the 1920s onwards, Mongolia became increasingly tied to the Soviet Union in political and economic terms. During the Soviet-backed state-socialist period, which lasted until 1990, Mongolia’s trade increasingly took place with the countries belonging to the Soviet Union, and the country received significant financial aid from the Soviet Union. There were Soviet military bases and a large Russian population lived in Mongolia, working as advisors, teachers, doctors and in many other roles. In Ulaanbaatar there were Russian language schools and colleges. The Russian schools in the capital were attended mainly by the children of the Russian ‘expat’ population and the Mongolian elite.

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A Magpie’s Tale

Mongolian citizens were able to study and work in countries that belonged to or were affiliated with the Soviet Union, such as Hungary, Czechoslovakia, Cuba, Ukraine, the Kazakh SSR and the DDR. Kazakhs from Bayan-Ölgii, who were of course Mongolian citizens, were able to study at colleges across the country and at university in the Mongolian capital, as Adilbek did, and many also got grants and support to study or work abroad, for instance in Moscow, Kiev, Almaty and Budapest. Many of Elnara and Adilbek’s brothers and sisters spent time abroad studying and working. Elnara’s two older sisters were among the first Kazakh women from Mongolia to receive doctorates in Moscow and Almaty, and received medals in recognition of their achievements. Mongolia joined the Council for Mutual Economic Assistance (CMEA or Comecon) in 1962.9 From the early 1960s until 1990, the CMEA would contribute an average of the equivalent of one billion US dollars per annum to the Mongolian economy, and would provide approximately 30 per cent of Mongolia’s gross national product in the form of grants and low interest loans.10 By 1989, over 80 per cent of imports were from the USSR.11 During the 1980s, CMEA countries and other centrally planned economies absorbed over 90 per cent of Mongolian exports.12 Within this trading network Mongolia exported mainly raw materials, such as livestock and meat destined for the USSR’s Siberian industries and towns, but also minerals and gold.13 One commentator has noted that ‘[a]mong former Soviet bloc nations, Mongolia’s economy was the most dependent on outside assistance, measured as a percentage of GDP’.14 In western Mongolia, industries included wool-washing, food production, bricklaying and a small building sector. In addition, until the early 1990s, as much as 10 per cent of Mongolia’s total exports and 8 per cent of its imports passed through Bayan-Ölgii’s trans-shipment base in Tsagaan Nuur,15 and Bayan-Ölgii province had significant transportation and trade links with Altai oblast (part of the Soviet Union) directly north of its border. Through the collectives, households in Mongolia’s western Altai Mountains were a part of an international economic and political system. Children received free schooling and boarding. Further educational opportunities extended to students in every province. Policies emphasized students from remote settlements and ethnic minorities’ access to educational and professional opportunities on an equal footing with the Khalkha majority. These opportunities allowed people to gain qualifications and to subsequently find work and in turn contribute to the local economy at home, in Bayan-Ölgii. The political and economic developments of perestroika and glasnost that began in the Soviet Union in the late 1980s gradually augured change

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across all the countries that had been part of or tied to the Soviet Union, including those of Central and Inner Asia.16 These developments brought about fundamental changes in Mongolia’s political and economic system, its infrastructure and its social and cultural institutions. The very ideological foundations and rationale for the way in which society had been organized were rendered invalid, inadequate, morally suspect. With the dissolution of the Soviet Union and the CMEA in 1991, Soviet economic assistance ceased, as did trade with nearly all of Mongolia’s former trade partners.17 As a consequence, during the 1990s, Mongolia entered the ‘most serious peacetime economic collapse any nation has faced’ during the twentieth century.18 The Mongolian government turned to Western nations, Japan and international financial institutions to aid and guide its political and economic transformation. The Structural Adjustment Programmes that were recommended and upon which Western economic aid was made contingent brought about rapid changes in the early 1990s. Commentators have remarked that the rapid manner in which new economic reforms were introduced probably precipitated and deepened the economic crisis that followed.19 During the 1990s, the Mongolian currency collapsed, savings lost value, unemployment soared, pension funds were devalued, and subsidies for education and healthcare were reduced or eliminated.20 Over a ten-year period, from 1989 to 1998, the number of persons living below the poverty line in Mongolia increased from less than 1 per cent to 33 per cent.21 It took time and resources, of course, to disassemble and reorient the economic, political, social and cultural institutions and infrastructure that had been built over the past seventy years. A new world of free trade and private property did not, of its own accord, ‘blossom’ in the 1990s. Very few resources ‘trickled down’ to remote families or ‘free entrepreneurial individuals’ in remote parts of the country. But for a little while, those who had held positions of power or influence under the state-socialist system were able to take up some limited opportunities that presented themselves with the emergence of the new international political and economic order and try to build something new. As part of the Structural Adjustment Programmes to create a marketdriven economy, Mongolia’s three hundred collectives were disbanded.22 The ‘privatization’ of the collectives was part of the Mongolian government’s economic reforms and its countrywide implementation lasted from 1991 to 1993. Share coupons (‘vouchers’) were issued to former members of the collectives, and the collectives’ property, including livestock, machinery and vehicles, was distributed among the former members. Individual collectives were left in charge of deciding how to distribute these assets.23 The Ulaankhus Collective was dissolved from 1991 to 1992.

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Adilbek was part of the group in charge of the reallocation of the collective’s assets. He later told me how the large herds of animals hitherto managed by the collective were distributed. They decided that not only former members should receive a share, but that state workers, such as teachers and doctors, should also receive a share of the animals, as should children of members who had already passed away. Trucks, cars, trailers, harvesters, ploughs and other machinery were also distributed. Adilbek and Elnara got a mixed herd of some one hundred sheep and goats and one camel from this redistribution process, as well as the large brown open-back truck in which Adilbek had toured the countryside as part of his job. One of the consequences in Bayan-Ölgii of the wider economic crisis was what people later came to call the ‘flour crisis’. Flour is, along with meat, the most important ingredient in the Kazakh diet. Flour, salt and tea are some of the only necessities that are imported (the province being selfsufficient in meat and dairy products). During the state-socialist period, flour had been imported from Russia. With the breakdown in trade and political ties with the Soviet Union in the early 1990s, the border with Russia was temporarily closed. In Bayan-Ölgii this cut off the supply of flour, among many other things. Several months went by like this, with the price of flour increasing exponentially. An agreement was eventually reached between the Mongolian and Chinese governments allowing trade to take place between these two countries at specific trading posts along Mongolia’s southern border. Once the border agreement with China was in place, barley (arpa), not flour, became available. At this time, Adilbek was involved in establishing a semi-private trading organization, referred to as a kampan (using the Russian term for ‘company’). One of the benefits of this involvement was access to flour. A branch was to be established in Soghakh, in place of the old ‘brigade’24 office, and Adilbek was offered a job. The family decided to take up the offer and move to Soghakh. The house in Ulaankhus was taken down, the materials that could be used again were transported to Soghakh in the large brown truck and a new house was built on a site near the place where Elnara had grown up. It was directly adjacent to the house of Adilbek’s cousin Erbol and his wife Saule. Other relatives lived nearby. The children began to go to school at the local Eight Year School. The initiative to set up trading organizations as an alternative to the collectives was relatively widespread in Mongolia. The kampan were intended as a free-market alternative to the collectives, organizing trade and transport of produce and incorporating herding households into a system that would provide them with access to certain goods while linking their produce to wider markets.25 Herders brought produce and livestock to the

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local kampan, which in turn sold the produce at the newly established open market in Ölgii. In addition to buying herders’ produce, the kampan sold goods through its shop in Soghakh, and every week Adilbek and his colleagues would drive the big brown truck to Ölgii to sell produce and pick up supplies for Soghakh. The kampan was an attempt to provide people with access to markets and in turn give them access in their villages to everyday necessities such as flour, salt and tea. But the kampan ran at a loss. It operated in an environment where virtually the entire infrastructure that had supported the collective was now absent. The former collectives had been underpinned by a political and economic system as well as physical infrastructure. For members of the collectives, this system had guaranteed a regular income paid by the state, transportation of produce and goods, transportation between seasonal sites, access to fodder and veterinary services, maintenance of machinery and vehicles, and ultimately access to national markets and international trading partners and countries with which the country had traded since 1962. None of this was now in place. In addition, government subsidies fell away for commodities and, crucially, for petrol. The price of petrol shot up, and in consequence so too did the price of goods that had to be transported across this vast country by car or truck. The 1990s were possibly the hardest years, in economic terms, across the country, and across the former Soviet Union. There was no market for produce. No one did well at the open market in Bayan-Ölgii. Prices offered for meat or live animals were poor. The kampan in Soghakh was often not able to pay locals immediately for their products. People began to transport their animals to market themselves, preferring to bear the cost of transport and sell their produce where they would receive immediate payment. The kampan in Soghakh eventually had to close. The adverse economic conditions meant that the value of the domestic animals, now privately owned, changed. It was hardly worth trying to sell live animals or even meat or fleece. Sheep, goats, cows, yaks, horses and camels became the main components of a subsistence livelihood. People came to depend on their domestic animals as a source of food, not money. These changes made individual households far more vulnerable in what has been called an ‘atomized and de-mechanised pastoral sector’.26 In Mongolia as a whole, the dissolution of the collectives made a quarter of a million former workers directly dependent on smallholdings of livestock.27 People with as varied qualifications and jobs as vets, agronomists, engineers, managers, civil servants, opera singers and actors lost their jobs and salaries, and were left with a small herd of domestic animals upon which to subsist. Ironically, the economic and political ‘adjustments’ to bring Mongolia into the ‘Age of the Market’ immediately and enduringly

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resulted in the economy becoming more subsistence-based: there was a withdrawal of the pastoral sector, away from ‘the market’.28 As Adilbek later explained, the years after privatization were also a particularly precarious time because many people became dependent on livestock but had very little experience of herding. There were more people herding animals, and a greater demand for access to pasture by ‘new herders’. In these early years of the Age of the Market, many animals perished as a result of a lack of experience on the part of these new herders. Most jobs were affected by the economic reforms of the early 1990s. The workshop where Elnara worked simply closed. There was no longer a ‘market’ for its products, and there were no private investors to take over ownership, no foreign direct investment to save the industries of BayanÖlgii. People in more secure jobs, such as teachers or doctors, were also affected. Their salaries, paid by the state, were sometimes delayed for several months, in some instances up to a year, and the value of salaries was of course reduced because of inflation and increasing living costs. Once the kampan closed, the family decided to sell the brown truck as it no longer had a function in their working lives and had become more of an economic burden. The family stayed on in Soghakh, there being few prospects of finding work in Ulaankhus, or indeed elsewhere in BayanÖlgii. Additionally, moving the house was an expensive undertaking. It was a strange and sad period, Kharlyghash later commented. When they had first moved to Soghakh, many of their relatives had lived nearby. By the time she finished eighth grade, many of their relatives in Soghakh and in Ulaankhus had emigrated to Kazakhstan. In Soghakh, the hospital closed and the building was sold to a private individual who was later forced to sell off the building materials. The theatre closed and was converted into a billiards room, which also closed after a short period. The post office, which had the only telephone line in the area, closed due to lack of funds, and the windowpanes and floorboards were taken out and used elsewhere. The post office clerk took on unpaid ‘post office services’ from his home and continued to collect post from the general post office in Ölgii when he travelled there. The school remained. ‘This place became a hollow place, full of abandoned structures’, Kharlyghash explained one winter’s day when we were walking along Ulaankhus’s dusty streets. The power station, which had supplied heating to a large proportion of government buildings and family homes in the district centre, had closed. Its walled courtyard had become a rubbish dump and a communal toilet haunted by stray dogs, standing in the shadow of the tall chimney, a large hole in one of its walls revealing a dark hollow. A large old school building had later housed offices, and upon their closure in the

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1990s, various families had moved in, covering the windows with plastic sheets and other materials during winter to keep out the cold. ‘You know Bakhytbek’, Kharlyghash said, ‘he doesn’t know. He has never seen how it was. He thinks this is normal. We never talk about how it was.’ The age difference between the two of them is thirteen years.

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‘macroeconomic crisis’ relates to economy-wide events. In this case, all fifteen Soviet Socialist Republics, and affiliated economies such as North Korea, Cuba and Mongolia, were affected. But it is made up of minuscule everyday elements: the kinds of food in your cupboard; whether there is salt or milk in your tea; what kind of fuel you use to cook; what kinds of shoes you have on your feet; whether your child has pencils to write with at school. A crisis is composed of tiny interrelated elements. A macroeconomic crisis does not simply have top-down domino effects, although these are of course part of the picture: for instance, in Moscow it is decided that petrol can no longer be provided at subsidized rates to Mongolia, and so every type of commodity that is transported around this vast country by car or truck becomes more expensive (Mongolia has no rail tracks from East to West) and this particularly affects people living in remote areas, who are already at a disadvantage, as it is more costly to transport goods to these areas. The resulting rising cost of flour means that some people do not have enough to eat. That is one kind of consequence. But in a macroeconomic crisis a lot of things happen at once. Those things that happen now have far-reaching consequences that are difficult to predict. It is difficult to imagine the magnitude and complexity of the changes. People lose their jobs and become directly dependent on domestic animals: a subsistence form of economy arises. But also, people become far more dependent on each other, and particularly family: barter systems spring up, and kin-based networks of dependency. Parts of the family who live in the countryside and tend the domestic animals provide meat, cheese and butter to their relatives in town, who in turn provide them with cash to pay for winter fuel or put up a child who attends school in town during

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term time. People begin to look for work elsewhere, for instance in the construction industries in Ulaanbaatar or Kazakhstan, and send money back home to Bayan-Ölgii: these are migration-based economic strategies. People take up multiple jobs at home to make ends meet: a form of insufficiently paid, will-do-any-job coping mechanism. People start to borrow money more, from any bank that will lend it or from relatives. And they start to default more on loans, considering it better to survive and owe money than not to manage at all. Shall we call these risk-taking strategies? All of these strategies are subsumed under the bracket of the ‘Age of the Market’, whose defining characteristics are privatization and liberalization. The ethos of the Age of the Market was clear enough: the near-complete withdrawal of the state means that you must do anything you can to survive. The state cannot provide access to adequate basic healthcare or medicine, to an education beyond secondary school; it cannot guarantee that it will maintain infrastructure, including telephone lines, the delivery of post, the maintenance of bridges and roads, and so on and on and on. ‘Atomized and de-mechanized’ are good terms to describe one aspect of this situation, that is, the relationship between the state and individual households. But of course, this doesn’t take into account the ways in which people help each other, because they have to, and because they care about each other; and the one thing that keeps things ticking over, through deprivation and hardship, is that people care about each other. It was a quiet morning when we heard about Erbol’s brother. It was cold; the temperature was about −30°C when we got up. The sun shone from a blue sky on the few mud-brick houses scattered across the valley, smoke rising silently from their chimneys. Elnara lit the fire as she always did. We all had tea and breakfast. It was about ten o’clock, after breakfast, and Ainagyl had been cleaning the pots and polishing windows and other glass surfaces with old newspaper salvaged from under the pillow on her father’s chair, where he hid it for his roll-ups. I was working on the new carpet we had started, a black and white one. It was warm in the sun near the window and there was a quiet, contented atmosphere in the house as each person went about their quiet daily routine. Adilbek first noticed the approaching motorcycle. He heard the faint sound of the engine and went to fetch the binoculars. We all gathered by the window, as we did every time a car or motorcycle passed. Adilbek held the binoculars up to his eyes and declared it was not for us. He didn’t recognize the two men. But the motorcycle nevertheless stopped between ours and Erbol’s house, and the men went into Erbol’s house. This was not good news. There was an unsettled atmosphere. After a little while the men came to us. When they told us the news Elnara and Adilbek began to cry. Ainagyl

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stood by the stove, and when I looked at her, tears were streaming quietly down her cheeks. Suddenly everyone was assembled in our bright little front room, with red eyes and tears rolling down their cheeks: Leila, Erbol’s daughter, her older brother, Bakhytbek . . . Only Amanjan was not crying. He stood incredulous and motionless by the red kitchen cabinet and stared at Erbol. Erbol’s younger brother had been Amanjan’s closest cousin. He had died that morning. They dressed quickly in their nicest and warmest winter coats and went to Erbol’s house next door. Here, more neighbours and family assembled. Erbol was smoking, standing next to the stove. He threw a sad smile at me as if to say ‘don’t worry’. We waited. A large truck soon arrived, a 1950s model with an open back, the type usually used to transport large things. I’ve seen heaps of frozen horse and cow carcasses being transported in the back of such trucks, or several tons of coal or heaps of dried dung. In spring and autumn, people use these trucks to transport their summertime yurts and household belongings to different settlements. On this occasion, Erbol’s yurt was transported along with a dozen felt carpets, pots and pans, two sheep for slaughter and a few people who stood on the back behind the driver’s cabin in the freezing wind. Other cars arrived to take everyone to Erbol’s parents’ house where the young man had died. Two yurts were set up just outside the young man’s parents’ house. The body of the young man was laid out in one of the yurts on a felt carpet (syrmakh) spread over a bed. The body had been washed before being wrapped first in white fabric and then in a layer of felt. The second yurt was full of people, and had been furnished with several layers of syrmakh laid on top of a large plain piece of felt to shield those sitting down from the frozen ground. The fire in the stove was kept constantly burning, but the large space was nonetheless extremely cold, and the circular wooden crown of the yurt was only kept partly open, letting in a shaft of daylight. Whenever a new person entered, the youngest female relatives of the deceased began their wailing song. This was not a breast-beating, dramatic performance, but was sung in shaky voices broken by tears. The winter house was used for making a constant flow of salty milk tea, cooking fried buns and making mutton soup from the freshly slaughtered sheep. The house had a steady flow of female relatives milling about, talking, cooking and brewing tea. The young man had died early that morning. He had been bitten by a rabid dog some months before. He had not been able to get to Ulaanbaatar for treatment in time and had spent the months after the attack in pain. The wound had been infected. Erbol had consulted a local healer who had advised that wolf ’s meat might cure him, but the family had little chance of getting hold of wolf ’s meat.

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The burial took place the following morning. Everyone stayed up through the night, and the male relatives kept watch over the young man’s body in the yurt. Inside the house the stove was kept going, tea and buns were made through the night and people from the yurt came in every once in a while to warm up. The next day the body was carried to the grave, accompanied by the closest male relatives. They conducted their ablutions before they left for the grave, and they carried the young man on the felt carpet on which he had been laid out in the yurt. The graveyard was located on the western side of the valley, close to the mountains and, incidentally, to the house where the young man had died. This was the site where the mosque had once stood, before it was destroyed in 1937. A new mosque was built in the early 1990s, on a more central site in the Soghakh settlement. The graves were all built of mud brick, small mausoleums that sat above the frozen ground. They seemed like they belonged to the earth, unpainted, with a few words: a name – so and so’s daughter, son, husband, father, mother – a date, a line from the Qur’an. There must have been at least two hundred people at the funeral. The women stayed behind when the men took the body to the grave. They made tea again and cooked more mutton. Their talk got a little louder; some laughed, and people caught up on news from relatives who lived far away, whom they had not seen for months, sometimes years. The death of a relative was always announced on the local Kazakh-language radio sta-

Illustration 13.1. Graveyard, Soghakh Valley, 2005. © Anna Portisch.

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A Magpie’s Tale

tion transmitting from Ölgii, the radio broadcast we listened to religiously every night from eight to nine o’clock. The programme included news, the weather forecast, an occasional interview and most importantly the announcements, which always took up approximately fifteen minutes of total airtime. ‘So and so has died in Tsengel, relatives are invited . . . ; it is so and so’s birthday, his relatives wish him a long life . . .’ Funerals gathered large numbers of relatives. People didn’t question whether they could or should go. Elnara, Adilbek, Amanjan, Ainagyl, Kharlyghash – they all simply left whatever they were doing there and then and went to the house of Erbol’s parents. After the burial we left in an old Russian minivan with capacity for ten. We were at least twenty-five. We drove back to Ölgii after the last meal of mutton in the yurt. The drive was bumpy along the dirt track. The rock face of the mountain was barren and grey, not yet covered by the snow that was to fall in the following weeks. The ground had lost its last shades of yellow from the autumn and the sun shone relentlessly from the clear blue sky. I felt completely dejected. I was searching for the right words to describe what had happened: an unforgiving place, a hostile environment, relentless hardship that grinds you down. Most words seemed inadequate. The song ‘Ysh Oighyr’ came to mind. The song describes the sadness felt by those people who stayed behind in Bayan-Ölgii during those years in the 1990s when so many people left for Kazakhstan because they could no longer survive in Mongolia. As we drove along the Soghakh Valley on that sunny day, one line that I had not understood seemed to make sense: Kerei, Uwaq, Naimanym / buzylmaghan khaimaghyng – ‘My Kerei, Uwaq, Naiman tribes / unbroken cream’. Khaimakh is the thick, fresh cream we had on buns and in tea. To me this line came to mean: ‘We are unbroken, thick as cream. We have not been broken apart, we stand by each other.’ This notion of ‘undividedness’ filled me with a sadness that I still can’t properly put into words. The mother, an elderly lady in her seventies, went to her storehouse after everyone had left. She unwrapped all the things she had kept safe in preparation for her son’s wedding. As she cried and shouted towards the mountains, she threw the pots and pans on the frozen ground outside, the embroidered wall hangings and carpets she had made, the sheepskin-lined winter coat that should have kept him warm – all the things that had been prepared for her son’s future life.

14



Saving Graces

E

rjan was born a year after Kharlyghash. Kharlyghash joked that you could always tell when her grandmother had passed away by studying the names of her brothers. Adilbek’s mother had named all of Adilbek and Elnara’s children who were born in her lifetime. Erjan, Bauyrjan . . . All the boys had names ending in -jan. Perhaps Erjan looked most like his mother Elnara. He also looked like Bakhytbek in some ways. Boys take after their mother, girls after their father. Our daughter Julie takes after her father. Sometimes it even seems that he takes after her. People come up to him and say, ‘Oh! You must be Julie’s father’, when they have never met him before and Julie is not there. Erjan’s face was different from his mother’s or anyone else’s in the family. One side of his face was more rigid and he had a long scar running the length of his cheek from an accident he had had when he was younger. But he had Bakhytbek’s dimples, his mother’s eyes and perhaps his father’s eyebrows, like Kharlyghash, his older sister. When his father was involved in setting up the kampan in Soghakh, and the family moved, Erjan joined a new class at the school there. His older sister Kharlyghash attended the same school a year above him, and his younger sisters Ainagyl and Altynai were in the class a year below. I can picture the four of them walking to school together in the morning, across the valley’s bumpy, grassy ground and over the small bridge across the stream with its cool, silvery water. Most of the other children in Erjan’s class had known each other since their first year. Many of the children boarded at the school and lived in dormitories. They had their meals together and did their homework together.

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A Magpie’s Tale

They played in the afternoon together. The teachers took care of them, served their meals, washed their clothes, ensured they had a weekly bath. These children had shared the party for the first school day at the start of each school year. They had passed their milestones together, learning and reciting their ABCs and then having their family ABC parties to celebrate the event at the end of their first school year. A few of Erjan, Kharlyghash, Ainagyl and Altynai’s cousins also attended the school in Soghakh, but the four newcomers had to adjust and fit in to their new classes. Tanatar was in Erjan’s class. Tanatar’s parents and siblings lived in Ulaankhus, but she had been sent to live with relatives in Soghakh and had attended the school there since her first year. They must have been 12 or 13 years old when they met. They eventually became childhood sweethearts. Both Erjan and Tanatar completed their ninth and tenth grades at the Ten Year School in Ulaankhus. At the time, the family could not afford to send Erjan to a tertiary college or further education, and he could not find permanent work after finishing secondary school. He did manage to buy a motorcycle. When I came to know the family, he still had the motorcycle, which he maintained and repaired. He also had a car, a Russian-model fourwheel drive, and he toyed with the idea of becoming a public ‘taxi’ driver between Ulaankhus and Ölgii, like Bolat, Kharlyghash’s old classmate. But the car needed work done to it, which would be expensive, and this stopped the enterprise. The car was parked in the yard outside the house, and Tanatar used to polish it and sometimes laid out the washing to dry on the clean, warm surface of the bonnet. Perhaps it was on account of Erjan having had the accident that the family were nervous about him driving for a living. As Kharlyghash told the story, Erjan was a teenager – maybe just 18 – when he had a terrible accident on his motorcycle. He had been drunk. He had started to go on binges, and it was during one of these drinking bouts that he went out on his motorbike and had an accident that nearly killed him. His parents somehow found the money to take him to hospital in Ulaanbaatar. When he eventually came back to Ulaankhus, Elnara nursed him back to health. He had nothing but mutton soup for months. He had received serious injuries to his head and face. Erjan’s accident happened the same summer that his older sister Kharlyghash had been getting ready to go to university. For her ninth grade, Kharlyghash had been sent to study at the newly established Turkish College in Ölgii. This was a boarding school and teaching took place in Turkish and English. It was housed in a new building located twenty minutes’ walk from the centre of Ölgii. The teachers had come directly from Turkey.

Saving Graces



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Kharlyghash, who had lived at home with her family all her life, hated boarding at the school. She shared a room, and ran away from school on a few occasions, climbing out of the bedroom window after dark and on one occasion getting all the way home to Soghakh the next day. But attending the Turkish College was an excellent opportunity. She was one of a few students to be fully funded by the school. She did eventually begin to enjoy her time there. She made friends, excelled in her subjects and became trilingual in Kazakh, Turkish and English. In their final year, the students were able to sit an entry examination for university in Turkey. Kharlyghash was encouraged by her teachers to try for a place at university, and they supported her along with several of her classmates in the application process. She passed the entry exams and was due to start at university in Turkey in the autumn. She had to convince her parents to fund her airfare. Of course, she also had to convince her parents, particularly her father, that this was a sensible educational path, that she would not come to harm and that they would indeed see each other again before he died. Going to university was her dream. It was her one wish, and she was nearly ready to leave for Turkey when Erjan had the accident. The money that was to be spent on her airfare was spent on saving his life. Adilbek arranged for Kharlyghash to have an interview for a job as an English teacher in Ulaankhus instead. As her friends went off to university in Turkey, Kharlyghash moved in with one of her aunts in Ulaankhus and began working at her old school, the Ten Year School. Erjan eventually recovered from his accident and he and Tanatar married when they were in their early twenties. They lived for a spell with Erjan’s parents in the house in Soghakh. During those years, Kharlyghash commented, that house was always busy and cheerful. A dozen or so people lived in those two rooms. I imagine Tanatar, the new daughter-in-law, adopting her role with enthusiasm. When I met Tanatar in Ulaankhus she was always busy. She kept their rooms in the old guest house sparkly clean. Her embroideries on the beds were always perfectly clean. Her felt carpets were evenly rolled up next to the bed. Her linoleum floor was shiny. The beds were perfectly made. The room smelled nice. There was no coal dust in the corners. The walls were whitewashed, with cheerful posters of delicious food in bright colours. She washed clothes and hung them to dry outside. She cleaned and scrubbed and polished. She cooked and kept the stove burning. She got water from the well. She was the perfect daughter-in-law and wife, always friendly. She smiled and went about her work humming to herself. At the same time, she was respectful to her senior in-laws, including Kharlyghash, who was only a few years older than her and not yet married.

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A Magpie’s Tale

The family that Tanatar had married into, Erjan’s family, was relatively relaxed. Kharlyghash really did not mind if Tanatar referred to her in the polite form, but Tanatar always did. Elnara never assumed the role of the Authoritative Mother-in-Law. She let Tanatar get on with her day as she saw fit. Tanatar and Erjan were lovely together. Their relationship was special in that they knew each other when they married. He was kind and attentive to her in a way that only someone who loves another can be. Tanatar was rosy-cheeked and obviously caring and loving towards Erjan. Tanatar got pregnant about a year after their wedding. She carried on as usual, busying herself with housework and privately looking forward to becoming a mother. People don’t do ‘baby showers’ in Bayan-Ölgii. They don’t openly look forward to an event, certainly not the birth of a child, since that might attract the evil eye or the envy of others – negative influences that can affect the outcome of things. You don’t brag. You don’t take anything for granted. In fact, when a woman becomes pregnant she often conceals the pregnancy for as long as possible. There were no midwives’ appointments to follow the progress of the pregnancy, to measure the bump, to take blood tests. There were no scans at three and five months. There were no scans at all. There was no gas and air when the birth started. There were no epidurals. There were the hospitals in Ulaankhus and Ölgii. For many people these were a very long way away. You didn’t go there at the last minute – certainly not if you had a three or four-hour, bumpy drive to get there, and besides, you would need to arrange with someone who had a car to take you. You went to hospital well in advance or you didn’t go at all. When I lived in Bayan-Ölgii, the main function of the hospital in Ulaankhus was to provide people with a place to rest. They could go there and sleep. There weren’t any meals, but family could bring in food. And the hospital administered vitamin injections. They usually had vitamins. Occasionally the hospital got supplies of antibiotics, but you couldn’t depend upon it. Doctors and nurses worked there, of course, and did the best they could given the circumstances. Sometimes there would be a power cut and a doctor might be in the middle of an operation. Accidents were completely understandable. Unlike the general post office in Ölgii, the hospital did not have its own generator. When the time came, Tanatar was sent to Ulaankhus in advance so that she could give birth at the hospital. Erjan went with her to Ulaankhus. Elnara went too. Tanatar gave birth to a beautiful, healthy son. He had mucus in his nose and airways, something quite normal for a newborn. The nurse in charge did not know how to clear the baby’s airways with a small suction instrument, which incidentally was to hand. The baby suffocated within a few minutes of being born.

Saving Graces



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Some years later, when Adilbek had a chance to buy part of the old guest house in Ulaankhus, Tanatar and Erjan got their own rooms there. By then, Kharlyghash had worked at the Ten Year School as an English teacher for a few years, living at her aunt’s house. Now Kharlyghash moved into a room next door to Erjan and Tanatar. Their younger siblings Bauyrjan and Jibek joined them and also started at the Ten Year School for their final years. Kharlyghash took charge of caring for her two younger siblings, making sure they ate, went to school on time, washed their clothes, cleaned their room, did their homework. They divided up the chores. Bauyrjan got water from the river. He was really good at wringing out wet clothes when they washed clothes. ‘He is our spinning programme’, Kharlyghash laughed. They helped each other with cooking. Although Tanatar and Erjan lived independently next door, they often cooked and had meals together. Kharlyghash did as much as she could at home while tending to her work at the school. She marked essays and homework, prepared her students for exams, helped them in the lead-up to competitions, attended competitions and school meetings, spoke to anxious and ambitious parents, put up educational posters, participated in the annual redecoration of the school, painted the walls and did all the things that a teacher does. By this time, her father, Adilbek, had stopped working entirely and received a state pension, as did Elnara, and Kharlyghash was for a period of several years the only full-time salaried member of the family. Her salary went towards all the necessities the family needed: coal in winter, large sacks of flour, salt, tea, clothes, shoes, soap and so on. When I lived with the family, there was a French NGO operating in the area. Rumour had it that they might be looking for someone to fill a post. Both Erjan and Amanjan were very keen to find a job. They were both clever, skilled, practical, friendly – perfect candidates, I thought. ‘Just go and ask’, I said to Amanjan. ‘Go and inquire! They can only say no, if worst comes to worst.’ He wouldn’t go. He wanted me to ask for him. I had a connection to them, since I was a foreigner, I came from somewhere vaguely near France and I spoke French! I was virtually their relative! I should go and ask on his behalf. I could put in a good word for him. I was more connected and more senior than him. ‘But I’ve never met them in my life’, I countered. Westerners value independence. They want to see the person who wants the job, not their relative. They don’t understand about connections and seniority. He wouldn’t go on his own. He wasn’t important enough. It was too presumptuous to simply turn up. Amanjan had a better understanding of things than I did. The French NGO worked closely with the Mayor of Ölgii. It was the Mayor’s relatives

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A Magpie’s Tale

who filled most posts; it was the Mayor’s relatives who received the bulk of emergency supplies during the harsh winter that was to come. The NGO did try to distribute aid equitably. They must have been aware that connections played a role in local politics and administration. In the depths of the coldest winter in years, they began a project to distribute emergency flour and other goods to the poorest households in the province. They used the Voters Register to identify these households. The word on the street was that the Mayor’s office had edited the Voters Register for the occasion, and it was his relatives who were at the top of the list. Like Amanjan, Erjan would not go and ask the NGO for work. But over the years he did have temporary jobs. He worked at the Ten Year School as caretaker, keeping the boiler going through winter and doing other maintenance work. In the spring of the year I lived there, just after the Nauryz New Year, which falls on the spring equinox in March, Tanatar gave birth to a beautiful son, Nurbek, who lived.

Part II Notes





Part II Notes 1. Writing about the Kazakh ASSR and SSR, Ohayon notes that the yurt remained the main dwelling until the 1950s (‘Collectivisation, Famine et Sédentarisation’, 243). See also Carruthers’s record of travel and exploration in western Mongolia and the Altai Mountains dating from the 1910s (Unknown Mongolia). 2. District: sum in Mongolian; sumon in Kazakh, from the Chinese zuo, an administrative unit originally of one hundred households introduced under Manchu rule. Collective: negdel in Mongolian and birlestik in Kazakh. 3. Sneath, ‘Mongolia in the “Age of the Market”’, 195. 4. The Khalkha make up more than 80 per cent of the population in Mongolia, and the Khalkha dialect forms the basis for the country’s official language. 5. Goyal, ‘A Development Perspective’, 634. 6. See Finke’s work on the transition from a state-socialist economy and the privatization of the collectives, e.g. Nomaden im Transformationsprozess. 7. Finke, ‘Does Privatisation Mean Commoditisation?’, 204. 8. Ibid., 214; Sneath, ‘Notions of Rights over Land’, 49. 9. The CMEA was set up in 1949 under Stalin as a Soviet and East European economic system, coordinating economic relations, including trade, between socialist centrally planned economies. It had effectively stopped functioning by 1990 and was officially dismantled in September 1991. See Sanders, Mongolia, for an overview of the country’s post-revolutionary political and economic development. 10. Badarch et al., ‘The Impacts of Industrialization’, 7. 11. Sneath, ‘Lost in the Post’, 41. 12. Badarch et al., ‘The Impacts of Industrialization’, 7; Goyal, ‘A Development Perspective’, 639; Ginsburg, ‘Between Russia and China’. 13. Goyal, ‘A Development Perspective’, 634; Finke, ‘Does Privatisation Mean Commoditisation?’, 220. 14. Ginsburg, ‘Between Russia and China’, 459. 15. Sanders, ‘The Turkic Peoples of Mongolia’, 189. 16. See Sanders, ‘“Restructuring” and “Openness”’. 17. Badarch et al., ‘The Impacts of Industrialization’, 8. 18. Ginsburg, ‘Between Russia and China’, 459. Badarch et al. describe the economic crisis in Mongolia in the early 1990s as being twice as deep as that experienced by the United States in the Great Depression of the 1930s (‘The Impacts of Industrialization’, 8). 19. Sneath, ‘Mongolia in the “Age of the Market”’, 194; Sneath, ‘Lost in the Post’, 42. Ginsburg discusses how Mongolian political parties at the time disagreed over the speed and timings of the reforms (‘Between Russia and China’, 467). 20. Badarch et al., ‘The Impacts of Industrialization’, 8. 21. Sneath, ‘Property Regimes and Sociotechnical Systems’, 162. 22. Humphrey’s The Unmaking of Soviet Life looks at the disintegration of the state-socialist system in Buryatia – for instance, the effects of the dissolution of the collectives on people’s lives. 23. See Finke, Qazaq Pastoralists in Western Mongolia on the negotiations in the early 1990s on how the privatization process should unfold.

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A Magpie’s Tale

24. The smallest administrative unit during the state-socialist period, after the 1990s known as a bag in Mongolian. 25. See Finke, ‘Does Privatisation Mean Commoditisation?’; Sneath, ‘Mobility, Technology, and Decollectivization’. 26. Sneath, ‘Property Regimes and Sociotechnical Systems’, 163; see also Finke, ‘Contemporary Pastoralism in Central Asia’, 401. 27. Sneath, ‘Property Regimes and Sociotechnical Systems’, 163. 28. Finke, ‘Contemporary Pastoralism in Central Asia’, 403. Vitebsky, in his Reindeer People, makes a similar point in relation to Eveny reindeer herders in Siberia, as does Willerslev, in his article ‘Not Animal, Not Not-Animal’, 632, in relation to another Siberian people, the Yukaghir, who since the early 1990s have come to rely on hunting and fishing and ‘have returned to a predominantly subsistence-based lifestyle’.

PART

III



Decisions

15



Living Arrangements

O

ver the winter, I would spend time in Soghakh as much as possible, but I also needed a place to retreat to. I needed to be alone. I stayed in various places in Ölgii at first: relatives of friends from Ulaanbaatar, the empty Red Cross building on the outskirts of town, a hotel room and a rented room just off the central square, on the ground floor. One night in my ground-floor room, a drunk started hammering on the window of the foreign girl, who, as everyone knew, was all alone. I thought he would surely break the glass. He shouted and banged and continued shouting for what seemed an hour or more. I was sure I would be no match for him, and my only way out of the house was past him. I quietly rummaged around my room for something heavy to hit him over the head with. Then I waited for him to simply give up, or succeed. He eventually did give up, and the windowpane remained intact. In the hours until dawn I lay awake contemplating giving up and leaving for somewhere nice. Thailand perhaps. Somewhere with vegetation and pleasant weather and vegetables. I could pretend I’d done my fieldwork! I could make up the ‘fieldwork’, or better still write a novel, giving up on the PhD. Surely it was better to live. As a last attempt to find a practical living arrangement, Kharlyghash thought of putting up a notice on the public noticeboard at the open market in Ölgii, advertising that I was looking for a flat to rent. Days went by and no one answered the advert. I planned to go to Soghakh one last time to see the family and then assess my options for leaving. I had almost given up hope of finding a safe place to live in Ölgii. But then, on a sunny morning, just as I was due to return one last time to Soghakh in Bolat’s ‘taxi’, my mobile phone rang. I was at the internet cafe in the post office, sitting next to an American friend, Suzy, who worked for the Peace Corps. A man’s

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A Magpie’s Tale

voice asked if I was Anna. I glanced at Suzy. ‘Was I still looking for a flat to rent?’ I got up excitedly. We arranged to meet in the central square half an hour later. ‘But wait! How will I recognize you?’ I blurted out. ‘I will recognize you’, he said in an amused tone. Suzy was curious and came with me to see the flat. We met the man by the memorial in the middle of the central square and walked over to an apartment building dating from the 1960s, only a few minutes from the square. We climbed the stairs to the third floor and he opened the outer padded door and then an inner wooden door. The thickly padded, solidly built doors reassured me. The flat was on the top floor and was small and sunny. The living room had yellow floorboards and looked out across the central avenue towards my friend’s apartment block, and beyond that to the mountains. It was a little worn but furnished. It had an indoor toilet, a good-sized kitchen with electricity and central heating in winter! It also had a coal-burning stove in the kitchen, for when the electricity and the central heating were not working. It even had a red telephone that worked for local calls. It was warm and bright and perfect. Suzy was impressed. ‘This is very nice. You should take it!’ I said ‘Yes’ immediately and thirty minutes later I had moved my suitcase in. Then I left for Soghakh. I reached the market with perfect timing, just as Bolat’s car was filling up.

Illustration 15.1. Apartment building in Ölgii, 2005. © Anna Portisch.

Living Arrangements



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The flat in Ölgii was owned by a local family and had been the home of Asel, a lady in her fifties, and her daughter. Asel had got into financial difficulties when she lost her job at the local children’s nursery. Her daughter, a smart young woman in her twenties, had a stall at the open market in Ölgii and regularly travelled to China to buy goods to sell in Bayan-Ölgii. It was tough going to China on her own with other mainly male traders, and she sometimes only covered her costs. So when they saw my advert at the market it was decided in the family that Asel and her daughter would move to a smaller flat owned by relatives, just around the corner, and they rented their sunny top-floor flat to me for the coming eight months. The flat was warm and safe. Not many people came to knock on the door at night here. To start with, there was one man who came and knocked on the door, always at night. I couldn’t tell if he wanted to see Asel or me, nor if he was drunk or just loud and persistent. I decided I did not want to find out either way. He persisted in knocking as if his life depended on it for a long time, but I sat quiet as a mouse and pretended not to be home. I knew that I was warmer inside than he was outside and I felt more or less certain that the two doors would not give way to him. As time went by, his visits became less frequent and finally stopped. In the first few months, the red telephone also rang occasionally. They were all calls for Asel, of course, and I quickly learned to say, ‘Asel no longer lives here, I am renting the flat, and Asel does not have a phone in her new flat. Do you want me to give her a message?’ The day when I accepted, I paid six months’ rent upfront and left my suitcase in the flat. I got to Ulaankhus and met up with Peter’s successor, Tamsin, who was working at the Ulaankhus Ten Year School and lived in a little mud-brick house of her own. She was about to go to Ölgii for the weekend to meet up with the other Peace Corps workers, so I gave her the keys to my new flat and said she was welcome to stay. When I saw her again a few weeks later, she said that when she had arrived at the flat in Ölgii, five jovial-looking ladies had been sitting in the kitchen having tea and cake. As she had opened the outer door she had heard them laughing and wondered if this was indeed the right flat. But she reasoned that the key fitted the lock and so it must be the flat I was renting. The ladies were sitting around the little table in the kitchen, chatting and laughing. ‘But you’re not the yellow girl’, they may have wondered (Tamsin had dark brown hair). We never found out who they were, as they did not come back. Perhaps they had come to move some things out of the flat before I moved in, or to tidy and clean it. Perhaps they also liked the warm, sunny kitchen and so had stopped to have a cup of tea.

16



The People Who Move

I

n the early 1990s, as the economic crisis deepened in Mongolia, tens of thousands of Kazakhs left Mongolia for Kazakhstan. Many of Adilbek and Elnara’s siblings and more distant relatives undertook the move. Many of the children’s school friends, old neighbours and colleagues from work also decided to move during that decade and settled in different parts of Kazakhstan. Their families had lived in Mongolia for generations. There were different and sometimes converging reasons for their decisions to leave their home in Bayan-Ölgii. In 1992, the Mongolian constitution was rewritten, and leading up to this there was a long public debate.1 There was uncertainty among the Kazakhs, who were of course citizens of Mongolia, over whether they would be guaranteed equal rights in this new document that would underpin the future direction of the country. Such fears would turn out to be groundless. However, as the country was steered in a new political and economic direction, there was great uncertainty about the future, and there were worries that the small minority of Kazakhs, constituting only about 4 per cent of the total population, would be discriminated against, or forgotten, in an independent Mongolia where the majority of the population was Khalkha Mongol. Since the establishment of Bayan-Ölgii province in 1940, the Kazakhs are said to have enjoyed a greater degree of cultural and political autonomy compared with other minorities in the country.2 In the 1980s, political representation of the Kazakh minority was approximately proportional to the size of the Kazakh population in the country. The state-socialist Sovietbacked period offered educational and professional opportunities, and a small number of Kazakhs became part of the political establishment in

The People Who Move



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Ulaanbaatar.3 Representation at the national governmental level continued after the collapse of the Soviet Union, and while concerns were often heard that the government marginalized the ‘Kazakh province’, the member of parliament representing Bayan-Ölgii in the 2000s was nevertheless able to attract funding from foreign investors, such as the Islamic Development Bank, and pass plans for social, housing, educational and healthcare projects through government. There were worries, too, that the ‘Kazakh province’ would not receive as much government funding and investment as other Mongolian provinces, for instance Khovd and Uvs provinces just east of Bayan-Ölgii. Rumour had it that more bridges were built in Khovd and that Uvs received more economic investment from the central government than did Bayan-Ölgii. In parallel with developments in Mongolia, the government of Kazakhstan actively sought to unite the Kazakh minorities living in neighbouring countries, such as Uzbekistan and Mongolia, in the ‘Motherland’. To this end, the government of Kazakhstan, led by President Nazarbayev, provided economic and educational incentives to the Kazakh ‘diaspora’ abroad. For a number of years in the 1990s and early 2000s, young Kazakhs from Mongolia were able to go to university free of charge in Kazakhstan. Other measures guaranteed housing and a ‘start-up’ package – including a very substantial one thousand US dollars – to those Kazakhs who moved permanently to Kazakhstan, giving up their Mongolian passports. Such measures on the part of the government in Kazakhstan, combined with the enduring economic crisis in Mongolia, were strong incentives. Of course, the wider regional economic crisis was also taking its toll in Kazakhstan and people were very aware of this. It was often difficult for people to assess where they might be better able to make a living and support their families. But there were other reasons that played into people’s decisions to move, related to the history of the Kazakh and a sense of national pride. Many Kazakhs felt proud that their country, the country of the Kazakh, was now an independent republic. They wanted to contribute to the rebuilding of Kazakhstan. They wanted to be part of this newly independent country that was historically their homeland. For those who remained in Bayan-Ölgii, the emigration from the province in the early 1990s was almost cataclysmic. According to some estimates, from 1990 to 1994 half the population of Bayan-Ölgii left, or some sixty thousand persons.4 Ölgii’s population alone was only some thirty thousand at its highest during the winter. Several commentators have noted that the first wave of migrants came primarily from Mongolian towns and cities – from Ölgii and from other cities in Mongolia, including the capital Ulaanbaatar and the industrial hub and mining town of Nalaikh (situated east of

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Ulaanbaatar and home to a substantial Kazakh population). That may have been the case initially, but subsequent waves of people moving also came from smaller towns and rural settlements like Ulaankhus and Soghakh. The fact that such a significant number of people left Bayan-Ölgii in the early 1990s also had longer-term effects. As the years passed and people who had left sent word back, others in turn considered moving. Having relatives who had already settled in Kazakhstan made it less risky to move. There was a social network in place across the border now and family to help you if you decided to move. Relatives and friends who had already moved to Kazakhstan wrote letters home about what their lives were like, and told family about life in Kazakhstan on visits home to Bayan-Ölgii. The messages that came back were mixed. Some of the stories were not encouraging. Elderly people in particular found it hard to leave their home in Bayan-Ölgii. They missed the open landscape, the summers, the weather, the quality of the food (free-range meat, home-made dairy products). They couldn’t get on in large cities where air pollution was insufferable and the pace of life was very different. There were further barriers that made it difficult to settle, to feel welcome. Moving was still a leap of faith into the unknown. Many people who moved from Bayan-Ölgii, particularly young people, had not travelled extensively. They had perhaps visited the neighbouring province of Khovd or possibly the capital Ulaanbaatar. By comparison, Kazakhstan was an expensive destination, and the Kazakh of Bayan-Ölgii were not exactly charter tourists, seeing the sites in the new Kazakhstani capital of Astana with cameras around their necks, touring the ‘Motherland’ before making a decision about where to settle. Many people decided to migrate when their marginal livelihood was on the brink of becoming unsustainable, and they sold all their belongings and risked everything they had. They took out bank loans or got loans from relatives to cover the cost of getting international passports and other documentation needed, as well as that of travelling. Most people left behind the place where they had grown up and where their parents and grandparents had lived all their lives, without knowing what awaited them or if they would ever be able to return. Over the years, some of those people who left for Kazakhstan returned home to Bayan-Ölgii. Some people were also creative about making the most of the few opportunities there were. There was a story on the grapevine when I was in Bayan-Ölgii about some of the people who had taken up the offer from the government of Kazakhstan and had received their one thousand-dollar starter package, in return for which they had to give up their Mongolian passports, something they did not necessarily want to

The People Who Move

Illustration 16.1. Selling syrmakh outside Ölgii market, 2005. © Anna Portisch.



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A Magpie’s Tale

do. For one thing, they did not know if they would want to stay in Kazakhstan. They perhaps wanted the option of being able to return home to where their family lived if things did not work out. Rumour had it that they had gone through the immigration procedures and been given Kazakhstani passports, pretending that they intended to move to Kazakhstan. They had then bribed the immigration officials with part of the one thousand dollars and got their Mongolian passports back, while keeping the new Kazakhstani passports. This enabled them to return home to Bayan-Ölgii with a substantial earning and two passports! Having two passports also made it easier to travel between the two countries, and some people started up small-scale trade or import and export businesses. The types of visas available and the conditions and incentives open to Kazakhs from Mongolia changed over the years. New incentives and programmes offered by the government of Kazakhstan were introduced and others were discontinued. In terms of keeping abreast of these changes, the one-hour Kazakh-language radio broadcast in the evening was a good source of information, but of course it covered a range of topics, and news of life in neighbouring Kazakhstan or changing immigration laws were not often covered. Few people had access to newspapers, and fewer still to official and reliable information about current immigration laws in Kazakhstan. Letters from relatives in Kazakhstan and hearsay from neighbours, friends and family were probably the most important sources of information. The letter from Adilbek’s sister in Pavlodar had lingered in everyone’s minds through the winter. By springtime, after much deliberation, it was decided that Amanjan and Ainagyl would go to Kazakhstan. Amanjan had looked in vain for work, and who knew, perhaps chances were better in Kazakhstan? Ainagyl would go too. They had both finished their education, but both were young and not yet married. They could make a fresh start. They could stay with Amanjan’s older sister in Pavlodar to start with. Adilbek wrote to her. Both Amanjan and Ainagyl needed international passports. You could apply for a passport in Ölgii. An application for an international passport was also put in for Kharlyghash. The three of them went to Ölgii and had passport photos taken at the photographer’s studio in the central square. The correct names and ID numbers were carefully written on the back of each photo, the application forms were carefully filled in, the correct application fee was included. These applications then needed to be submitted. This was quite a challenge. Although the passport office was located not far from the central square, the opening hours were very limited and unpredictable. The clerk in charge was often absent, and when she was at the office, a mass of people needed her services and it was a struggle to be

The People Who Move



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served at all. After numerous visits to Ölgii and many frustrating attempts to be at the office at the right time, all three costly passport applications were submitted. After several weeks came the challenge of collecting the passports. The applications and documents had been sent off to the central passport office in Ulaanbaatar and returned by post to Bayan-Ölgii. After weeks of going to the passport office, Kharlyghash was finally triumphant. She emerged with her own and Ainagyl’s passports. As she came out of the office, she looked through them. She looked again. Despite their efforts, her own and Ainagyl’s photos had been swapped around. Kharlyghash’s passport had Ainagyl’s photo and Ainagyl’s passport had Kharlyghash’s photo. She was furious. She came to see me in my flat in Ölgii. Unhelpfully I suggested that perhaps she would be able to get by with a photo of Ainagyl in her passport and vice versa. It struck me that a UK immigration official might not be able to tell the difference between the two sisters. But, then again, in Kazakhstan it might be more difficult. The sisters did not look that much like each other. Kharlyghash sensibly said that it was out of the question. She needed to rectify the situation. After a cup of horrible tea, she went back to the office. She had to go back there several times. Eventually the two passports were returned to Ulaanbaatar, with new photos, again with the correct names written neatly on the reverse, and eventually, after several months, the correct passports arrived in Ölgii and Kharlyghash was able to collect them. The decision to send Amanjan and Ainagyl had been taken by Adilbek and Elnara. They took out loans to cover the cost, and Abilbek corresponded with his sister. Neither Amanjan nor Ainagyl spoke about these plans. Neither of them showed any sign of being excited at the prospect. Things could still change or go wrong. It was no good taking things for granted. They had little idea what awaited them in Kazakhstan. They were both pensive, as if there was a finality about the decision.

17



The Winter Slaughter

I

n November, the temperature dropped to around minus twenty degrees Celsius. During the half-term holiday, most of the family was gathered at home in Soghakh. Kharlyghash, Bauyrjan and Jibek came from Ulaankhus and Altynai came from Ölgii, where she was studying at the Teachers’ College. One evening there was a discussion at the dinner table. ‘We should wait’, Adilbek was arguing. ‘No, we should go ahead tomorrow. Let’s get it over with’, Elnara ventured. There was a man herding a herd of cows and horses down the length of the valley from north to south, selling animals to people for their winter slaughter. Adilbek and Elnara wanted to buy a cow from him, but they could start with the smaller domestic animals, it was argued, rather than wait for him. The winter slaughter takes place in November because by this time it is usually sufficiently and consistently cold, and salted cuts of meat can safely be stored in a shed outside without risk of thawing. Some of the meat will not be eaten until six months later and needs to be salted and frozen in order to keep. From November until April, the temperature is not likely to rise above minus fifteen to minus twenty degrees Celsius. Also, in early winter, the animals still retain much of their fat, making it a good time for the slaughter. The next morning, we had breakfast earlier than usual. Amanjan sat at the table drinking his tea and sharpening the knife on a smooth, dark stone. This was the knife we used for everything: for cutting through thick felt when making felt carpets, for cutting bread for our breakfast and for slaughtering domestic animals. The knife had been sharpened so many times, its blade was almost concave. After breakfast, Ainagyl went to tell the neighbours that we were going to start. Saule and Erbol and a couple from another neighbouring house

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came to help. The husband, a smiling man in his fifties wearing a Kazakh skullcap, installed himself at the table in the front room where the meat would need to be cut. I had met his wife before, a skinny woman with a long face who had come to inspect our work in late summer when we sat outside the house with our green and red syrmakh. Now she began to explain to me, for all to hear, ‘We say Bismillah when we start our work’, pronouncing the B pointedly with pursed lips as a P. I smiled and said Pismillah5 as I lifted the rolling pin to crush salt. Bauyrjan winked at me. That day, Ainagyl was in continual movement between the well outside, located between our house and Saule and Erbol’s house, and the stove. She constantly refilled several huge pots of water. She filled the large woklike pan on the stove. She brought in dried dung and coal that had to be chopped, and she kept the fire going and the water boiling all day. Outside the house, Amanjan and Erbol took each sheep and goat aside in turn and cut its throat, waited for the blood to drain into a large bowl and then skinned each animal and hung it up for quartering on a beam protruding from the external wall of the house. Larger pieces of meat were taken into the house and cut into smaller pieces by the smiling neighbour at the table. These pieces were thoroughly rubbed with the salt I had crushed, and finally hung in the shed next to the house. Saule and the neighbour were in charge of cleaning intestines. They let me try this, perhaps hoping that I would prove more useful in some way. Intestines are the slipperiest thing I have ever tried to grasp. They were surprisingly long and it was no mean feat to try to hold on tightly to one end with one hand, pour nearly boiling water into it, hold it up above your head and then, with the other hand, press the contents of the intestine out the other end. The greenish, brownish contents were faintly smelly and you had to ensure the end was placed inside the bowl that had been put on the floor for the purpose of catching the contents. You had to keep doing this, without wasting the hot water, until the intestines were completely clean. Some of these long, milky-white, slippery intestines were braided to be cooked and some were used to make horsemeat sausages – called khazy. I was too slow and the intestines constantly slipped through my fingers. Saule and the neighbour laughed, but this was no time to learn, there was too much to do, so I went back to my salt crushing duty. Twelve people worked together all day, drawing up water from the well, heating water, bringing in dried dung and coal and keeping the fire going, slaughtering and skinning the animals and cutting the meat, cleaning intestines, cleaning and filling stomachs with butter, salting meat, hanging it up in the shed on hooks. In the course of the day, eleven sheep and two goats were slaughtered.

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A Magpie’s Tale

Finally the evening’s meal, mai bauyr, literally ‘fat and liver’, was prepared. This was undoubtedly my favourite meal of the whole year. I love liver. I have loved it since I was a little girl. Liver has to be eaten when it is fresh, so it is the part of the animal that you cook first and it is the meal that you share after the day’s work is done. As night fell, all of us sat tired in a large circle around the little dinner table. The neighbour said a prayer while we all held up our cupped hands, saying our thanks for this meal. Then we sat, holding our warm bowls of mai bauyr at the same little dinner table where, all day, quartered sheep and goats had been cut into smaller pieces and salted. Everything had been washed and kept as clean as possible. Everyone had washed their hands and everything had been put in its proper place. And yet, having slaughtered thirteen animals in one day, and prepared the meat in a small room, there was inevitably blood on the door handles, the floor needed another scrub and the wax tablecloth with the red rose pattern that had covered the table at breakfast that morning was now on the floor with cuts of meat on it, the edges frayed and bloody. The next day, the family’s old horse and a cow, which was bought from the passing herdsman that very morning, were slaughtered. The intestines were longer. I was surprised by their length. The horse’s head was left in the front room for several days. At one point during the day, Bauyrjan looked at me, smiling, then lifted the horse’s tongue, laughing and making a ‘WRAH’ noise, exposing maggots under its tongue. Adilbek intervened and explained that the maggots had a function, helping the horse’s digestion. I slept next to the skinned horse’s head for several days. It didn’t really smell. It was very cold at floor level. The eyes somehow looked like they were gradually disappearing into the eye sockets. I found it quite beautiful. I remember it vividly. The skinned horse’s head against the yellow floorboards sat on top of the floral-pattern wax tablecloth. You could see the structure of the muscles exposed in reds and purples. Throughout the winter, this was the meat that we had: the sheep, goats, cow and horse that were slaughtered in November. It was diced and cooked with home-made pasta in stew or soup. We did not slaughter any further animals in winter. Towards spring, in April, we were left with goat’s meat, which no one was particularly keen on eating. Perhaps it had hung there for too long in the shed and had partly defrosted, because we all had upset stomachs after eating some of the meat for dinner. I remember reading an account of a winter slaughter by the journalist Louisa Waugh, before I left for Mongolia.6 It wasn’t a favourable account. I got the sense that the winter slaughter was one of the occurrences that alienated her from the people she was staying with. Perhaps the scale of it

The Winter Slaughter



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was shocking, on a domestic level. Having it happen in your front room. Even horses. I think this was what tipped the balance for her. ‘But these are the facts of life!’ I feel like telling her almost twenty years after reading her account. And people don’t waste any parts of the animals, unlike us. Everything is eaten, apart from the bottom part of the legs and the hooves, which are considered dirty. And on this occasion we didn’t eat the horse’s tongue. The horse was old and didn’t carry loads well any longer. It probably would not have lived through the long, extreme winter that was to follow. Most weak or old animals did not get through that winter. ‘So what would you have done with it?’ I feel like asking. ‘Given it a state funeral?’ And, I want to say, though this is certainly unfair in relation to Waugh and her book, that if anyone harbours any romantic notions about ‘nomadic peoples who live in harmony with their animals and nature’, well, here you have it. This is harmony. It’s hard work and bloody and dirty and dusty and freezing cold most of the year. Some years after that day in November when we did the winter slaughter, when I was eight months pregnant with Julie, I attended a creative ‘nonfiction’ writing course in an idyllic setting on the Welsh borders. ‘Show don’t tell, show don’t tell’, the teachers drilled into us. ‘Don’t explain things. Don’t tell the reader what to think. Don’t explain what things mean. Just show. The readers can think for themselves. They don’t need to be told.’ This was good advice. Academic writing, at least anthropological writing, is all about telling: this incident or action or phrase means this, because of that, as so-and-so has also pointed out, and so on. Tell, tell, tell. In anthropology, showing is almost considered anecdotal. It was a good lesson for me. But sometimes I also want to tell.

18



Silver Flower

Aina means ‘mirror’ in Kazakh, and gyl means ‘flower’. I think of Ainagyl’s

name as the flower of the mirror, or the silver flower. Her grandmother, who named almost all the children, must have looked at the baby and thought what a beautiful flower she would be. Ainagyl was born in 1981, after Kharlyghash and Erjan. She was a middle child, about a year younger than Erjan. Kharlyghash was her father’s child. Erjan was his mother’s child. Thinking back, I’m not sure whose child Ainagyl was. She did not obviously belong to anyone. No one made a great fuss of her or hugged her tightly or loudly claimed Ainagyl as theirs. In the triptych photo frame there was a photo of Ainagyl as a toddler. In the photo she looks slightly perplexed; her big eyes are slightly crossed, and she wears a worried pout. There is another photo of Ainagyl with her older sister Kharlyghash. In the photo Kharlyghash wears a floral print dress and bows in her hair; she is almost ready to go to school. Ainagyl wears the same blouse that she was wearing in the first portrait, with a pansy pattern, and an embroidered Kazakh hat with a large bunch of owl feathers sitting atop the hat to protect her. The pattern on the owl feathers is said to look like the Arabic script in the Qur’an, and the feathers are considered a kind of natural protective amulet. In the photo, Ainagyl is a toddler of two years, perhaps. When this photo was taken, her younger sister Altynai had already been born. Ainagyl was 23 years old when I came to stay with the family. She had only returned to live with her parents in Soghakh a few years before. She had spent a few years in Ölgii studying at the Mongolian-language Ten Year School and then at the same Teachers’ College that her younger sister Alty-

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nai now attended. When she had attended the Ten Year School, her eldest sister Kharlyghash had also been studying and boarding in Ölgii, just down the road at the Turkish College. Ainagyl had moved in with family in Ölgii: her mother’s parents, who were living with their eldest son – Ainagyl’s uncle – Daniyar, his wife and their children. Daniyar’s son, Ainagyl’s cousin, excelled in all his subjects at school and helped her with her studies during the years that they lived in the same house. She enjoyed her time in Ölgii. She passed her tenth-year exam and got into the Teacher’s College there. She was to study to be a primary school teacher. But when she did not pass the exams at the end of her first year at the Teacher’s College, her parents decided that the best option for her was perhaps not to continue a costly tertiary education, but to come back to Soghakh to live with them until she married. In Soghakh she helped with the housework and waited. At the age of 23 she was already ‘getting old’ for marriage. She was aware of what people said, how people gossiped. It made her anxious that she had not yet married, and at the same time, the thought of marriage worried her. Ainagyl’s younger sister Altynai would sometimes tease her awfully. Altynai did like to tease people. Perhaps she teased Ainagyl because she was her closest sister. The two of them together were the middle children. One morning we were clearing the table after breakfast. Ainagyl was stacking the tea bowls. Altynai grinned, giving me a mischievous look. Akh-khuuuuw,7 she started to sing mockingly in Ainagyl’s direction, making swanlike dance moves with her arms. Kazakhs consider the swan the most graceful of birds. There are dances in which the dancers emulate the movements of the bird. Altynai herself was short and stout and had a hint of a moustache. Ainagyl might have found points to tease her younger sister about, but she just tutted and went red with anger and got on with her work. On the few occasions when Ainagyl went to Ulaankhus or Ölgii that year, she would dress up, put on make-up and spend a long time in front of the triple-mirror dressing table in the living room. She would consider her appearance from every angle in the mirrors with dead seriousness and attention to every detail. She looked like a movie star. She would go to see old school friends and family in Ölgii and Ulaankhus. She didn’t venture out in Soghakh. Only one or two old school friends of Ainagyl’s lived within walking distance of the house. One day in spring, the whole family went to Ölgii for a memorial service for a relative. Bakhytbek went to school, and only Ainagyl and I remained in the house. We were supposed to look after the house and make tea and food for when Bakhytbek got back from school. Ainagyl had warned me a few days before. ‘Keep it quiet, OK? We are going to see a friend of mine!’ Now

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A Magpie’s Tale

we set off to see the friend, who had been in her class at school, and who lived across the valley a few kilometres away. Ainagyl was excited, partly because we weren’t supposed to be going anywhere. We worried, lest we were spotted by a neighbour and they in turn mentioned our outing to her parents. But more pressingly, Ainagyl was excited because she had heard rumours that her friend’s older brother might be planning to propose to her. She wanted to go and see her friend, and possibly catch a glimpse of the brother. She reckoned it would work to take them off guard. That way it would be less risky. You couldn’t possibly be kidnapped if you yourself were surprising someone. And bringing me, a foreigner and older lady, would be a kind of insurance. I felt a bit like a mix between a Victorian-era young lady’s chaperone and a spy working undercover. Whatever some people made of them and their questionable morals, people always treated foreigners as honoured guests. She would be safe with me. Besides, Ainagyl said, it would be nice to get an outsider’s opinion of the situation and of the young man in question. We walked across the valley in the bright sunshine. While we walked, she explained the situation as well as she could, using words she knew I understood. She gave a wide berth to any houses and their guard dogs. As we approached the house, she proceeded carefully, worried that their guard dog would not be familiar with us. A small child eventually came out of the house and restrained the large, vicious-looking, barking dog. It was a nice and comfortable place, a log cabin, with sun pouring in through the windows. Bowls from breakfast were still sitting on the table. Ainagyl’s friend had not been expecting anyone and was surprised to see us. She was on her own with two young children. She made tea and brought out bread, butter and jam. The two of them chatted and caught up on news about old classmates. The family, it turned out, was considering moving to Kazakhstan. Unfortunately, the older brother was up in the mountains with the sheep and goats and would not be back until later in the afternoon, so we did not meet him. Ainagyl was disappointed. The whole point of the visit had been to find out about this guy, and see the house where he lived. He had not been there, and anyway he would possibly be moving to Kazakhstan! We set off after an hour, as we had to be home in time for Bakhytbek’s return from school. It was a little unusual, and also difficult, for a young woman to get to know her future husband before getting married. There is a saying in Kazakh that ‘forty pairs of eyes should watch the girls, and twenty pairs of eyes should watch the boys’. I’m not sure I understand entirely why twice as many eyes are supposed to keep an eye on the girls, but it is partly because girls are vulnerable (obviously I don’t mean this in general, but in this view and in

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these circumstances they are). Girls are vulnerable and need to be protected carefully because something is likely to happen to them. They may be kidnapped for marriage. They may be lovely and friendly and this may be mistaken as openness, availability. They may even fall in love and start seeing someone and then get pregnant. People are likely to expect that something will happen to them, or even to suspect that something already has. Girls are treated like they need protection, but they are also treated with suspicion, like they are somehow the perpetrators of the very thing that poses a threat to them. It is true that if something were to happen to them, they would have to keep it a complete and utter secret, lest their own and their family’s reputation be ruined. I heard of a young unmarried woman who fell pregnant with a man she was seeing secretly while still living at home with her parents. Her parents and family found out and kept the pregnancy a complete secret for the whole nine months, and she lived at home, right in the village where she had always lived, and no one noticed. Apparently she gave birth in secret in a hospital in the capital, and the child was given up for adoption. The family said they were going on holiday. I’m not sure why young men are thought to need less surveillance, at least according to the saying. They are as likely to get into trouble. Perhaps it is because they are seen more as perpetrators; perpetrators acting within their rights, if you like. Kidnapping a young woman for marriage is by no means perceived as wrong, or even a crime. It is the girl who is at fault if she lets herself be fooled or somehow makes a young man want to kidnap her by being nice to him. Girls need to be particularly clever to navigate the troubled waters between childhood and marriage. It is nigh on impossible to get what you want, and it takes cunning, courage and a strong belief in yourself to marry someone you know you love and at the same time respect the wishes of your family and not somehow bring shame on them through your actions. An important difference between young women and men maybe lies in just this: young men are not as likely to bring shame on their families by getting into trouble. It’s not just that they can’t get pregnant and so can cover their tracks more easily. It is hard to put your finger on it exactly, but young women and young men represent different qualities of their families to the wider community. Of course, young men are as much subject to the will and wishes and inclinations of their parents and wider family as young women are. Young men also have to be cunning, or lucky, to get to know a girl they like and actually get the consent from their own family to marry her, and get the girl’s and her family’s consent. But they don’t have the burden of the honour of their families on their shoulders to the same extent, or not in the same way.

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A Magpie’s Tale

Whatever the facts, and whatever a young woman does, people will be suspicious. Random scandalous gossip will circulate like wildfire. There is even a term that means ‘scandalous gossip’ in Kazakh: ösek. People are guaranteed to engage in ösek, even about the most well-behaved and chaste of young women. So woe betide young girls who go off on their own visiting their friends’ houses unannounced in order to check out young men, like we did that day. But actually, I think we managed to keep it under wraps pretty well. In spring, Kharlyghash and I went to visit a young couple who lived close by in Soghakh. The young wife made lovely felt carpets and we had come to talk about her textiles, but invariably some gossip crept into the conversation. It emerged that a rumour had been circulating in Soghakh all winter since I had arrived. According to this gossip, Amanjan and I had fallen in love and I had fallen pregnant and (miraculously) given birth to a baby within four months. The baby was kept in my suitcase under the bed where I slept in the front room. I burst out laughing when Kharlyghash translated this to me in front of the young woman, who looked mildly embarrassed but also seemed to be bursting with curiosity to find out if this was true. In midwinter, I spent a few weeks in Ölgii. One evening I found myself on my way home from Suzy’s house after dark. It was very cold and the path leading to the entrance was covered with a thick layer of ice. I made my way gingerly along the path. All was quiet. Even most of the stray dogs in Ölgii had been culled by this time and all I could hear was my own breathing and the sound of my winter boots on the slippery ground. The apartment building had been built in the 1960s during the state-socialist period. It had been state-of-the-art, offering very comfortable, heated apartments with amenities that were, of course, not available in mud-brick or log cabins. In the 1990s, as the economic crisis had deepened, most buildings, roads, playgrounds and other publicly maintained infrastructure began to fall into disrepair. Frequent small-scale earthquakes had caused structural damage to the building and the apartments in the corners on the ground floor had been vacated and boarded up. Earthquakes and tremors had also affected the three central stairwells, where the steps were cracked and uneven and the metal banisters were contorted. The external door to the stairwell was hanging loosely on its hinges. It was a metal plate door, now rusty, and with a slight wind it would bang loudly. The stairwell itself had once been lit, but the light bulbs and fittings had disappeared over the years. After dark, you needed a torch or you had to feel your way up the broken stairs.

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That evening I didn’t have a torch with me. As I walked through the open doorway into the darkness at the bottom of the stairwell I sensed someone standing just inside the door. As I moved towards the first steps, I realized there must be two people, standing on either side of the doorway in the darkness and the cold. I was suddenly absolutely certain that I was going to be mugged or receive a blow to my head at any moment. There could be no other reason why anyone would be lingering in the dark, dirty stairwell at minus thirty degrees. But it was no use backing out – there was no one about and I couldn’t run on the slippery ground. I kept moving towards the first steps, and then up the first flight of stairs, and then the second, my heart pounding in my chest. There was just a faint rustling behind me. I made my way up the final three flights of stairs at a sprint, reached my door, fumbled with my key and unlocked the two locks as quickly as I could, slammed the doors behind me and bolted the inner one. I sat panting in my little kitchen, smoking a foul-tasting Russian cigarette and wondering who had stood in the dark doorway. One evening a few days later, someone was standing just inside the doorway again. As I approached, I heard the quiet laugh of a girl. They weren’t out to mug or attack anyone! It was a young couple, meeting in secret, in the cold and dark at the bottom of a stairwell where drunks had peed and stray dogs roamed. Ainagyl did not ‘go out with’ any young men before she married. Quite apart from the fact that there were no dark stairwells in Soghakh, or any kind of places to go out for that matter, it wasn’t seen as decent for a young man and a young woman who were not related to be alone, to sit and talk, to go for a walk – at home or in public. At home there were always parents and others present, and it would be disrespectful towards the young woman’s parents and elders for a young man to visit her at home. Some couples were lucky enough to get to know each other at school, like Erjan and Tanatar. They might even socialize in groups with other students and have opportunities to talk and get to know each other. Ainagyl’s younger sister Altynai met her husband this way, at the Teacher’s College in Ölgii. But in Soghakh? There weren’t many eligible young men around, and how would you meet one if all you could do was stay close to home and do the housework? That spring, Ainagyl waited and worried about the prospect of moving to Kazakhstan. She had no money of her own and no opportunities to earn any. She couldn’t decide to get a new pair of trousers when her old ones were worn out. She couldn’t decide when or whether she would go to visit friends in Ulaankhus or Ölgii. Trips like that were costly. Nor was there the

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A Magpie’s Tale

possibility of dwelling on her talents and finding an educational or professional path that suited her. She was one of many siblings, and each time a child embarked on an education, new loans were taken out and debts accrued. She had had her chance to become a teacher. Going to Kazakhstan with Amanjan was a good opportunity. All she could do was wait. The date of their departure grew nearer. Then one day in August, a few weeks before their departure, a young man turned up at the house in Soghakh out of the blue. He came on his own. He walked into the sunny little front room and installed himself on a stool and smiled broadly. He wanted to marry Ainagyl. No one had ever met him before. Ainagyl had never set eyes on him. He lived with his elderly mother, and was the youngest son, in the mountains north-east of Kök Moinakh. He had a sizeable herd of sheep, goats and horses. He was quite well off, in fact. He was chirpy and funny. He had a spark in his eye. He had the nerve to simply walk through the door, on his own, unaccompanied by any elders. He asked Adilbek and Elnara for Ainagyl’s hand in marriage. They were slightly taken aback by his sudden arrival. They hesitated. They said it would be up to Ainagyl. She had been preparing tea for the stranger. And to everyone’s surprise, she accepted!

19



French Extraordinaires

N

ot long after coming to Bayan-Ölgii, on a beautiful sunny day in early autumn, I happened to be in the central square in Ölgii. I was about to cross the road, and looked left, then right, and stopped in my tracks. Something unusual had caught my eye. Beyond the building that housed the public baths, I could see a shape moving along the road. It was at once familiar and out of place. It moved slowly and yet it was not someone walking along the road, nor was it a car. It was a cyclist! What was a cyclist doing here?! I stood there at the edge of the road and watched in surprise and wonder. No locals would cycle here. Only children had bicycles and they never cycled on the road in the centre of Ölgii. It must be a foreigner. I waited some more, standing to attention like a one-person welcome committee. When he came closer, within earshot, I smiled and said, ‘Hello. Welcome to Ölgii. Who are you?’ Or something like that. Antoine was used to being stopped randomly by strangers by this point. He and his wife Célina had cycled from Turkey across Iran and Kyrgyzstan, through northern China, and then looped back and cycled all the way across Mongolia. Over the past few weeks they had struggled through a miserable marshy area west of Lake Khovsgol. I took them around Ölgii to a few of the local hotels. They settled in and eventually, over the coming weeks, decided to stay on for a bit in BayanÖlgii. After travelling around the aimag, they eventually met a family and decided to stay with them over the winter. The family lived up in the hills in their winter house, a few hours’ drive from Ölgii. Célina and Antoine participated in their lives and became part of the family. Antoine herded the sheep, goats and horses with the husband, and when he could, he wrote and took photographs.8 Célina took care of the family’s horses, milked the

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A Magpie’s Tale

animals and helped the wife in whatever ways she could, and she filmed their daily life. Célina and Antoine eventually rented a flat in Ölgii. When they were in Ölgii, Célina would cook extraordinary meals in their flat. One time she found oranges at the open market and made duck-á-l’orange (actually chicken-á-l’orange) for those of us who were in Ölgii. It was delicious and filled their kitchen with the most wonderful smell. Another time, friends had sent them a consignment of tinned foie gras. We had toast and foie gras accompanied by a Hungarian red wine. It was a most extraordinary meal. Looking back, it was not only lucky to meet two such lovely, adventurous, inspiring and sensible people (who happened to be incredible cooks). It was also always good to talk to them, about the funeral, the difficulties the family faced and my own practical difficulties; and they would volunteer their experiences and thoughts. One time Célina commented that next time they stayed somewhere for a while, she would like to stay somewhere where the women were more empowered; where women were on an equal footing with men. I was surprised, and disagreed strongly. Amanjan worked as hard as Ainagyl, if not harder. He also helped to cook sometimes. Erbol next door often cut the meat while his wife Saule or his daughter Leila were preparing the pasta. Everyone worked hard and pulled their weight. I felt that Elnara was as strong and decisive as any man. Her sisters had studied in Moscow. Anyway, I thought that age was more important in defining what people did and their relationships with each other. The status of women surely varied from family to family. I argued along these lines. Thinking back, Célina was right, of course. Some mothers-in-law did dote on their daughters-in-law. Some fathers did spoil their daughters and encouraged them in their studies. Sometimes when a husband was smaller than his wife, he would not beat her. Maybe pervasive imbalances and constraints of any sort are not always so easy to see in individuals’ lives and relationships, particularly those whose lives we are close to or part of. Imbalances come about in subtle ways, through our expectations, in all of the things that we don’t question and in what we think others expect of us, or see as normal. Imbalances hide in the little ways that these perceptions change the way we are, the ways we do things or don’t do things, the ways that we think of ourselves and our place in the world.

20



Daughters-in-Law

I

n the depths of winter, Kharlyghash and I went to talk to an elderly Kazakh gentleman who was a healer and fortune teller. Having talked for a while, he looked at me and commented that it must be hard for me to be there. He paused and gave it some thought. It must be almost like getting married. I looked at him, puzzled. He had eight daughters, he said with a smile. He was a widower and all his daughters had married. Now in his eighties, he lived with one of his daughters and her husband and their children. ‘It’s very hard for a young woman to get married, you know’, he said, looking at me earnestly. He seemed to perceive that I hadn’t taken in the full consequences of this event for a young woman. ‘The girl goes to a new life – one that has been chosen for her, and she leaves behind everything that is familiar to her. She works harder than anyone.’ An old Kazakh custom stipulated that during the first year of marriage, a young wife was not allowed to visit her parents on her own. She could visit once or twice in the first year but she would always be accompanied by her mother-in-law and further in-laws. There were a number of socially recognized, formally planned occasions on which the bride and her new in-laws would pay a visit to her own parents and family. But she could not visit on her own. When I asked why, it was explained to me that this arrangement was in place to stop her from ‘running home’ to her parents. It was not until she was a mother herself that she would be allowed to visit her parents and siblings on her own. Because then, of course, she was tied forever to her husband’s family through the bond of the child.

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‘Oh, this is an old tradition, and no one adheres to it strictly any more!’ Adilbek waved a hand as if to wave the very notion away. It was oldfashioned and irrelevant now. But a young woman did ordinarily move in with her new husband and often with his family and parents. If she lived with his parents, she might be spoiled by her mother-in-law, as Kharlyghash once commented. ‘Some young women are!’ And that would be lucky. But it was obviously not her choice, whether she was spoiled by her motherin-law or not, and – whether spoiled or not – she would still be perceived as the lowest-ranking person in the new household, and was still likely to work harder than anyone. She herself would probably expect this to be the case. She would have no authority or right to complain or to assert herself, and she would be unlikely to have anyone in her new household to support her if she did.9 It is often the case that a young bride moves to a neighbouring village or even further away to join her husband. In this case, she really will be far from her own family and relatives and the area with which she is familiar. Since young women do not really travel on their own, or at least, families try to avoid their young women doing so, and she is unlikely to have an income of her own, it is still – on a practical level – the case that a young wife will probably not see her parents and siblings on her own for the first year, and possibly for a longer time, after getting married. She would naturally travel with her husband or someone in his family. A wife belongs to her husband’s family. This was not just the case in far-flung rural locations. It was also, sometimes more so, the case in modern, urban, well-off families. A young woman I met in the first few weeks of being in Ölgii had just got married to a young man with whom she was very much in love. She was lucky enough to have been able to study at university in Turkey. She had met her husband, who was also from Bayan-Ölgii, there. Their two families were of high standing in the community and knew each other well. The two young people had started going out with each other in Turkey and had become engaged. The young woman fell pregnant while they were merely engaged, and when this was found out, the wedding was arranged in great haste. Rumours in the family circulated and there was concern that news of this might somehow get out. If it became known that she had fallen pregnant before marriage it would be disastrous for the reputation of the two families. After the wedding, when the young woman came to live with her parents-in-law, in their modern and comfortable house in Ölgii, there was no question of her mother-in-law spoiling her. She made the young woman work and work and work, cleaning the house, cleaning the windows, doing the dishes, cooking, washing everyone’s laundry and so on. It was as if she

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was punishing her for having fallen pregnant a little too early. Or perhaps the mother-in-law would have driven the young woman with an iron fist even if she had fallen pregnant on the ‘correct’ side of the wedding. The young woman, who was on the road to completing her education, had experienced a very different way of life in Turkey. She was exhausted, being heavily pregnant and made to do all the housework plus anything additional her mother-in-law could think of. She resented the way her motherin-law treated her and gritted her teeth. Her husband, meanwhile, seemed happy, if slightly concerned at how pale and tired his wife was. I don’t think it occurred to him to question his own mother’s actions or attitude. After their child was born, it was up to her parents-in-law to decide if the young woman would be allowed to return to Turkey to finish her studies. They would be paying for it. A year later she gratefully reported that she would be returning to Turkey, but not with her husband and son. She would be going with her son and her mother-in-law. If you marry the youngest son in a family, you might have more to do with your parents-in-law than with your husband, at least on a day-to-day basis. Like the young woman in Ölgii, a young wife is likely to live with her parents-in-law, and is expected to care for them. Together with her husband she does the hard work that her parents-in-law are now too old to undertake. The organization of the work is mainly decided by the mother-in-law. In turn, the parents-in-law are there to look after their grandchildren. This is a practical arrangement, as well as one that embodies a social hierarchy that centres around age and gender. In many cases the grandparents will have their own state pensions. But this would be insufficient to live on, and practically speaking, the elderly couple probably couldn’t live on their own, just the two of them. In fact, very few people did live on their own in Bayan-Ölgii. It was certainly too hard for one elderly person, or two elderly people, to do all the work that needed to be done to put food on the table and keep the house clean and warm. Even in town it was almost impossible. I met a few women with children who lived on their own after their husband’s death or a divorce. One lady, who lived on her own with her young daughter, had married in Kazakhstan, but the marriage had ended in divorce and she had returned to Ölgii. She worked extremely hard, and had help from relatives to get many of the big routine household jobs done, like bringing coal home and insulating the flat for the winter. The old man that Kharlyghash and I spoke to was right in a way. It was true that I had come to live somewhere where everything was entirely different compared to my own world. But my life in Bayan-Ölgii was nothing like a young daughter-in-law’s. I was spoiled rotten by Kharlyghash’s parents. I

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did a very small part of the housework. They gave me unheard-of licence to do what I wanted, to travel on my own, to go to places and visit people, to be on my own in a small flat in Ölgii, where there was no one to watch out for me and no one to keep an eye on me. Adilbek called me his daughter and the children called me sister. But had I really been their daughter and sister, I would have brought the family into a disrepute beyond my wildest dreams.

21



The Young Uncle

T

hat summer, when Ainagyl and Amanjan were waiting to leave for Kazakhstan, Amanjan went to Ölgii several times to collect his own documents and make the travel arrangements for himself and Ainagyl. In the end, he left on his own, after Ainagyl’s wedding, just as the birch trees in Ulaankhus were turning a golden yellow and red. He travelled north by coach via the Russian Federation and from there onwards to Pavlodar. He would stay with his sister, who was then in her sixties, the sister who had written to the family the previous autumn and whose letter Adilbek had read to us wearing my glasses on the tip of his nose. When Amanjan travelled to Kazakhstan to settle there, he was ‘returning’ to a country that his ancestors had left almost one hundred years before. Amanjan had never been to the newly independent Republic of Kazakhstan, nor had his parents. A relative, Elnara’s older brother Daniyar, had studied in the capital, Almaty. Daniyar was full of tall tales. But the Academy of Sciences in Almaty, which had been Daniyar’s hunting grounds in the 1970s, was worlds away from the Kazakh steppe where their ancestors had lived; and it was in other ways worlds away from the Republic of Kazakhstan of the early 2000s. Amanjan headed to the northern region (oblast) of Pavlodar, which was where his sister had settled in the 1990s, but which otherwise held few family or ancestral connections. After 1991, Kazakhs from Mongolia were predominantly allowed to settle in the northern regions under the various schemes for ‘returning Kazakhs’ (known as the oralmandar in Kazakh) initiated by the government of Kazakhstan. This was partly because the northern parts of the Kazakh SSR (until 1991) had been inhabited predominantly by ethnic Russians and Slavs, as well as ethnic Germans.10 After the collapse of the Soviet Union, in the first half of the 1990s the majority of the ethnic Germans – some nine hundred thousand as estimated by the German Em-

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bassy in Almaty, who had lived for several generations in the Kazakh SSR – emigrated to the newly reunited Germany. In this context of depopulation of the northern oblasts, the newly independent government of Kazakhstan under Nazarbayev was keen to boost the Kazakh population in these northern and now overwhelmingly ethnically Russian and Slav areas. The Republic of Kazakhstan that greeted Amanjan was the historical birthplace of his grandparents and great-grandparents, but to him it must have seemed a foreign country in many ways. Historical processes had shaped a country and people that were in many ways alien to those who ‘returned’ to it many generations later. Kazakhstan followed a different historical trajectory from Mongolia, the home of Amanjan’s family for three generations. Amanjan did not have any geographical or spatial markers to guide his ‘return to the Motherland’. There were no family graves to visit, no old houses that might have been lived in, no third-generation neighbours who still remained or remembered, nor even a mosque or a madrassa where his forefathers might have prayed or studied. There were also important cultural, social and linguistic differences between the ‘returning’ oralmandar and their new compatriots. The official language in Kazakhstan was, on the eve of independence in 1991, not Kazakh but Russian. Most well-educated Kazakhs from Kazakhstan spoke Russian as their first language. Many did not speak Kazakh at all, or knew only greetings or sayings, and did not feel fluent in their ‘native’ language. Kazakh had become a domestic language in Kazakhstan, and was not, in the main, a school or work language, nor an official language used on television or in newspapers. Kazakh is a Turkic language belonging to the Altaic language group, and is closely related to Kyrgyz (Kazakh and Kyrgyz are probably as close as Swedish and Norwegian are) and more remotely to other Turkic languages, including Uzbek, Turkmen, Uighur and ultimately the Turkish spoken in Turkey. Russian is a Slavic language belonging to the Indo-European language group; its phonology and grammar are entirely different from Kazakh. Besides some Russian loanwords in Kazakh, the two languages are mutually incomprehensible. The language gap between the Kazakh of Kazakhstan and the Kazakh oralmandar from Mongolia was a real divide. Amanjan had not learned much Russian at school in Bayan-Ölgii. He had been good at Mongolian, which had been the first foreign language taught in his school. The primary language in schools in Bayan-Ölgii was Kazakh, in which all subjects were taught. Mongolian was the first foreign language taught, and Russian only the second and optional foreign language, of which Amanjan had only acquired a rudimentary level. I imagine his fluency in Kazakh and rudimentary Russian evoked a surprising mix of reactions from Kazakhstani Kazakhs: guilt that they as a nation had ‘forgotten’ their own native language, and at the same time,

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a certain looking down upon their country-bumpkin herder cousins from rural Mongolia, who had not been exposed to Russian language and culture. Their ‘countryside dialect’ of Kazakh and their uses of the language were different, seen by some as ‘traditional’. The Kazakh of Mongolia were seen to have preserved a more ‘traditional’ way of life. They still lived in a yurt in summer. They were less sedentarized, less urbanized, less ‘Russified’ – they were perceived as less modern, a little bit backward. The summer when I had finished my fieldwork in Bayan-Ölgii, I travelled to Almaty in Kazakhstan and was taken care of by the friend who had spent the previous summer in Bayan-Ölgii with me, and her lovely family. They found a room for me in a student hall of residence, where I stayed for almost a month, spending my time going to the library and visiting the collections of beautiful textiles in the national museum. The first time I met my friend’s father, he addressed me in the polite form as Siz, just like any French person would address someone they don’t know well as Vous. At first I found this disorientating and a little awkward. In Bayan-Ölgii, on meeting someone new, you would always find out their age and then address them in the polite form if they were older than you, but not if they were younger than you. It would be awkward to address someone obviously younger than you in the polite form. I got used to this, of course. I am sure there were many more differences of dialect and linguistic adaptation between the Kazakh spoken in Mongolia and Kazakhstan that I would not have noticed or understood. After returning to London, I went to a conference in Ann Arbor in Michigan on Central Asian cultures. A Korean scholar and artist showed a film he had produced about the Korean minority in Kazakhstan.11 The film was about the historical circumstances, under Stalin, that led to a very sizeable Korean minority being deported to the middle of the Kazakh steppe. The film producer was of Korean descent but had grown up in America, and introduced the film by telling an anecdote about how he had come across the Koreans of Kazakhstan. He said he felt as though he had happened, quite by chance, upon family, living on the other side of the moon, ‘like in that Star Trek episode’ where the crew find their own mirror selves and feel suddenly like they have come home. I imagine Amanjan in the opposite situation. You meet your countrymen for the first time, in a new country that you had heard of, but you did not know what was it like. They seem to be like you and they look familiar, but when you speak to them you find that they speak an alien language, they have lived another history and they inhabit another world. And you, somehow painfully, remind them of their own long-lost past. How can you bridge a chasm of more than one hundred years? How can you feel that their homeland is also yours?

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Part III Notes 1. The constitution, adopted on 13 January 1992, was Mongolia’s fourth (the first was adopted in 1924). The 1992 constitution reflected the political reforms that underpinned the country’s transition to a multiparty democracy. It was adopted after a two-month-long session of the national assembly, the People’s Great Hural. Prior to this, in June 1991, a draft constitution was published and there was broad public debate. Apparently, over two hundred thousand suggestions were received in response to the draft (see Sanders, ‘Mongolia’s New Constitution’; Montsame, ‘Today Marks 30th Anniversary’). 2. Finke, ‘The Kazaks of Western Mongolia’, 118. 3. See Sanders, ‘The Turkic Peoples’. 4. On this topic see also Bulag, Nationalism and Hybridity, 99; Diener, One Homeland or Two?; Finke, Qazaq Pastoralists in Western Mongolia, chap. 2; Janabel, ‘When National Ambition Conflicts’; Werner and Barcus discuss gender, inequality and migration in ‘The Unequal Burdens of Repatriation’; see also Werner and Barcus, ‘Transnational Migration’. 5. Bismillah is the invocation from the Qur’an that people use when they begin an undertaking, meaning ‘In the name of God’. 6. Waugh, Hearing Birds Fly. 7. Akh-khuw means ‘swan’ in Kazakh. 8. Antoine and Célina published a photographic account of their time in Mongolia, Une Année chez les Cavaliers Nomades de Mongolie, and an account of their longer journey in L’Appel de la Steppe. 9. On the position of the Mongolian daughter-in-law, see Hamayon and Bassanoff ’s classic 1973 study ‘De la Difficulté’, and Empson, ‘Integrating Transformations’. 10. Approximately 1.2 million ethnic Germans from the Volga region were deported in 1941 to the northern and central areas of Kazakhstan (see Applebaum, Gulag). Before the collapse of the Soviet Union, in 1989, 957,518 ethnic Germans are estimated to have lived in the Kazakh SSR (see ‘Special Report on Ethnic Germans’). After a mass emigration in the early 1990s, in 1994 the German minority still constituted 3.6 per cent of the total population in Kazakhstan. By comparison, the population of Russian and Ukrainian descent that year was 40.9 per cent of the total population (Soucek, A History, 331). 11. The film is entitled Koryo Saram: The Unreliable People and was co-directed by Y. David Chung (http://www.koryosaram.net/, accessed 27 May 2022).

PART

IV



Into the Past

22



The Shaman’s Son

O

ne afternoon in autumn, Elnara, Kharlyghash and I were talking over tea in the yellow-floored front room in the house in Soghakh. Kharlyghash and Elnara were telling me about the felt carpets they made for the yurt and winter house, what the patterns were called and where they took their inspiration from, what colour schemes worked well and suchlike. I had read, back in London in the library at SOAS, that Central Asian patterns were deeply symbolic. They were almost like amulets, in fact, and several authors claimed this to be the case. The patterns in the carpets were supposedly put there to protect those who used them, and even to encourage the proliferation of their herds of sheep and goats. I brought this notion up in the course of our conversation. Elnara listened and then explained that the patterns were taken from nature. They were not symbolic. They weren’t amulets. I pursued the point, explaining that some scholars said this about Central Asian textiles. ‘No no’, Elnara explained, ‘we are inspired by the plants and animals that we find beautiful, their shapes . . . We are inspired by nature! We don’t put ram’s horn patterns in carpets for any other reason.’ At that moment, as if prompted to do so, the inquisitive white goat mounted the log outside the window and looked in at us. Its horns gently knocked against the windowpane. ‘Look’, Elnara said, pointing. ‘We copy the shapes and patterns in our surroundings that we find beautiful.’ Bauyrjan hurried out the door to shoo the goat away lest it break the window. I persisted with the subject, however, and Elnara finally shrugged and suggested I consult her brother, Daniyar. He was an ethnographer, and had written widely on the cultural practices and crafts of the Kazakh. I considered this and replied that my work was really about people, not books. What an impossible girl, she must have thought. Or she ought to have

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thought. Not only did I doubt her, and take up her time when I was not going to believe her anyway, but I also did not respect her brother’s work, which I had not even looked at. I was quoting books and scholars at her, and yet I would not look at her brother’s books. If she thought any of those thoughts, she did not show it. She took it kindly. She got up and started preparing for lunch. ‘Enough of this chit-chat.’ After our teatime conversation, in the course of the day, I conceded to Kharlyghash that I would like to look at Daniyar’s book. But I couldn’t, at least not in Soghakh. The family no longer had any of his books. ‘Where are they?’ I asked Kharlyghash, thinking they were perhaps in her house in Ulaankhus. ‘We had a copy of one of his books, a really nice edition with colour photographs. Everyone read it. But it may have been used for kindling. You can get it at the library in Ölgii, I think.’ But on my next visit to Ölgii I found that the library had also lost their copy. This was how it came about that Kharlyghash suggested we visit Daniyar himself. Daniyar lived in Ölgii with his wife and grown-up children, including the son who had helped Ainagyl in her studies. I remember arriving one evening and seeing the lights shine welcomingly from the windows, a pair of impressive mountain goat horns displayed over the front door. Daniyar showed us in and we sat down in the living room and talked over steaming bowls of tea. Daniyar was expansive. He was joyful and funny and a little amused by the pair of us, I think: this careful, pale-looking anthropologist and his young niece. He agreed with his sister. There were lots of other places to look for amulets and symbols: owl feathers, amulets with suras from the Qur’an, shiny buttons sewn onto children’s clothes, stones with holes in them, even hedgehog needles! But not in felt carpets or embroidered textiles. Their patterns were inspired by nature. But that was really only a very small aspect of the material culture of the area. I took notes as fast as I could and Kharlyghash translated her uncle’s fast and furious elaborations as he expanded on western Mongolia and Inner Asia, the area where horses were possibly first domesticated, the place of origin of all the Turkic peoples, the Altai where many invaluable archaeological excavations had been conducted. The frozen burial chambers at Pazyryk, in these very mountains, had revealed the remnants of probably the oldest pile carpet ever found, from the fifth century BC, along with Scythian gold ornaments, belt buckles, bridles, masks made for horses adorned with antlers, bone, wood and metal ornaments with animal heads and swirling horns, fragments of felt carpets, a beautiful felt swan ornament.1 Daniyar endorsed my choice of subject and location. Bayan-Ölgii was, I was relieved to hear, a particularly good place to choose to study Kazakh

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domestic textiles, because most people still put up their yurts in summer, and these textiles were made for the yurt. It was a living tradition with deep historical roots. I thought he was wonderful. I wished I could capture every single word he uttered. He told us how he had studied in Moscow in the 1970s, and suddenly he smiled. ‘Have you heard of Boney M.?’ he asked. ‘Yeeees’, I said tentatively, slowly adjusting the course of my thoughts away from archaeological treasures and rummaging through my mind for a mental hook for this pop group’s name. He smiled broadly and went to the corner of the room and opened a travel LP player. He took a single out of its sleeve and suddenly, ‘Ra-Ra-Rasputin, lover of the Russian queen’ boomed out of the small speakers. Daniyar beamed and jived in his purple plastic slippers and Kharlyghash looked mildly embarrassed. As a student, he had been to see the West German band live at their 1978 concert in Moscow! He described the fabulous outfits and amazing Afros of the band members. After dinner, we carried on our conversation. Kharlyghash was getting a headache and was growing increasingly irritated with having to translate at lightning speed anthropological, ethnographic and archaeological terms she had never used in English. Then Daniyar got up and walked over to a dark corner of the living room and took something down from the wall. As he approached the table with the object in his hand, he half-whispered, half-spoke the word ‘Shaman!’ Imitating the voice of a shaman in trance he continued, ‘Sheshem shaman bolghan . . .’ – ‘My mother was a shaman’.2 He shook the drum for effect and made to hand it to me. I smiled and declined, superstitiously. I had heard stories of ordinary people and overly bold ethnographers being adversely affected by trying to handle a shaman’s drum or costume. It was a round drum, of animal hide strung over a round open frame. Feathers were attached to it. Daniyar and Elnara’s mother, Gyldana, had come across the Altai Mountains from Xinjiang together with her sister. This was her drum. I imagined the two sisters crossing the mountains on their own. Two brave young women crossing the lush green mountain pasture in summer, a little like the closing scene in The Sound of Music. Bright sunshine, snow-capped mountaintops . . . Stopping to have tea with friendly people in their yurts along the way . . . I had this image in my mind for years, even as I was writing my thesis. In reality, the two sisters most likely crossed together with other Kazakhs, possibly hundreds or thousands of people who were fleeing into Mongolia. They were refugees. Just like their parents before them had been refugees fleeing the consequences of Russian colonial3 policies in the Kazakh steppe.

23



The Closure of the Steppe

T

here hasn’t always been a Kazakh minority in Mongolia. In fact, compared with Mongolia’s other minorities, the Kazakh arrived in the country relatively recently – the majority of them from the 1860s to the 1940s. Mongolia is also not the only country to have a sizeable Kazakh minority. Just across Bayan-Ölgii’s southern border, China’s province of Xinjiang has a much larger Kazakh population of approximately one million, and there are Kazakh minorities in many other countries in Central Asia. The factors that led to the Kazakh being scattered into neighbouring countries can be summed up in a single phrase: ‘The Closure of the Steppe’.4 This phrase refers to the period from the seventeenth century onwards, when the peoples of Central and Inner Asia found themselves gradually being cut off and stuck in the middle between ever-encroaching and expanding powers: to the north-west, the Russian Empire, and to the south-east, at first shifting confederations of Western Mongols and later, after their defeat in the 1750s, their conquerors, the Manchu Qing Empire. The Russian and Manchu empires would establish clearly defined borders of a kind that had not existed in these regions before and integrate what had been a world of predominantly nomadic peoples into their respective realms.5 It was the consequences of this closure, and the eventual full Russian colonization of Central Asia, that led to waves of hundreds of thousands of Kazakhs fleeing into neighbouring countries over a period lasting almost a hundred years. People fled not just into China and Mongolia, but also into what is today Uzbekistan, Tajikistan, Kyrgyzstan and even as far as Turkey.6 Among these refugees were Elnara and Daniyar’s mother and aunt, and before them, Elnara and Daniyar’s grandfather and his brothers.

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Map 23.1. Historical map showing Manchu and Russian expansion into Central and Inner Asia, c. sixteenth to eighteenth centuries. © Anna Portisch.

The Kazakh are thought to have emerged as a distinct ethnic group in the 1500s. They were probably, for the most part, groups of Turkic Muslim nomads, who broke away from the Uzbek confederation to follow new leaders, Kerei and Janibek.7 A unified Kazakh khanate may have been in existence until the middle of the sixteenth century, after which three distinct Kazakh ‘clan confederations’ (in Kazakh, Jyz) were formed: the Little, the Middle and the Great Jyz, each inhabiting different regions of the vast Central Asian steppe.8 These were confederations of clans that shared a common nomadic livelihood and for whom common descent was a unifying factor. They were at times united politically and militarily to face incursions and attacks by neighbouring peoples.9 Following the dissolution of the Mongol Empire, the Timurid and later the Uzbek Shaybanid dynasties led the dominant confederations of peoples in Central Asia. The 1500s saw the growth in power and influence of the Khanate of Khiva (1512–1920) and the Khanate of Bukhara (1500–1756) in

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the oasis regions south of the steppe. The Kazakh would form alliances with their southern neighbours, the Uzbek Shaybanids, but also struggled for power with the Uzbek, and the Uzbek-ruled cities of Turkestan, Tashkent and Samarkand came under Kazakh rule for a time in the late 1500s.10 The more distant powers in the region included, across the Tien Shan Mountains, the Ming Dynasty (1368–1644); and to the north-west of the Kazakh lands, Russian traders and Cossack warriors and settlers were encroaching into Siberia. In north-east Asia, the Manchu were in the ascendant; and following the demise of the Yuan Dynasty (in 1368), the Mongols were divided and the Eastern Mongol Khalkha had retreated north of the Gobi Desert. Tibet was to become a significant religious and political influence in the region. To the south-east of the Kazakh steppe, confederations of Western Mongols would increasingly attack and threaten the Kazakh.

24



The Mongols of the West

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he relationship and power struggles with the Western Mongols are said to have been significant for the Kazakh in terms of defining a distinct identity in relation to an enemy.11 The continued threat posed by the Western Mongols resulted in internal political conflict among the Kazakh clan confederations, and was significant in pushing the Kazakh to form alliances with Russia. Western Mongol groups formed shifting confederations over time. The Western Mongol Oirat Confederation may have been formed by groups that broke away from other Mongols loyal to the Yuan Dynasty, who came under pressure from Eastern Mongols and settled further west, in the Xinjiang and Altai region.12 The Western Mongol Confederation was originally formed of four allied groups and in Mongolian they are therefore referred to as the Dörben Oirat (literally ‘The Four Oirat’).13 The Western Mongol Confederation eventually began to expand its territory both eastward and westward. To the east (in the area roughly corresponding to today’s Mongolia and the Chinese Inner Mongolian province), they fought the Eastern Khalkha and Ordos Mongols. The Ming Dynasty to the south played its role in these struggles between Eastern and Western Mongol confederations,14 backing one side and then the other, but perhaps surprisingly often supporting the Western Oirat Mongols. This may have been a strategy on the part of the Ming to back the politically weaker party, and thereby prevent a strong Mongolian power from emerging on its northern border. However, as the Confederation of Western Mongols grew stronger and they began to expand their territory, they not only challenged the Eastern Mongols but also the Ming.

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Although the commanders of the Western Mongols were ‘true Mongols’,15 descended from powerful noble lineages, their rulers were distinct from the Eastern Mongols and the Kazakh in that they were not descended from Genghis Khan.16 It is often said that it was the fact that they were not ‘white bone’ aristocracy that undermined, in important respects, their attempts to claim rulership over all the Mongols.17 Nevertheless, the Jungar-led Western Mongol Confederation of the seventeenth and eighteenth centuries has been described as the last of the ‘great nomadic pastoral polities’ to dominate the Inner Asian region.18 As such, the Western Mongols, along with the Eastern Mongols and the Kazakh, were important players in what we might think of as ‘the final major conflict between early modern states . . . and nomadic states’.19 From the fifteenth century, alliances and power relations within the Western Mongol Confederation shifted and changed over time, but a key factor in their position in the region was an alliance with and the protection of the Yellow Hat denomination of Buddhism in Tibet. In the early 1600s, the Western Mongol Oirat rulers adopted the Yellow Hat denomination of Tibetan Buddhism (the Tibetan term is transliterated as dGe-lugs-pa or Gelugpa).20 In the 1630s, several Western Mongol groups fought in the wars between the king of Tibet and the Yellow Hat sect of Buddhism. It was with the support of the Western Mongol Khoshut and Jungar that the Dalai Lama became a religious and political ruler in 1642. Reincarnation took on renewed political significance, both in Tibet and for the Eastern and Western Mongols.21 The following century of close religious and political alliance between Tibet and the Western Mongol Confederation would see important Buddhist reincarnations, monks, scholars and leaders emerge from among the Western Mongol peoples. The Western Mongol Jungars, who had fought alongside the Khoshut in the wars against the king of Tibet, would later lead invasions of the territory that is today Mongolia, fighting the Eastern Mongols. Galdan Khan, who ruled c.1671–97, was educated in a lamasery in Tibet and granted the title of Khan by the Dalai Lama.22 Galdan built his base near the site of presentday Khovd in western Mongolia, and during the course of his reign claimed control over large areas of what is today Xinjiang, Qinghai, Tibet and south-east Kazakhstan, as well as Inner and Outer Mongolia.23 In 1688, after repulsing an attack led by Khalkha Mongols, Galdan invaded their territory, fighting the Eastern Mongols, who retreated as far back as the central Mongolian monastery of Erdeni Juu. This forced Eastern Mongol groups to seek protection in Manchu-dominated areas to the south.24

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These events are said to have persuaded the Eastern Mongol nobility to seek an alliance with the Manchu. The Manchu, who before their rise to power inhabited the north-eastern Asian region (roughly corresponding to what is sometimes known as ‘Manchuria’25), had named themselves the rulers of a new dynasty, the Great Qing Dynasty, in 1636. In 1644 the Manchu conquered Peking. By this time, they had already conquered and formed alliances with groups in Inner Mongolia. In response to the attacks in 1690 by the Western Mongols led by Galdan Khan, the Manchu went into battle alongside the Eastern Mongols. Galdan Khan attempted to make alliances with the Russians to the north, but found that he was prevented from this by the recently signed Treaty of Nerchinsk between the Manchu and the Russian Tsar.26 The Manchu and Eastern Mongol forces defeated Galdan’s army, and he was subsequently allowed to retreat into western Mongolia after negotiations mediated by representatives of the Dalai Lama.27 It is said that it was this Manchu victory, fighting alongside the Eastern Mongols, over Galdan Khan’s armies that was one of the contributing factors leading to Eastern Khalkha Mongol nobles’ decision to enter into a treaty of alliance with the Manchu. At the Convention of Dolonnor in 1691, some 250 kilometres north of Peking, the Khalkha Mongol nobles performed ‘the ceremony of the three kneelings and nine head-knockings’ and were thus integrated into the Manchu banner system.28 The Eastern Mongols would remain subjects of the Manchu for over two hundred years, until the fall of the Qing Dynasty in 1911. The Manchu were, of course, themselves a people from the Inner Asian ‘margins’ or periphery of China. It was not until nearly forty years after their conquest of Peking that in 1683 they subdued the last vestiges of the Ming loyalist and resistance movements in China. The Manchu are said to have considered China a ‘subjugated polity’, classified as the ‘interior empire’. Their Inner Asian territories, on the other hand, that is, their homelands in ‘Manchuria’ and Inner and Outer Mongolia, Xinjiang and Tibet, were classified as ‘allied constituencies’, of cultural equivalence.29

25



New Year’s Eve

I

t was several years after I had stayed with the family in the house in Soghakh, when I was back in London, that I heard about Ainagyl’s escape in the night with her son. I got the bare bones of the story. These were the components: Ainagyl had fled at night. She had fled with her 1-yearold son. She was five months pregnant. She had fled on foot. It had been her husband’s cousin. He had visited them, and he and Älemkhan had got drunk together. For unknown reasons Älemkhan’s cousin had beaten Ainagyl. He had flown into a rage and also shot one of Älemkhan’s horses. I heard about Ainagyl’s escape like in a game of Chinese whispers. Kharlyghash, her older sister, who told me, had heard from their younger sister, who had in turn heard from their parents. I am not sure who had actually sat with Ainagyl and heard the whole story from her. But they had seen her when she arrived at the family house in Ulaankhus. They had seen the bruises on her arms and legs and the broken rib and they had been worried that she might lose the baby, and they were thankful that little Erkin had not been hurt. The story was preposterous. I thought about it for weeks. I talked about it with Kharlyghash. The story seemed unlikely to both of us. Mulling it over one day, walking to nursery to collect my own 1-year-old daughter, I was reminded of another incident. It had been an evening in January, a week or so after New Year. We had all been at home in the little house under the stars. We had finished dinner. Amanjan, the young uncle, was reading. Bakhytbek was doing his homework for school at the dinner table. Adilbek was tuning the radio. Bakhytbek got up to draw the curtains, and by chance he spotted Berik coming towards the house, walking across the bumpy ground and staggering a lit-

New Year’s Eve



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tle. Without much ado, everyone quickly stopped what they were doing and went to bed and pretended to sleep. Amanjan’s newspaper lay on the table still. Bauyrjan and Jibek, who had driven with me to the village on New Year’s Eve, were both quickly in bed. Their father Adilbek lay in bed, quite still; the radio was silent. Bakhytbek lay quietly in the darkness of the bedroom too, anxious and excited at the same time. Only Elnara and I were left exposed in the light of the single light bulb in the living room. Berik threw open the front door, letting in a blast of cold air. A few days before I had hired a driver to take me from Ölgii to Soghakh. We would stop in Ulaankhus, which was on the way, and pick up Bauyrjan and Jibek so they could go home and see their parents on New Year’s Eve. I was tired of the overcrowded ‘public transport’ cars, drunken drivers, vodka bottles passed round to the passengers, the long journey and the almost certain breakdown of the car in the snow-clad hills. The dirt tracks across the hills were icy and offered little grip for the old Russian four-wheel-drive cars. Drivers often turned the engine off coming down the hill to save on petrol, letting the car skid some of the way. A few weeks before, Tamsin, the Peace Corp worker from Ulaankhus, had been in a car accident in which the car had rolled over several times. It was probably because the car was so tightly packed with passengers that no one was seriously injured. Stories had also circulated in Ölgii about a father who had been driving with his two young children in the car, over the hills from Ölgii to Ulaankhus, a journey of only eighty kilometres. The car had broken down and he had been unable to get it started again. They had started on foot for Ulaankhus. Only the father had survived. The two children had died of hypothermia. The temperature hovered around minus thirty degrees Celsius in the daytime. At night it fell to minus forty degrees. It was New Year’s Eve and for once I had hired a driver, Miras, who was nice and sober and spoke English, and whose car was relatively new and did not break down. I had a whole seat to myself. We stopped in Ulaankhus and spent some time discussing who in the family was to come to Soghakh and who would stay in Ulaankhus. In the meantime, news went round Ulaankhus that I was in the village with an empty car, on my way to Soghakh. This reached the ears of Berik, a (thrice removed) cousin of Adilbek’s who had been visiting family in Ulaankhus and who, by this time in the afternoon, was admirably drunk. Kharlyghash advised us to leave as quickly as we could without Berik, as he sometimes got violent when drunk. As we were starting the car, Berik came walking across the pebbled square towards us. Berik was already annoyed that we seemed to be making off without him, when we could plainly see that he was walking in our direction. There were no other cars going up to Soghakh that day and he wanted to go home to his wife and children –

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A Magpie’s Tale

his house was also in Soghakh, a few kilometres from Adilbek and Elnara’s house. Kharlyghash wavered, but seemed anxious that we leave quickly. We told him he could not come. There was no room. Of course, there was plenty of room as we were only three passengers (a similar ‘public transport’ car might fit twelve passengers on a much longer journey). We were clearly being unreasonable. Berik was coming with us. He was next to the car as we began to drive off slowly. In the flurry, Berik tried to force his way into the car, or rather, to physically stop the car by holding on to it through the open door. I told the driver to simply keep driving slowly and eventually Berik would have to let go. The car was, after all, not a yak or a horse. It had more horsepower than even Berik. Of course, this was completely unreasonable behaviour on my part. I was refusing a relative a ride home in a nice, comfortable car that was virtually empty on New Year’s Eve when he wanted to join his wife and children and wouldn’t be able to get home otherwise. Berik eventually stumbled and rolled on to the dusty ground as we drove off. A few days later, after having got home to Soghakh by other means, he made his way to Adilbek and Elnara’s house, drunk again and very angry. His physical presence in the small living room was large. He was a tall, broad man, and clearly very strong. He didn’t have to explain very much. Elnara already knew about our departure from Ulaankhus. Bauyrjan and Jibek had been concerned about what the consequences might be. Elnara had a compact presence. She stood firm. She listened but she also spoke in uncompromising terms. I knew what Berik’s quarrel was, but I didn’t understand much of his furious rant. I imagine he questioned Elnara as to why they had taken me in. It was an outrage. I had no respect. I sat by the stove on a stool and looked at the floor and said (in Kazakh), ‘It is all my fault’, which it was. For a long time it wasn’t clear what Berik would do. Eventually Elnara managed to calm him down. He had a bowl of hot tea. He didn’t break any furniture. He didn’t punch anyone. He didn’t try to rouse the ‘sleeping’ family members or beat Bauyrjan up for not having stopped the car, or Amanjan for being a young man who was part of this branch of the family that had treated him so disrespectfully. He left after an hour or so. I don’t know what the terms of negotiation were, or what cards Elnara played. She stood her ground throughout. She never showed any sign of fear. All the men and Jibek and Ainagyl had gone to bed and left Elnara to deal with Berik because he was certain to want a fight. He was strong and could overpower any one of us, and probably all of us combined. He was known to like a fight. But a man never picks a fight with a woman who is not his wife; he never beats another man’s wife.

26



Kazakhs and Western Mongols

W

hile the Jungar-led Western Mongol Confederation continued to engage in a military struggle with the Manchu from the 1690s and into the mid-1700s for dominion over large areas of Inner Asia, including Outer Mongolia, Tibet and today’s Xinjiang,30 Western Mongol groups also began moving north-west into Kazakh lands, possibly because of political disunity within the confederation or to avoid internal conflict. They broke away from the Altai region and, in their search for pastureland, tens of thousands of people moved into and across the Central Asian steppe inhabited by the Kazakh.31 They moved with large herds of domestic animals and their yurts, some of which functioned as mobile temples and monasteries. Several Western Mongol groups would go as far west as the lower Volga River area, more than 2,500 kilometres from the Altai region. Here they established the Kalmyk Khanate,32 which, over time, would become affiliated with the expanding Russian Empire. From here, they continued to plague the Kazakh of the Little Jyz who inhabited the north-western regions of the steppe.33 To the south-east of the Kazakh steppe, the Jungar-led Confederation continued to make incursions into Kazakh areas. From the late 1600s until the mid-1700s, shifting Western Mongol confederations came to rule the area of what is today Xinjiang and much of the surrounding territory in western China.34 Their struggle with the Kazakh intensified as the Western Mongols’ territory gradually expanded west and northward. This pushed the Kazakh into increasing conflict with their other neighbours. From Galdan Khan’s incursions into the southern regions of the Kazakh steppe in

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the late 1600s to the capture of the Syr Darya river basin in the 1720s, the campaigns of the Western Mongols forced the Kazakh to migrate into contested Russian-held territory to the north and disputed territory (with the Uzbek) between Khiva and Bukhara.35 The Kazakh historian, ethnographer and imperial official under the Russian colonial administration Shokhan Valikhanov (1835–65) was later to describe the first decade of the eighteenth century as ‘a dreadful time in the life of the Kazakh people. Jungars, Volga Kalmyks, Yaik Cossacks (people of Russian or Slav descent dwelling by the Yaik river) and Bashkirs attacked them from all sides, driving off cattle and taking whole families into captivity.’ These troubled times culminated in a military defeat of the Kazakhs in 1723, after which the three Kazakh jyz were scattered. This period is known as ‘the age of bare-foot flight’ of the Kazakh.36 The three Kazakh jyz nevertheless united, forming a military alliance in the late 1720s to defeat the Jungar-led Western Mongols, and in 1730 they won a famous battle against the Western Mongols near Lake Balkhash in what is today south-eastern Kazakhstan.37 The differences between the warring Kazakh and Western Mongols are not simply summed up as a feud over access to good pasture or waterways. Nor is their enmity explained by the typical tale told of an ever-present compulsion of nomadic polities to expand and conquer neighbouring peoples. There were religious differences between the Kazakh, who had adopted Islam, and the Western Mongol followers of the Yellow Hat Buddhist sect. And there were important differences between the Kazakhs and Western Mongols in terms of political legitimacy. The Kazakh, like the Eastern Mongol rulers, recognized the line of ‘white bone’ aristocratic or Genghisid descent, while the Western Mongol rulers were not considered to be descendants of Genghis Khan.38 There were also differences in terms of political alliances, of course, the Western Mongols being allied from 1642 with Tibet and deriving their political legitimation from this source, whereas the Kazakh formed shifting political alliances – although never with Tibet. Several decades after their military victory over the Western Mongols in 1730, the Kazakh continued to engage in battle and strife with the Western Mongol Confederation to the south-east of their lands, as well as with those Kalmyks who remained in the Volga steppe lands. The three Kazakh clan confederations were at times divided and suffered internal divisions too, and formed shifting alliances with neighbouring powers including Tsarist Russia and the Manchu, and occasionally also signed peace treaties with and pledged allegiance to the Western Mongol Confederation.39 The Russians, too, to secure their interests in the region, shifted their alliances over time, forming and then breaking alliances with the Kazakh clan con-

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federations, the Bashkir, the Volga Kalmyk and other peoples of Central and Inner Asia. The Western Mongol Confederation secured the support of the Kazakh of the Little Jyz led by Nur Ali and the Middle Jyz under Ablai Khan in their struggle against the Manchu. But it is thought that when the defeat of the Western Mongol Confederation became inevitable, the Kazakh shifted their alliances to the Manchu and received envoys from Peking. Trade relations between the Kazakh and the Qing were established.40 Ablai Khan of the Kazakh Middle Jyz eventually swore fealty to the Manchu Qianlong Emperor in return for the promise of pastureland that had previously been inhabited by the Jungar.41 Internal disunity was an important factor in the eventual defeat of the Jungar-led Western Mongol Confederation. Two Western Mongol groups, the Khoshut and Jungars, had been allied in the wars in Tibet and fought together against the Eastern Mongols in the 1630s and 1640s, and Tibet had subsequently been under the protection of the Khoshut for some seventy years, a period during which the Khoshut rulers had paid tribute to the Manchu.42 However, from 1717 to 1725, internal strife broke out between the Khoshut and Jungar for power in the region. The period until the 1750s saw increasing involvement of the Manchu in the region and the introduction of tighter controls by the Manchu on the Mongols and Tibetans of this area.43 Finally, in the 1750s, following internal political struggle within the Western Mongol Confederation, the Jungar prince Amursana sought assistance from the Manchu to depose the ruling prince, Dawachi. Having deposed Dawachi with the help of the Manchu, Amursana found that the Manchu would only grant him partial powers, and not supreme control over the Western Mongol Confederation. He therefore turned against the Manchu, and the Qianlong Emperor eventually ordered a series of campaigns against Amursana. A mixed army formed of Manchu, Chinese and Eastern Mongol forces marched against Amursana’s Western Mongol Confederation and fought in a series of battles in the area that is today Xinjiang.44 There exists, extraordinarily, a series of etchings of these battles from the 1760s, depicting a rather orderly surrender by the Jungar. These were drawn and etched by European artists, who were nowhere near the actual battlefields at the time, of course, and were commissioned after the fact by the Qianlong Emperor to commemorate the ‘Pacification of the Jungars and Muslims’ on the north-western perimeter of the empire.45 This victory was different from the Manchu’s previous dealings with any of the Mongols. Following the Manchu’s final victorious battles and

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A Magpie’s Tale

up until 1758, the Manchu and Eastern Mongol troops, supported by the local Uighur population, went on to decimate the Jungar population in the area. Some estimate that, after these battles, the Manchu-led forces killed up to 20 per cent of the male population, while surviving women and children were taken as captives. In the disruption of war and persecution, an even larger number of Jungars perished from starvation and smallpox, while some groups managed to flee into Kazakh lands and to the north into the Altai Mountains.46 Of a total population of some six hundred thousand Jungars, the region was left almost entirely depopulated.47 The Manchu banned the very use of the name ‘Jungar’. What was at stake was not only the Manchu position in Xinjiang and Tibet, but the legitimacy and consolidation of their position in the wider Inner Asian region. The Qing Imperial Court needed spiritual and political justification for its military predominance in Inner Asia. The Western Mongols’ influence and alliances with Tibet challenged the rule of the Manchu over all the Mongols. As Bulag puts it, the ‘control over Tibet was significant, as the religious loyalty to Tibetan Buddhism, represented by the Dalai Lama, remained central to whether Manchu conquest of the Mongols could be consolidated’.48 With the eradication of the Jungar, the Manchu may also have sought to eliminate any possibility of the reincarnation of a political and religious leader to emerge from among the Jungar.49 But the legend of Amursana, the last Western Mongol ruler to challenge the Manchu, lived on in tales, poems and prophesies among the Eastern and Western Mongols.50 With the elimination of the Jungar after the Manchu victories, the Manchu certainly signalled an important message about their power and intentions to other peoples in the region, including the Eastern Mongols.51 No significant challenge to Manchu rule would come from the Mongols for almost 150 years. With the defeat of the Western Mongol Confederation and the elimination of the Jungar, the last powerful nomadic polity at the heart of Inner Asia was destroyed.

27



Night-Time Walk

I

n mid-winter, the temperature dropped to around minus thirty degrees Celsius in the daytime. Cheekbones and any exposed parts of the face hurt in the cold. You had to wrap a woolly scarf around your face, leaving only your eyes free. This was very impractical with glasses. When I breathed, my glasses steamed up and the condensation immediately froze. I couldn’t see a thing. I took to not wearing glasses outside, and then I couldn’t see very much either. In December, I was staying in Ölgii for a few weeks, and Kharlyghash was there to attend a competition for her students. One day we worked on transcribing the interviews we had conducted in the autumn. We sat at the little blue painted table in my living room by the radiator. The radiator was never really hot that winter, only lukewarm. A generator at the power station, which was located only a few hundred metres away at the end of the road, had failed at the start of winter and the heat generated by the remaining intact generator could only heat water sufficiently to make the radiators around Ölgii lukewarm. We drank tea and lit a coal fire in the stove in the kitchen. Transcribing interviews was extremely slow work. It always is, but it was even more so because I insisted on writing out the interviews in Kazakh, and then translating this into English. Kharlyghash supervised and helped with spellings and patiently explained the many uses of auxiliary verbs in Kazakh. She translated words and phrases and explained how Kazakh words were related. She corrected my mishearing of different vowels and consonants and explained the uses of the different kinds of ‘u’s in Kazakh. She was a fantastic teacher and translator, and the whole exercise

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A Magpie’s Tale

was incredibly helpful to me. But to both of us it was very tedious and time-consuming work. We worked until after dark. Kharlyghash was staying with her aunt who lived near the open market, only a ten-minute walk from my flat. We decided that as it was already dark, we would walk together to the junction where you could see the market and you could still see my building. It was about halfway between Kharlyghash’s aunt’s house and my flat. That way we could probably still shout to each other should something go wrong. It was a dark night, and the moon was new and low in the sky. We walked quietly down the path at the back of the apartment buildings, talking in hushed voices. No one was out on this stretch. The pebbles and stones crunched under our feet. Music and loud voices could be heard from a bar across the main road that ran parallel to the path. There were patches of frozen, slippery ground. We were almost at the end of the path where it met the road and the market was in sight. There was a dark spot behind a few dilapidated buildings where I stepped on a patch of frozen ground and slipped. I sat down spectacularly and landed with a thump. Kharlyghash burst out laughing. I moved to get up and laughed with her. There we were, making our way so gingerly and quietly, and then I had crashed to the ground. I was fine. We carried on. At the junction I stood for a while looking after Kharlyghash until she was swallowed by the darkness. Then I turned to go back. I put my hand in my pocket to feel for my torch and my keys. They were there. But my mobile phone was gone. I rummaged through my pockets again. I stood for a little while, thinking, breathing in the cold air. I took out my torch and retraced my steps to the place where I had fallen. In the dark spot, by the icy patch, the light fell on the outstretched paw of a dog. For a moment I thought the paw belonged to a sleeping dog. But no dogs normally guarded this stretch of path. As I moved the light beam I saw its snout had been cut off. Behind it there were maybe twelve dogs, frozen carcasses with snouts cut off, in a heap. We hadn’t noticed them in the darkness when we had gone past the first time. I had slipped and sat down just next to them. There on the ground was my mobile phone, the paw of the snoutless dog pointing it out to me. I picked up my mobile phone, whispered a ‘thank you’ to the dead dog and walked home quietly. The following autumn, I was back in London, beginning to write the first chapters of my thesis and teaching. In October, I went to a film festival in Paris showcasing ethnographic and anthropological films about Mongolia. One film that was screened was about a dog that was reincarnated. The dog in the film was shot as part of a cull, as stray dogs are in Mongolia when

Night-Time Walk



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winter sets in. Its snout was cut off by the man who shot it. The ‘cullers’ are paid for the number of dogs they shoot and the snout is their evidence. Some dogs don’t have tails, and there are four paws but only one snout. The film followed this dog’s journey and gave the dog’s perspective. It was shot with a handheld camera and reminded me of Dogme films. I found the film difficult to follow. There followed a discussion among the (mostly anthropological) audience sitting in the large cinema hall, on the culling of dogs in Mongolia. Some found the practice distasteful and inhumane. Others pointed out that people don’t have the same relationship with dogs in Mongolia as they do in Europe. Dogs aren’t pets that you have on your sofa or on your bed, whose fur you ruffle and stroke, whom you buy expensive toys or balls or treats for. You don’t walk your dog in Mongolia or play fetch. Dogs are guard dogs. They stay outside all year, even when it is minus forty degrees Celsius in the night. I didn’t say anything. I personally love dogs, but not Mongolian stray dogs or other people’s guard dogs. I loved the family’s guard dog in Soghakh because he was somehow a kindly and friendly dog (to us) despite having been born a dog in western Mongolia. But I was frankly grateful that stray dogs were culled in winter. They were a menace, they attacked people and some were rabid. Erbol’s brother had died of rabies after being bitten by a dog. The discussion turned to reincarnation and the topic of the film. Given the perception and treatment of dogs in Mongolia, was the film a gross misrepresentation? Did Mongolians actually believe that dogs could be reincarnated? Was the whole premise of the film relevant or accurate? Did it matter if all Mongolians believed that dogs could be reincarnated? Was it enough that the film-maker believed this (he was Belgian, by the way)? It was an ‘ethnographic’ film, after all, so supposedly it should represent Mongolian understandings. The film-maker wasn’t present. Several views were voiced. There was eventual consensus that the film took it for granted that Mongolians believed dogs were reincarnated, but that this was not the case. The film presented an exoticizing and orientalist perspective that was misleading. As the proceedings were about to move on, a small, quiet Mongolian lady put up her hand. She was softly spoken and almost waved aside. She said she had considered the proposition. Yes, she thought that dogs could probably be reincarnated. Why not? They were living beings. You could be reincarnated as a dog. So why should dogs not be reincarnated in turn? An embarrassed silence filled the moments until the next film began.

28



Cossack Warriors and Settler Pioneers

Historians have commented that Russia’s ascendancy in Central Asia

was inevitable. The industrial, military and social developments that began at the time of Ivan IV (‘Ivan the Terrible’, 1530–84) and continued to transform the country under Peter the Great (1672–1725) into a modern power meant that Russia became overwhelmingly stronger than any of its Central and Inner Asian neighbours.52 But the story of Russia’s relationship with the peoples of Central and Inner Asia is one that spans several hundreds of years of trade, contact, cooperation, conflict, conquest and colonial rule. It was shaped within an international context of shifting geopolitical relations, involving other empires and colonial powers. Changing understandings, shifting alliances, failed and successful military campaigns, evolving forms of colonial administration, Russian military involvement in other parts of the world and a complex multitude of human interactions came to make up Russia’s relationship with the peoples of Central and Inner Asia. The path to Russia’s ascendancy in Central Asia and the exact shape it was to take cannot by any stretch of the imagination be said to have been a historical inevitability, nor can the actions and reactions of the Central and Inner Asian rulers and peoples.53

Russian exploration and expansion beyond the Ural Mountains began in the 1500s. The process was initially led by Cossacks – people of Russian or Slav origin, often peasants fleeing poverty and serfdom in European Russia. Over time, the Cossacks formed semi-independent pioneer-settler communities and gained both military significance and political, civil and land

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rights in return for securing Russian trade in Siberia and Central Asia, and eventually for their role in building the Russian Empire. In the 1580s, the Cossacks were instrumental in the subjugation of the Indigenous Siberian peoples. A wealthy Russian family of merchants, the Stroganovs, had in the 1550s been granted a charter to Siberian land by the Tsar, and enlisted a band of Cossacks to force the Khanate of Sibir into submission. The Cossacks won a significant military victory over the Khanate of Sibir in the early 1580s.54 After this victory, bands of Cossacks gradually moved further east, establishing fortresses on riverbanks and in other strategic positions. By 1649, they had reached as far as the Amur River and the Pacific coast. Securing trade and commercial interests were important incentives; but the expansion into Siberia was also motivated by the region’s natural resources and riches in ‘soft gold’, or fur.55 Russian expansion south of Siberia, into the Kazakh steppe, was initially motivated by the need to secure protection for Russian merchants travelling through the region and access to the markets of Central Asia. The Kazakh steppe naturally connected Russia with the Central Asian mercantile centres to its south and in China. The Kazakh at times plundered trade caravans, and into the nineteenth century, Russian trade caravans crossing the steppe had to be accompanied by armed guards.56 To secure the safe passage of trade caravans, political missions and others travelling through the steppe, both sides often held hostages as a tool by which to guarantee that the other party would uphold negotiated agreements. It was in the 1700s that the Cossacks began to encroach and settle in the Kazakh lands. From the 1710s into the 1750s, while the Kazakh found themselves being attacked in the south-east by Jungar and Kalmyk confederations, Cossacks seized large areas of fertile land and land around important water sources to the north of the steppe. The Cossacks eventually began the establishment of a string of fortified posts on the northern perimeter of the Kazakh steppe, which would become known as the ‘Siberian defence line’. Omsk, Semipalatinsk, Ust-Kamenogorsk and Koriakovskii Forpost (later renamed Pavlodar) were established on the Irtysh River.57 By 1725, the Irtysh River came to form a border between Russian-dominated Siberia and the Kazakh steppe, protected by seven forts that were guarded by 489 Cossack soldiers.58 This Russian-imposed ‘border’ was extended and further military forts built, such that by the 1750s these ‘defence lines’ extended from the Caspian Sea in the west to the foothills of the Altai Mountains in the east.59 It was also in the 1730s, with the continuing struggle in the south-east with the Western Mongol Confederation, that Abulkhair Khan of the Little Jyz appealed to the Russian Tsar for assistance and protection. An oftenrecounted diplomatic misunderstanding (or misinterpretation) resulted.

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The Russian side interpreted Abulkhair’s request as the surrender of all three Kazakh clan confederations. Whether the Russians saw this as a permanent step in their forward expansion into Central Asia or not,60 these developments importantly led to internal political divisions within the three Kazakh jyz, and over time, such political divisions were exploited by the Russians. From around the mid-1700s, Russia was beginning to see Siberia as an integral part of its empire, but the steppe to the south of the Siberian defence line was still viewed as foreign territory. The Cossack-established forts served, from a Russian perspective, as a defence against nomadic ‘raids’ and against the ‘seizure’ of fertile land by the Kazakhs.61 With time, Russian and Slav settlements sprang up around these forts and along the rivers that formed the defence line. Many of the Cossack forts gradually became important market or trade centres and thereby also meeting points for Russians, Slavs, Kazakhs and other peoples who lived in the area and travelled through it. Kazakhs engaged in trade, and their livestock, including horses and sheep, became a much-sought-after commodity by surrounding populations in both the northern Russian periphery of the steppe and in Xinjiang.62 The Cossack population came to have an increasingly important role in defending this frontier ‘buffer zone’ with the Kazakh steppe. In return for defending, and preventing Kazakh migrations or ‘incursions’ beyond the defence line, the Cossacks received titles to the land they occupied and local autonomy.63 From a Kazakh perspective, of course, the Cossacks had established fortifications and were occupying land along important rivers or near water sources, fertile areas they used as pasture for their animals or as seasonal campsites, and Kazakhs were now prevented from crossing the Siberian defence line to access seasonal pasturelands and water sources. While it is often said that the chief concern of Tsarist Russia in Central Asia was initially to secure protection for its merchants and access to Central Asian markets, the establishment of a string of military forts, the creation of ‘defence lines’ and the building of fortresses and settlements combined to form a tangible incursion into the Kazakh steppe, and would present an important stepping stone for eventual colonization. During the reign of Catherine the Great (1762–96), Russia’s intentions in Central Asia began to shift towards a more forward-expansionist presence in the region.64 By 1808, when the status of the Cossack border regiments was formalized under the Tsar and the ‘Cossack Army of the Siberian Line’ was established, the number of Cossacks on the Ishim and Irtysh Lines, which ran along these rivers, and along the Kuznetsko-Kolyvansk Line had increased from five hundred to six thousand.65 From the 1820s, Cossacks began to

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establish further forts and settlements within the steppe, often near rivers or on the shores of lakes. These settlements became centres for new Russian territorially based administrative units.66 These ‘pioneer settlements’ remained sparsely populated until the 1840s, when new regiments were formed. In 1847 alone, for instance, the Cossack population in the Kazakh steppe increased by fourteen thousand men and women.67 After its defeat in the Crimean War, Russia pushed its line of fortresses forward across Kazakh lands, moving east from the Caspian Sea along the Syr Darya river, and by 1853 the Russian ‘defence line’ stretched from the Aral Sea to Ak Meshet.68 The Russian imperial aim to incorporate the steppe south of the Siberian defence line was thus gradually articulated and evolved from the time of the exploratory Cossack expeditions of the 1500s onwards. Until 1822, Imperial Russia’s influence on the politics of the three Kazakh clan confederations had been limited to co-opting or rewarding the services of Kazakh elites and rulers.69 ‘The law and legal institutions that did exist in the steppe were established particularly to coordinate Russian trade relations with the Kazakhs of the Little Jyz, who migrated in close proximity to Russian administrative and trade centres such as Orenburg and Astrakhan, and did not touch the majority of Kazakhs of the Middle Jyz, who inhabited territory further east.’70 But in the course of the nineteenth century, Kazakh political power and self-determination was gradually eroded, and the three clan confederations were formally incorporated into the Russian Empire. The office of Khan was abolished in the Middle Jyz in 1822, in the Little Jyz in 1824 and in the Great Jyz in 1848.71 In the first decades of the 1800s, the Khanate of Kokand to the south of the Kazakh steppe expanded its territories to include the cities of Tashkent and Turkestan, all of present-day Kyrgyzstan and large parts of the lands inhabited by the Kazakh Great Jyz.72 An attack in 1861 by the Khanate of Kokand on the Russian military fort at Vernyi73 precipitated what would become a string of Russian conquests in the region. St Petersburg, at the same time, sought to assure European powers, and in particular London, that its Central Asian conquests were not intended as provocations. They did not intend to pose a threat to British interests in Central Asia, nor ultimately to British India. In 1864, Russia took the cities of Turkestan and Chimkent, and in 1865 Tashkent fell to Russia. In 1868 Russia signed a peace treaty with the Khanate of Kokand, and in the same year the city of Samarkand, which was part of the Khanate of Bukhara, was taken by the Russians. In 1873 the Khanates of Khiva and Bukhara fell to the Russians, and in 1876, the Russians took the city of Kokand and thereby also the Khanate of Kokand.74 The Russian conquest of Central Asia would eventually result in the

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formation of two principal ‘Governorates’: the Governorate-General of the Steppe and the Governorate-General of Turkestan.75 In 1822, the same year in which the office of Khan of the Middle Jyz was abolished, the Russian administration declared a set of regulations to administer the Kazakh of the Middle Jyz. These regulations effectively provided the foundations for a territorial, institutional and administrative framework for colonial rule. The regulations introduced territorially based administrative units, which disrupted the seasonal routes of the Kazakh and limited their mobility. New administrative institutions were established, in which the Kazakh elite was obliged to serve, while agriculture and the settlement of the nomadic pastoralists was encouraged.76 ‘Russification’ through sedentarization became an important element of the strategy to incorporate the Kazakh steppe into the Russian Empire. The settlement of the Kazakh was seen as a crucial component of the Russian ‘civilizing mission’ in Central Asia. As the Kazakh became settled peasants, so it was thought, they would gradually assimilate to the ‘superior’ Russian culture and its values.77 Of course, it would also prove more practical to administer a population of colonial subjects that had fixed, year-round dwellings than one that engaged in seasonal migration. It would be more expedient to collect the ‘yurt tax’, introduced in 1837, from a settled population of colonial subjects. The yurt tax was to be paid in silver coinage and forced Kazakh households to take part in the waged labour economy, or face fines or imprisonment.78 Furthermore, a population of settled Kazakh agriculturalists, so it was thought, might provide food security for the region, producing its own grain, as well as hay for winter fodder for domestic animals,79 a practice that would also enable the Kazakh to subsist with their herds in much smaller areas. By the 1870s, schools were opened across the steppe with an emphasis on teaching agricultural techniques to the Kazakh nomadic pastoralists.80 From the late 1860s, the number of Russian and Slav settler-peasants would increase dramatically in the Kazakh steppe. From the 1870s, policies encouraging the development of agriculture among nomads were supplemented by calls to settle the steppe with Russian and Slav peasant agriculturalists. The Russian colonial administration reasoned that there would be several benefits to the presence of these settler-peasants: Russian peasants could teach the Kazakhs how to be agriculturalists, and the ‘higher’ Russian culture could thereby be brought to the ‘backward nomads’.81 But arguably, the main drive to settle the steppe with Russian and Slav peasants did not come from the steppe, but from developments in European Russia.

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The governorates in Central Asia would play a major economic role in the Russian Empire, both as a market for Russian-produced goods and as a source of cheap raw materials such as cotton. But in another important sense, the Kazakh steppe would come to play a part in the economic and social stability of European Russia. From the 1860s, the Kazakh steppe absorbed vast numbers of destitute, poverty-stricken Russian and Slav peasants, who migrated east in response to the ‘land hunger’ in European Russia that would follow from the Great Reforms. As part of wide-reaching social, political, legal and governmental reforms initiated during the reign of Alexander II (1855–81), the Emancipation Edict of 1861 freed more than twenty million peasants. Serfdom, which had tied the Russian peasants in European Russia irrevocably to their landlords, was abolished. The emancipation of the serfs made Russian peasants legally free of their landlords and bestowed upon them a number of civil liberties, including the ability to own property, to trade and to vote. However, following the emancipation decree, access to land in European Russia continued to be vastly unequal, favouring established landowners. Landlords retained approximately two-thirds of arable land, and affordable arable land came to be in such short supply that a ‘land hunger’ among the peasantry of European Russia resulted.82 Until the 1860s, settlers in the Kazakh steppe had predominantly been Cossacks, political exiles and economic fugitives, and small numbers of other settlers.83 After the events in European Russia that followed the Emancipation Edict, Russian peasants were encouraged to move beyond the Ural Mountains and settle in remote parts of the Russian Empire. Poverty-stricken peasants from European Russia thus began to settle in the northern part of the Kazakh steppe. These settlers added significantly to the already-established Cossack settlements and military posts. With this, the central government began pursuing more aggressive colonial policies in the steppe. The construction of the Trans-Siberian railroad was begun, and central institutions to promote and organize peasant settlement were established.84 Echoing European colonial policies in other parts of the world, in 1889 a Resettlement Act was passed, which stated that as long as ‘free land’ was available, any Russian or Slav peasant could apply for permission to migrate. In the north and north-eastern parts of the Kazakh steppe, such ‘free land’ often meant ‘state lands’, including the summer pasturelands of the Kazakh. In the early 1900s, the colonial government further promoted migration to the steppe with interest-free loans and aid packages for Russian settlers. In addition to the increasing influx of peasants who arrived having received permission to migrate, the number of unauthorized peasant migrants also increased.85

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In 1891 alone, for example, something in the region of fifteen thousand settlers arrived in two counties (Atbasar and Petropavlovsk uezds) within the Governorate-General of the Steppe. Because of the large number of settlers and the fact that there was not enough arable land suitable for yearround settlement, many thousands of Russian and Slav settlers were left unregistered, with nowhere to settle. As a consequence, in the same year, legal in-migration to these counties was halted; the local Russian administration could not cope with the volume of migrants requesting official registration on a plot of land.86 Many settlers might have been left temporarily without land, but equally, of course, thousands of Kazakhs were displaced by the Russian colonial policies that allowed the influx of settlers on land that had previously been used by Kazakhs as pasture. In this atmosphere of heightened competition for increasingly scarce resources of land and water sources, the Kazakh adapted to conditions under the new Russian colonial administration. They changed – often shortened – their seasonal migration patterns. They increasingly had to pay Cossacks and Russian settlers for access to pastureland and water sources. They took up growing grass for hay to be used as winter fodder, and they took up waged labour to pay taxes and to survive. Many became ‘semi-nomadic’, and adopted permanent winter dwellings, as well as taking up agriculture to supplement their livelihoods.87 While some Kazakhs were able to adapt to colonial rule and sustain themselves, many were not. In the late 1860s, there were violent protests against the influx of settlers in the north-western areas of the Kazakh steppe; and in the 1890s, this situation only worsened with the arrival of upward of one million peasant settlers. The influx of Russian and Slav settlers was to be one of the main factors, underpinned by Russian colonial policies, that led from the 1860s onwards to the emigration of tens of thousands of Kazakhs from their homelands into neighbouring countries such as China and Mongolia.

29



A People Frozen in Time

O

n the spring equinox in March, everyone in Bayan-Ölgii celebrates the coming of a new year with the Nauryz celebration. Each and every household takes part. Barley soup is prepared and milky, salty tea and stores of Russian sweets and vodka are lined up. The house is cleaned, the bedding is washed and everything is fresh and new for the coming of spring. You must visit the houses of at least thirty family members, colleagues and friends, and everyone you know comes to visit you. You take it in turns to stay at home and welcome people and go out to visit. It’s a giant circulation of people that celebrates the arrival of a new year; it is a huge family-and-friends ‘crawl’ in which everyone eats and drinks far too much, because at every house you visit you must eat and drink. In Ölgii, a stage is set up in the central square, yurts are set up, serving food and drink, speeches are held by important people, including the mayor and local politicians, poems are recited, there are performances and speeches at the theatre, and a long procession snakes its way through town and culminates in the central square. Participants in the procession bear giant effigies of the astrological animal of the coming year, some groups in the procession dance, others sing and play the dombyra, and all are dressed up beautifully, many in Kazakh embroidered velvet clothes. That spring, I went to see the procession and festivities in the central square. Standing there watching the parade, I met a German development worker and we got talking. He worked in South East Asia, it turned out, and had taken time off to realize a lifelong dream: to ride on horseback across Mongolia. I asked him about this incredible journey. My French friends had cycled from Ulaanbaatar and I knew it had been one of the toughest stretches of their trip, which had taken them from Turkey through Iran,

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Uzbekistan, Kyrgyzstan and China. Of course, unlike the development worker, they hadn’t been accompanied by a driver who transported their luggage and a cook who cooked every meal for them. The development worker enthused about the small, sturdy Mongolian horses, the beautiful countryside and the amazing welcome they had received at every turn. He looked misty-eyed at the parade and commented, ‘Is it not a shame that the Millennium Road88 will connect this culturally unique location so soon?’ He continued, ‘This wonderful, unchanged Kazakh province will change beyond recognition when modernity makes its way down the dual carriageway from Ulaanbaatar.’ Such was the gist of his comments. I looked at him in surprise. He elaborated. Yes, hadn’t I heard of the Millennium Road? Delayed, of course . . . But it was sure to bring radical changes to this lovely traditional region. I felt rage bubbling in my chest. I wanted to shout at him: Didn’t he know there had been good, functioning, free hospitals here, only fifteen years ago? That the national literacy rate had been above 90 per cent in this country of ‘semi-nomads’, better than it is in some parts of the UK? That education was free. That children attended excellent kindergartens and young people could go on to study at tertiary level, receiving student grants. That people had jobs and salaries that covered the cost of living. That they were well connected with countries across the world, countries within and affiliated with the Soviet Union. That people from this remote region studied at university in Moscow and went on professional training courses in Prague, Budapest and Havana? That they had modernity! And that in the 1990s, the country had suffered the worst peacetime economic crisis on record in recent history? That a profound and enduring economic crisis continued to impoverish a highly educated population that was still, more than a decade later, reeling from the changes of the 1990s. I didn’t shout at him. I went home and smoked a foul-tasting Russian cigarette instead, muttering under my breath. He wasn’t alone in his thinking. There is generally a romanticized fascination with Genghis Khan and the idea of pastoral nomads. Somehow, because today many people in Mongolia live in yurts at least part of the year, and many people likewise lived in yurts at the time of Genghis Khan, six hundred years of economic, sociocultural and political change is bypassed as if it had . . . simply not happened. Western popular accounts think it is in some sense amusing and ‘idiosyncratic’ that people live in yurts and yet have satellite dishes outside their homes. Well, whoever thought that because British farmers still live in houses generally constructed with four main outer walls and continue to grow wheat, which many incidentally also did in the 1400s, that we can also conceptualize the British farmer as essentially a living medieval specimen? And the Kazakh, how did my development worker think they came

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to live in Mongolia? Did he think they arrived by teleportation? Did he think they had just always ‘been in the area’, sticking their index finger in the air to gauge the direction of the wind and then deciding, ‘Oh, today let’s move across the Altai Mountains into western Mongolia. The forests are so pleasant there . . .’ Kharlyghash says that Daniyar knew many of the stories of the family’s history. We could have asked him. But he never wrote about it, and we were too late. Years later, Daniyar remains as one of the most vivid persons in my mind, and it was his words, ‘My mother was a shaman’, that sowed these seeds in my mind: How, in fact, did Gyldana carry her drum? Did she come on horseback? Did she have to walk? What else did the sisters have with them? Where did they eat on the way? How many weeks did it take them to cross the mountains into Mongolia? Were they frightened of meeting Chinese border guards? Did they sleep out in the open, under the stars? Did they hear wolves howling in the night, like we did when we stayed in Dayan near the Chinese border? When Gyldana met the young man who was to be her husband, and when they married, was that a happy time? Was she kidnapped? If not, who cried for her when she went to live with her husband, like everyone cried at Altynai’s wedding? Was her sister her only living relative? Gyldana lived into her nineties and throughout her life took an active role in her children and grandchildren’s lives. She was knowledgeable about making amulets and identifying and using plants and herbs to cure ailments. When her little granddaughter, Kharlyghash, was ill and her hip ached, she prepared remedies and made amulets for her. As a young mother, she kept her daughter Elnara home after four years of compulsory schooling and taught her to run a household. As part of this, she taught her to make felt carpets. Gyldana saw her son come home from his studies in Moscow with a portable LP player and heard him play his Boney M. album to the delight of curious family members and neighbours. Gyldana, whose drum hung on her son’s wall when I visited him, had died the same year I arrived in Bayan-Ölgii, only a few months before I met the family.

30



Four Brothers

W

ith the outbreak of the First World War, Russian Tsarist policies in Central Asia came to reflect Russia’s wider strategies and wartime developments. In early 1916, the Russians suffered heavy casualties on the Eastern Front and in Turkey, and St Petersburg therefore looked to its Central Asian subjects to bolster the Russian war effort. The colonial subjects of the Central Asian governorates had hitherto been exempt from military service. Now, however, they would be conscripted, not as soldiers but as labourers to build defensive works, thereby freeing Russian troops from noncombat duties.89 The aim of the Russian imperial administration was to raise a two-hundred-and-fifty-thousand-strong labour force from a Central Asian (non-Russian, non-Slav) population of over three million. What resulted, in the course of 1916, was widespread resistance and uprising, and ultimately the suppression and massacre of a far greater number of Central Asian ‘Muslim subjects’. Daniyar and Elnara’s ancestors came from an area that was incorporated by the Russian colonial administration into the Governorate-General of Turkestan. This vast Russian-controlled territory extended from the Aral Sea across the southern steppe; it included Samarkand and Tashkent (the latter its military and administrative centre), and reached south along the border with Iran and Afghanistan, east to the border with Chinese-ruled Xinjiang, and north-east to include the region of Semirech’e and the western foothills of the Altai Mountains. Elnara and Daniyar’s paternal grandfather, Khairat, along with his brothers, was called up for service in a Russian military labour unit in 1916. Perhaps Khairat’s family were nomadic pastoralists, migrating to their summer pasture in the vicinity of the Syr Darya River. They may have taken

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up growing cotton or other crops, like thousands of others, while still retaining some domestic animals. Or perhaps they were city dwellers, living in the city of Turkestan.90 The city of Turkestan had for centuries been an important market town and part of the caravan trade that defined this region. The city had been incorporated into the expanding Russian Empire in 1864. It was on the train line from Orenburg to Tashkent, a train line that was completed by the Russians between 1899 and 1905.91 Turkestan was an important site of Islamic learning and scholarship and one of the major sites of pilgrimage in the Central Asian Muslim world. Perhaps Khairat and his brothers grew up in the shade of Turkestan’s magnificent fourteenth-century Timurid-era mausoleum to the Sufi mystic, poet and philosopher Khodja Ahmed Yasawi, with its skyward-reaching gate and two glazed-tile, turquoise-blue domes. I know that Khairat received a religious education together with his brothers. He was literate in Arabic and would eventually work as a religious teacher in a madrassa. Khairat and his brothers were young men in 1916, when the Russian administration prepared to call up Muslim subjects to the war effort. The Russian authorities employed local Kazakh officials as ‘recruiting teams’ to prepare lists of those men, aged between 18 and 43, who were to be drafted into labour units. These recruiting teams had to fulfil Russian-stipulated quotas.92 By 1916, the local populations of the Russian-ruled governorates had for many years suffered the devastating effects of ongoing colonial-administered land seizures and policies. The onset of the First World War only worsened this critical situation. The Russian empire-wide market suffered during the First World War, and Kazakhs and Russians alike had to trade their goods almost exclusively locally. The price of livestock collapsed and there were severe shortages in the region. Moreover, the Kazakh were requested to make ‘donations’ of meat and hides and to provide horses to the Russian imperial cavalry. Although the local Kazakh population was exempted from being drafted as soldiers, they were required to ‘donate work’ on the farms and homesteads of the Russian or Slav peasants, who had been drafted. In addition the tax burden was increased.93 In the southern cotton-growing regions of the Governorate-General of Turkestan, the Russian administration deemed it prudent to reduce the number of conscripts in order to avoid disruption to the cotton harvest, which was critical both to the local economy and to the war effort. Nevertheless, it was here, in the regions around Samarkand and Tashkent, that dissent began.94 Here, the Kazakh, already driven to desperation by the loss of their lands and the ruthless wartime administration, saw the price of cotton, upon which farming households were dependent, frozen at an artificially low level, while the price of food soared.95 The planned conscrip-

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tion would deprive households and settlements of important labour and affect the cotton yield, and thus in turn deal a devastating blow to people’s livelihoods. The situation was not helped by the fact that wealthy families were able to buy exemption, and officials responsible for generating lists of draft-eligible men were said to ‘forget’ to include the names of their own relatives and allies.96 In July 1916, widespread resistance began around the major urban centres in the south, in the Samarkand area, at first targeting the local officials who were carrying out the Russian orders. By early August of 1916, throughout the Syr Darya oblast, detachments as large as five thousand to eight thousand strong, formed of Kazakh, Kyrgyz and Uzbeks, attacked Russian troops stationed along the Tashkent–Orenburg railroad.97 Resistance and revolt spread, Russian settler communities came under attack and the Governorate-General of Turkestan was put under martial law. The Russian administration was fearful of rumours and the prospect of a ‘holy war’ or a full-scale uprising by its colonial subjects, and deployed companies of the Imperial Army and Cossack military units to crush the uprising. The local resistance tore up railway lines and cut telegraph lines to Tashkent.98 In the Semirech’e area, the uprising is said to have been widespread and well organized, with as many as thirty thousand Kazakh fighters in one district alone (Kopal uezd). Kazakh representatives from rural districts (volosts) in Semirech’e gathered in July 1916, and again in August, to organize their resistance. At one such meeting of representatives, it was decided to send men who were eligible to be drafted into the Russian war effort into exile along Lake Balkhash, the site of the Kazakh victory over the Western Mongol Confederation nearly two hundred years before.99 Despite well-organized resistance in some areas of the two Russianruled governorates, the Kazakh population was ill-equipped for an uprising against Imperial Russia. They had few weapons, and they lacked central leadership. The Cossacks ruthlessly stamped out their resistance, and went on to ‘teach the ungrateful Muslims a lesson they would never forget’.100 A survivor of the events later related that ‘The Russian commander ordered his troops to shoot and burn. They descended on the villages, shooting whoever they met, raping the women and perpetrating other bestialities. They set fire to our homes and crops and carried away the harvested grain.’101 These developments were somewhat delayed in the more remote parts of the Governorate-General of Turkestan, as Cossack military units took longer to reach these areas. Here Russian and Slav settlers suffered losses at the hands of the Kazakh resistance and in turn organized their own militias. It is said that some Russian settlers saw the events as an opportunity to drive Kazakhs from good agricultural land. Ultimately, thousands

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of Kazakhs were forced to flee for their lives, leaving their homes and livestock behind, and in the process many families were separated from one another. Once the Russian military ‘relief columns’ arrived in these regions, a massacre of the local population ensued. Tens of thousands of Kazakhs are thought to have perished in these clashes. Some Kazakhs fled to other parts of the country to join the resistance there, some remained in their districts and awaited resettlement, while most are thought to have fled over the border to China.102 Khairat and his brothers fled their homeland. Perhaps they had taken part in clashes with Russian settlers or Cossack military units. Perhaps they were among the thousands of men who were sent into exile along Lake Balkhash. They fled together. What happened to their parents, siblings, grandparents, uncles and aunts, and cousins? Only the four brothers would make the journey that eventually led them into western Mongolia. Hundreds of thousands of Kazakhs fled the Governorate-General of Turkestan into neighbouring countries, including what is today Uzbekistan, Tajikistan, the Russian Federation, Chinese Xinjiang and western Mongolia. Svanberg and Benson estimate that ‘the retaliatory moves by the military governor of the Governorate-General of Turkestan ultimately led to the fleeing of some three hundred thousand Kazakhs into Xinjiang’.103 En route, many of these refugees died from exposure, starvation and disease.104 Overall, the Muslim Central Asian population is estimated to have fallen by one million during the First World War, largely due to the events of 1916: that is the loss of approximately one-third of the total population.105 This figure includes those who fled, those who died in direct clashes, those who died of starvation or disease resulting from the general turmoil and disruption of food supplies – and a minority who were conscripted and sent to aid the war effort in Europe and did not return.

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Part IV Notes 1. Rudenko, Frozen Tombs of Siberia. See also Simpson and Pankova, Scythians: the beautifully illustrated catalogue from the British Museum exhibition of the same name. 2. The Kazakh word is bakhsy. 3. There is debate concerning whether the Russian Empire can be likened to other colonial powers. Morrison, ‘Peasant Settlers’, 389, notes that ‘in its Asian territories, at least, it was a “colonial” empire in the widely-understood sense of the term: namely that it had some legal, cultural and economic distinctions between metropole and colony, it employed Enlightenment discourses of “progress” and “backwardness” to justify its rule, and it made use of ethnic and religious criteria to determine its hierarchies and access to material benefits and political rights.’ 4. See Perdue, ‘Boundaries, Maps and Movements’. 5. Miyawaki, ‘The Qalqa Mongols’, 136. 6. See Svanberg and Benson, China’s Last Nomads; Lias, Kazak Exodus. 7. See Kader, ‘Constructing Kazakh Identity’, 1; Noda, ‘The Kazakhs’; Sabol, Touch of Civilization, 40. Janibek and Kerei were of aristocratic ‘white bone’ descent of the Jochid dynastic line (Jochi was the son of Genghis Khan). 8. These regions did not have fixed borders, like nation states today, but were likely subject to negotiation and flexible seasonal migration patterns and shifting allegiances (see Sabol, Touch of Civilization, 44). 9. Noda, in The Kazakh Khanates, refers to the Kazakh jyz as ‘clan confederations’, since this avoids the negative connotations of ‘horde’ (often used in the past to translate jyz). The jyz were composed of ‘clans’ (ru) and further lineage subdivisions (syek, also meaning ‘bone’). Ohayon, in ‘Formes et Usages’, describes the relevance of descent groups for precolonial Kazakh society. In Bayan-Ölgii today, ru, syek and jyz are important in terms of identity and loyalty and have practical implications, e.g. in terms of who one can marry (see also Kader, ‘Constructing Kazakh Identity’; Finke, Qazaq Pastoralists in Western Mongolia). For debates on the connotations and relevance of terms such as ‘clan’, ‘tribe’ and ‘horde’ see Sneath, The Headless State; Beckwith, ‘A Note’, 43; Kradin, ‘Book Review’). In this context, I retain the term ‘clan’ to refer to groups for whom shared descent was a strong unifying factor and an organizing influence on livelihoods, social organization and relationships. 10. Olcott, The Kazakhs, 25. Samarkand was conquered by the Uzbeks in the first decade of the 1500s. See Noda, The Kazakh Khanates; Sarkisyanz, ‘Russian Conquest’. 11. Noda, ‘The Kazakhs’. 12. Halkovic, Mongols of the West, 2. 13. There are different stories about the origins of the name Oirat. One describes the name as coming from the Mongol oi (meaning ‘forest’) and ard (meaning ‘people’) – literally the ‘People of the Forest’. The name of one of the Western Mongol peoples, the ‘Jungar’ (variations on the spelling, such as ‘Dzungar’, depend on the transliteration system used) may derive from the Mongolian jegün gar, meaning the left (or east) side or wing of an army. Beckwith, ‘A Note’, 41, notes that the name has been understood to denote the eastern wing of Genghis Khan’s armies, or alternatively to distinguish the Jungar from another Western Mongol people, the Dörböd (but rejects both theories). Taupier argues that the Jungars formed the left

Part IV Notes

14.

15. 16. 17.

18. 19. 20.

21.

22. 23. 24. 25. 26. 27. 28.



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wing while the Khoshut formed the right wing, and that the two peoples were over time part of the same larger geopolitical entity (Taupier, The Oirad, 38; see also Halkovic, Mongols of the West; Miyawaki, ‘The Qalqa Mongols’). I use these terms to describe shifting, flexible confederations, uniting for political aims, under changing leadership. These are terms I adopt to give an idea of the geography of the broad allegiances that played a role in the period I describe. Halkovic, Mongols of the West, 2. Taupier, The Oirad, 21–38, notes that in fact within the Khoshut, the Galwas lineage was descended from Genghis Khan’s brother Qasar. Beckwith, ‘A Note’, 43–44, criticizes modern historians lingering belief in the special legitimacy of the Genghisid bloodline, arguing that this in fact was not the main reason that the Western Mongols did not prevail over all the Mongols. Rather, increasing pressure from both Russian and Manchu Empires meant that they were unable to bestow a bloodline legitimacy, with time, upon their descendants. Clarke, Xinjiang and China’s Rise, 17. Taupier, The Oirad, 1. The major sects within Tibetan Buddhism, the Nyingma, Kagyü and Sakya sects, were over the centuries patronized by rival royal families. The Gelugpa sect is, historically speaking, the last major sect formed in Tibetan Buddhism. Its founder, Tsongkapa Lobsang Drakpa (1357–1419), is said to have laid the foundations for a politically unified Tibet with a pan-Tibetan spirituality. The relationship between the Mongols and Tibetan Buddhism dates back to the mid-thirteenth century, when the Mongol armies invaded Tibet in 1240. Later the Mongol Yuan Emperors of China (1271–1368) adopted Tibetan Buddhism. The Eastern Mongols adopted the Tibetan Buddhism of the Gelugpa sect in the 1570s and 1580s (see Choedon, ‘Review of Socio-Political Development’, 23; Millward and Perdue, ‘Political and Cultural History’; Smyer Yü and Wangmo, ‘A Historical Sketch’; Soucek, A History, 168–69). Smyer Yü and Wangmo, in ‘A Historical Sketch’, point out the religio-political aspects of the formation of the five schools, and Elverskog’s ‘Buddhist Muslim Interactions’ discusses the legitimizing political aspects of the adoption of Buddhism by Western Mongol rulers. See also Elverskog’s Buddhism and Islam on the Silk Road. Millward and Perdue, ‘Political and Cultural History’, 49–50. Perdue, ‘Military Mobilization’, 648. Kaplonski, ‘Introduction’, 638. See Elliott, ‘The Limits of Tartary’; Perdue, ‘The Expansion of the Qing Dynasty’. Perdue, China Marches West, Part II, Chapter 4. Perdue, ‘Military Mobilization’, 651; see Perdue, China Marches West, Part II, on the Kangxi Emperor’s long campaign against Galdan. Halkovic, Mongols of the West, 10. The ‘banners’ formed the basis of the early Manchu polity. They were ‘military registration and conscription systems that incorporated entire families and ethnic groups . . . [which nevertheless also] cut across kinship, tribal and ethnic lines, allowing strong control by administrators at the top, and making possible systematic military strategy and logistical planning’ (Perdue, ‘The Expansion of the Qing Dynasty’). See also Elverskog’s discussion in Our Great Qing (e.g. Chapter 1) of early alliances between the Eastern Mongol Khorchin and the Jurchen (later the ‘Manchu’), and of how to conceptualize these entities and alliances.

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29. Clarke, Xinjiang and China’s Rise, 18; see also Perdue, ‘The Expansion of the Qing Dynasty’; Rossabi, China and Inner Asia, 50–59. See also Crossley and Rawski, ‘A Profile of the Manchu Language’, on aspects of Mongol cultural legacy in the Qing court. 30. Clarke, Xinjiang and China’s Rise, 17. 31. Halkovic, Mongols of the West, 6. 32. Soucek, A History, 167. 33. The Western Mongols who had settled on the Volga with time came under increasing Russian pressure, and around 1770 decided to journey back to Inner Asia. The extraordinary story of this journey is told in The History of the Kalmyk Khans (Halkovic, Mongols of the West). It is thought that they likely knew little of the fate of their former allies, the Western Mongol Jungars, who had perished only just over a decade before. More than one hundred and fifty thousand people set out towards Inner Asia in the winter of 1770–71, a journey that would take them through the Kazakh steppe. En route they were pursued by Russians, and endured raids and attacks by Kazakhs and further difficulties. It is thought that some one hundred thousand people perished on this journey. Those who survived and reached their Inner Asian ‘Jungarian homeland’ were eventually, perhaps surprisingly, granted refuge within the Manchu Empire by the Qianlong Emperor, who had ordered the decimation of the Jungars (Perdue, ‘The Expansion of the Qing Dynasty’). 34. Elverskog, ‘Zünghar Khanate’. 35. Olcott, The Kazakhs, 26. 36. Valikhanov, quoted in Bodger, ‘Change and Tradition’, 345–46. 37. Bodger, ‘Change and Tradition’. 38. Taupier, The Oirad, 16. 39. Olcott, in The Kazakhs, describes the shifting alliances and manoeuvrings on the part of the Russians, the Kazakh and the Western Mongol Jungar for control over and access to pasture in the steppe regions and the cities on its southern perimeter. 40. Noda, ‘The Kazakhs’. 41. Olcott, The Kazakhs, 36. 42. Bulag, The Mongols at China’s Edge, 32. 43. The Mongols were divided into new banners, which were further divided into units of one hundred households, called sum (or zuo in Chinese, a name that is still used today in Mongolia). These banners were allocated pastureland and members were strictly forbidden to cross into neighbouring banners or have communication with them (Ibid., 35–36). 44. Clarke, Xinjiang and China’s Rise, 18; Bawden, The Modern History, 116. 45. These etchings can be seen on the website of the National Palace Museum, Taiwan: see http://theme.npm.edu.tw/etching/official_en.html (accessed 30 May 2022). Perdue, in ‘Military Mobilization’, discusses the Manchu’s extensive ‘documentation’ and history-writing about the subjugation of the Jungar. 46. Perdue, ‘The Expansion of the Qing Dynasty’; Znamenski, ‘Power for the Powerless’. 47. Soucek, A History, 173. 48. Bulag, The Mongols at China’s Edge, 32. Many authors, e.g. Elliott, Frontier Stories, 338, argue that the Manchu’s ‘frontier story’ was defining for the Qing Dynasty, but also for what China is today. 49. Clarke, Xinjiang and China’s Rise, 17–18.

Part IV Notes



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50. Znamenski, ‘Power for the Powerless’. 51. At about the same time, the Eastern Mongol Khalkha noble Chingunjav rebelled in Outer Mongolia against Manchu rule, events that were possibly intended to have been coordinated with the rebellion led by Amursana. Chingunjav’s rebellion resulted in widespread unrest and attacks on Chinese traders. The rebellion was put down by the Manchu and its leader was executed (see Kaplonski, ‘Introduction’, 639–40). 52. See Soucek, A History, 196. 53. Alun Thomas’s book Nomads and Soviet Rule describes the relationship between the Soviet state and the Central Asian peoples as informed by a variety of influences, including anti-colonial sentiments, imperialist impulse, nationalism and communism. Morrison, in The Russian Conquest, argues that it was the victories in the Napoleonic Wars that transformed the self-perception of the Russian Empire’s ruling elite and prompted the forward expansion into Central Asia. 54. Sabol, The Touch of Civilization, 75–76; also Olcott, The Kazakhs, Chapter 2. 55. Millward and Perdue, ‘Political and Cultural History’, 49; Perdue, ‘The Expansion of the Qing Dynasty’; also Sabol, The Touch of Civilization, Chapter 2. 56. Martin, Law and Custom, 62. 57. The Irtysh River originates in the Altai Mountains on the southern border with Mongolia and flows through the Ili Valley and then north, into the Gulf of Ob and ultimately the Arctic Ocean. 58. Martin, Law and Custom, 61–62. 59. Ibid.; also Olcott, The Kazakhs, 30; Sabol, The Touch of Civilization, 80. 60. Sabol, The Touch of Civilization, 82, suggests that ‘the Russians interpreted Abulkhair’s oath as . . . Kazakhs surrendering their sovereignty to Russian imperial rule [and] . . . the surrender of Kazakh claims to the land.’ 61. Martin, Law and Custom, 62. 62. Noda, ‘The Kazakhs’; Sabol, The Touch of Civilization, 79. 63. Demko, The Russian Colonization, 41. 64. Olcott, The Kazakhs, 36–37. 65. See Martin, Law and Custom, 63; also Noda, The Kazakh Khanates, Chapter 7. 66. Martin, Law and Custom, 63. 67. Ibid., 64. 68. Hopkirk, The Great Game, 282. 69. Martin, Law and Custom, 35. 70. Ibid. 71. Olcott, The Kazakhs, 72; Soucek, A History, 197. 72. Olcott, The Kazakhs, 73. 73. Established as a military fort in the early 1850s, only a decade before the attack by the Khanate of Kokand, Vernyi was later renamed Alma-Ata and eventually Almaty, and became the capital city of the Kazakh ASSR and SSR. 74. Hopkirk, The Great Game; Olcott, The Kazakhs, Chapter 3; Rossabi, China and Inner Asia, Chapter 7. 75. The Governorate-General of Turkestan was administered by the military governor residing in Tashkent. By the late 1890s it included five regions (Syr-Darya, Semireche, Ferghana, Samarkand and Zakaspie), and two protectorates (the Emirate of Bukhara and the Khanate of Khiva) (Soucek, A History, 201).

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76. The 1822 regulations imposed by the Russian administration referred to the ‘Siberian Kirgiz’, a term used at the time to refer to the Middle Jyz Kazakhs. See Martin, Law and Custom, 35–36; Noda, The Kazakh Khanates, Chapter 2. 77. Martin, Law and Custom, 37. See also Morrison, ‘Peasant Settlers’; Otarbaeva, ‘Russian Colonial Policies’. 78. Akiner, The Formation of Kazakh Identity, 25. Taxation levels and systems differed between Russian administrative areas (see Noda, ‘The Kazakhs’). 79. Martin, Law and Custom, 41. 80. Ibid., 42. 81. Ibid. 82. Morrison, ‘Peasant Settlers’, 388; see also Eklof et al., Russia’s Great Reforms; Etkind’s Internal Colonization reconsiders the history of the Russian Empire from the perspective that its conquests included not only foreign territories but also the domestication of its own heartlands; Lynch, ‘The Emancipation’. 83. Martin, Law and Custom, 67–68. 84. Ibid., 56. 85. Ibid., 74. 86. Ibid., 71. 87. Ibid., 75–77. 88. The Millennium Road was a development project intended to connect the western and easternmost provinces with the capital, Ulaanbaatar, by a paved road. It was initially planned to be completed in 2000. 89. Hopkirk, On Secret Service, 231. 90. Kazakhs in Mongolia descend mainly from the Middle Jyz. Martin, Law and Custom, 55, notes that in the 1800s and early 1900s, Kazakhs of the Middle Jyz mainly inhabited oblasts within the Governorate-General of the Steppe (north of the Governorate-General of Turkestan); however, some people belonging to the Middle Jyz migrated in the Syr-Darya oblast, falling within the Governorate-General of Turkestan; see also Olcott, The Kazakhs, 11. 91. The conquest of Tashkent is often understood as the final, southernmost step in the Russian conquest of Central Asia. But many other Central Asian cities of strategic importance were to fall after Tashkent, including Khiva, Osh and Andijan. 92. Olcott, The Kazakhs, 119; Hopkirk, On Secret Service, 231; Auezova, ‘The Time of Ordeal’ outlines changing understandings in Soviet historiography of the 1916 revolt and discusses the novel The Time of Ordeal by Mukhtar Auezov. 93. See Olcott, The Kazakhs, 119. 94. Ibid., 120. 95. Hopkirk, On Secret Service, 231. 96. Ibid., 231–32. 97. Olcott, The Kazakhs, 120. 98. Hopkirk, On Secret Service, 233; Sabol, The Touch of Civilization, 46–47. 99. Olcott, The Kazakhs, 121. 100. Quoted in Hopkirk, On Secret Service, 233. 101. Quoted in ibid. 102. Olcott, The Kazakhs, 121. 103. Svanberg and Benson, China’s Last Nomads, 63. 104. Hopkirk, On Secret Service, 235. 105. Ibid.

PART

V



New Futures

31



Across the Border

Khairat and his brothers made their way to Xinjiang in 1916–17. This

was some five years after the collapse of the Manchu Qing Dynasty,1 and Xinjiang was marked by its own political instability. Following the Manchu defeat of the Western Mongol Confederation in the late 1750s, Manchu rule in this region was seemingly consolidated. However, from the early 1800s there were both internal and external challenges to Manchu rule in Xinjiang. The Central Asian Khanate of Kokand had significant trade, economic and political interests in Xinjiang and posed a political and military threat to Manchu rule in the region. This lasted into the 1870s when the Khanate of Kokand, Khiva and the Emirate of Bukhara were incorporated into the Russian Empire.2 In Xinjiang, the 1860s saw the outbreak of rebellions led by Muslim population groups, and the military and political interventions of the Khanate of Kokand and Imperial Russia. Responding to calls from leaders of the rebellion in Xinjiang, the Khanate of Kokand sent a political leader (Khoja) to lead the uprising. Yakub Beg, a Tajik military commander who was sent with the Khoja, eventually took leadership himself. Yakub Beg went on to capture all the major oasis cities of the Tarim Basin, Urumchi and the eastern oasis of Turfan. He established the ‘Khanate of Kashgaria’ and concluded a treaty with Imperial Russia, as well as establishing political and commercial ties with Britain, which viewed the establishment of an independent Islamic state favourably, as a ‘buffer’ state of sorts between its Indian possessions and expansionist Russia.3 Yakub Beg also successfully established political ties with the Ottoman Empire, from which he received military advisors and weapons. His Khanate of Kashgaria lasted more than ten years: from 1865 to 1877, when the

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A Magpie’s Tale

state collapsed under pressure from a determined Manchu General, Zuo Zongtang. Historians argue that Zongtang may have feared that should the Manchu lose Xinjiang, it would leave Outer and Inner Mongolia equally vulnerable to Russian influence and potential expansion, which might in turn leave Beijing exposed and vulnerable,4 a concern that in hindsight was perhaps not exaggerated. The years that followed the fall of Yakub Beg’s Khanate of Kashgaria were characterized by policies that aimed to achieve solid political integration with the Qing Empire. This was done through the establishment of an officialdom that was predominantly Han Chinese, the encouragement of Han Chinese migration into Xinjiang, and the cultural assimilation of Xinjiang’s non-Han population groups through the introduction of Confucian education,5 measures that in some respects would echo those of the declining Qing Empire towards Outer Mongolia in the last decades of its rule. In tandem with this, the Han elite in Xinjiang sought to minimize Xinjiang’s historic political, economic, cultural, ethnic, ideological and religious linkages with Central Asia. The strategic Ili Valley, leading from the Russian-controlled Governorate-General of Turkestan into Xinjiang, had been taken by the Russians in 1871, but in a convention held in St Petersburg in 1881, the Ili valley was returned to Qing control.6 The period during which Khairat and his brothers came to Xinjiang is often described as one of ‘warlord rule’, in which Han Chinese elites in the periphery of the former Qing Empire had almost total autonomy from Peking. Although Xinjiang’s governors would pledge allegiance to the nationalist Guomindang government,7 it was not until the Maoists took power in 1949 that Xinjiang was unequivocally integrated as part of the People’s Republic. The mass population movement from 1916 to 1917 from Russian-ruled Central Asia into Xinjiang, which Khairat and his brothers were part of, created a crisis in Xinjiang of absorbing the large-scale influx of refugees. At the same time, Xinjiang’s Han Chinese governor, Yang Zengxin, tried to minimize political and ideological influences coming from Russian-ruled Central Asia, notably Jadid, pan-Turkic and nationalist movements. After 1917, Xinjiang’s governor was also keen to minimize Soviet socialist political influences on the Muslim, Turkic-speaking population groups in Xinjiang.8 When Khairat and his brothers came to Xinjiang, some of the political measures that the region’s Han governor was putting in place to keep the largely Uighur and predominantly ‘agricultural population quiet and contented under Chinese rule’9 and to ensure the subjugation of the region’s Muslim population groups included restricting Islamic education

Across the Border



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and preventing foreign teachers or clerics from being employed.10 Restaurants throughout the province were posted with signs stating ‘No political discussions allowed’.11 The circulation of Turkic-language newspapers (in Uighur, Kazakh and other Turkic languages) was prohibited. By the 1920s, the British Consul-General at Kashgar, C. P. Skrine, reported that by ‘means of censorship . . . and other methods, not only is all written or printed matter dealing with current events excluded from the province, but the dissemination of “news” in writing among the inhabitants is effectively prevented’.12 It is in some ways paradoxical that Xinjiang should have been described as almost ‘hermetically sealed’ under Han Chinese governor Yang’s rule, since, of course, this was a period marked by the mass migration of thousands of Kazakh, Kyrgyz and Uzbek refugees fleeing into Xinjiang from Russian-ruled Central Asia. In addition, White Russian, anti-Bolshevik refugees also fled into the Ili region, Chuguchak and Urumchi, numbering 13,400 in the ‘Republican period’.13 On the northern border with Mongolia, Kazakhs and Mongols also moved between western Mongolia and Xinjiang. When Khairat and his brothers fled to Xinjiang, did they intend to leave their homeland, never to return? Did they plan, perhaps, to return one day when the turmoil and devastation had ended? What did they know of the conditions in Xinjiang? What did they make of the fall of the Qing Dynasty only five years prior to their arrival? Did they learn of the October Revolution in 1917 in European Russia, events that would change the position of Central and Inner Asia in the coming years? What were their sources of news and information? Forbes notes that governor Yang’s system of censorship did not entirely succeed in stopping the spread of Soviet influence or news within the frontiers of his domain: ‘The Sinkiang political grapevine, known to the local Turkic-speaking Muslims as the long-eared telegraph . . . was very effective.’14 What did the brothers make of the news they heard coming from their homeland? Did they believe that the events of 1917 foreshadowed the demise of Russian colonial rule in Central Asia? Khairat and his brothers may have stayed in market towns in Xinjiang, looking for work. Khairat would eventually work as a teacher in western Mongolia. But in Xinjiang the restrictions would have made it very difficult for him to find work as a teacher. Perhaps the brothers met other Kazakhs, even distant relatives. By the 1940s, Kazakhs were the second largest population group, with 319,000 Kazakhs counted as living in Xinjiang (the largest group being the Uighur).15 Xinjiang was in the early 2000s home to a million-strong Kazakh minority – a much larger Kazakh population than Bayan-Ölgii’s. Many of these Kazakh families settled in Xinjiang from the 1860s onwards and remained there. One of Khairat’s brothers would choose to remain in Xinjiang. Khairat never saw his brother again.

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A Magpie’s Tale

Charles Bawden travelled to the Mongolian province of Khovd in the late 1960s and met Kazakhs there who had themselves moved from Xinjiang to western Mongolia in the 1920s because ‘conditions were becoming impossible’ in Han Chinese-ruled Xinjiang.16 Khairat and two of his brothers were among those Kazakhs who chose to cross the mountains into Mongolia. What devastation had they seen in their homeland? What events had they taken part in? What situation had they encountered in Xinjiang? How did they survive and by what means did they flee? They were separated from their parents and other family members during the turmoil. Most certainly they lost any animals and possessions the family once had. Save, perhaps, for their horses? There is a Kazakh song that relates the story of one such refugee, fleeing clashes between the local population and Russian soldiers in his homeland. He flees on horseback. Exhausted and devastated, he travels hundreds of kilometres. He enters Xinjiang via the Ili Valley. Here he witnesses yet further troubles. He manages to travel on across the Altai Mountains towards western Mongolia. In the mountains he is stopped by a Chinese military unit. They confiscate his horse. He has just one thing left, his dombyra. A Chinese soldier is curious and asks the man to play something (clearly someone among the border guards understands both Chinese and Kazakh and can translate!) The man sits down on the grass and begins to compose a song. It has a melancholy ring to it. He looks the soldier straight in the eye as he sings. When the song is finished, the soldier, intrigued, asks what the song is about. The translator recounts: first I lost my animals and home. Then I lost my parents and family. Then I lost my love, my wife and children. As I fled I came through the Ili Valley and across the Altai Mountains. There I lost my horse to the border guards. I travel on, alone, on foot, with only my dombyra for company. The soldier returned the man’s horse to him and he survived to tell the tale and pass on the song that he had composed on the spot. The song is still sung today in Bayan-Ölgii.

32



A Scar Necklace

Jibek was born after Altynai. Four girls and one boy. Kharlyghash the

swallow, Erjan the lonely boy, Ainagyl the middle child, sturdy Altynai, and then Jibek. In the same year that Jibek was born, Bauyrjan was adopted into the family. His biological mother was Adilbek’s sister. She and her husband had several sons. As Elnara and Adilbek had four girls and only one son, Bauyrjan was given to them. I must have looked surprised when I found out that Bauyrjan was adopted. ‘He is tall and looks completely different from the rest of us! Can’t you tell?’ his older sister Kharlyghash said with a look of incredulity on her face. Apparently he looks very much like his biological father. Tall, strong, a good square face, sturdily built. Completely unlike Adilbek. Kharlyghash reflected that she wasn’t entirely sure whether Bauyrjan knew that he was adopted. ‘He must know . . .’ They just never talked about it. It was as if the question didn’t exist. He was completely a part of the family. His status was no different from that of any of the other children. Kharlyghash reflected that the only instances when you would have been able to tell that something was different about him was when Bauyrjan’s biological mother had come to visit the family. She had doted on Bauyrjan, she had praised him and in all this she had seemed slightly strange and overly affectionate with him. Bauyrjan had laughed it off. He was Adilbek’s child. Bauyrjan’s biological mother had died the year before I came to stay with the family. She and her daughter had lived in Ulaankhus not far from where Bauyrjan and Jibek lived with Kharlyghash. It had been an accident in winter. Their stove had leaked. People often changed or extended the steel stovepipe in winter to increase the surface that is heated and thereby

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A Magpie’s Tale

the heat being emitted from the stove. In November, Amanjan had added a large steel box to the stovepipe in the house in Soghakh. The joins of these additions have to be absolutely sealed. In winter, people also tended to burn more coal in the evening to keep warm, and might even go to bed with the remains of the coal fire still burning. We did this every evening throughout the winter. I counted myself lucky that my bed was in the front room and I could lie in my sleeping bag and look at the dying embers of the evening’s fire. Bauyrjan’s biological mother died of carbon monoxide poisoning at night while sleeping in her bed. There was a leak in the stovepipe somewhere. She and her daughter were in their beds in the early morning when someone found them. They were both unconscious. The daughter was carried outside the house quickly and she survived. Kharlyghash related with sadness how, since the mother had not been decently dressed in her bed, some time was spent dressing her. This delay was perhaps what killed her. Or perhaps it was already too late when they found her. Everyone in the family would have gone to the funeral. They would have mourned together and helped at the funeral. Bauyrjan’s biological father had died some years before. I don’t know how old the surviving daughter was, or who she went to live with after her mother’s death. Had Bauyrjan not been adopted by Adilbek and Elnara, he would have lived in that house with his mother and sister. He would possibly also have lost both his parents as a teenager. Or perhaps he would have been the one to stop the leak in the stovepipe. Bauyrjan was always calm and well behaved. At mealtimes, he sat demurely, like the other children, and looked into his soup bowl and ate his stew. Amanjan would chat. He would persist in trying to get a comprehensible answer out of me. Adilbek would also persist. We had the most excruciatingly slow conversations. I would misunderstand. I would answer in incomprehensible sentences. My head would get so tired. I would feel frustrated. But we persisted. In addition, I probably sat down in the wrong place at the table consistently. One time I wound up sitting next to Bauyrjan, so I had skipped several ranks. Mid-meal, as I slurped my soupy stew, Bauyrjan turned his face towards me and while no one was looking, he pulled the funniest face, screwing up his face, crossing his eyes and sticking out his tongue to one side. Nobody noticed. They were all busy eating their stew. I nearly choked on a piece of pasta trying to suppress my laughter. In Ulaankhus, where he lived with his older sisters, Bauyrjan helped with everything. He would wring the washing dry. In summer, he always carried water back to the house from the river, which was almost a kilometre’s walk away. He got water for Tanatar, his older brother Erjan’s wife, too. During

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the holidays at his parents’ house in Soghakh he helped where he could. In the midwinter, Amanjan and Bauyrjan went together to chop thorny steppe acacia and brought it back to be used for kindling. During term time, Bauyrjan and Jibek went to school at the same school where Kharlyghash taught. A few years after I left, Jibek and Bauyrjan finished school, both with excellent marks. Jibek went on to study Russian at the Teacher’s College in Khovd. The city of Khovd is ethnically mixed, in contrast with Ölgii, which is almost entirely Kazakh. Nevertheless, a large number of Kazakhs live in Khovd.17 Bauyrjan went to study at a college in Uvs, the province just east of Bayan-Ölgii (and north of Khovd aimag). Uvs is a predominantly Mongolian province. Like Jibek, Bauyrjan lived in halls of residence at the college where he studied. Bauyrjan came home during holidays, like he had done when he was at school in Ulaankhus. It was perhaps during the second half-term, in February, in his first year of study, that he said he did not want to return to college. He wouldn’t give a reason. His parents had taken out loans to enable him and Jibek to attend college. Bauyrjan knew this wasn’t easy. Perhaps they tried to reason with him. He was a bright student. He would manage just fine. He was strong. He was positive. Or perhaps they just said, ‘Well, you have to. You’re being silly. You need to complete your studies.’ At the end of the holiday, Bauyrjan was to return to Uvs. He went to Ölgii and found a car destined for Uvs. He then went to see his older sister Altynai where she worked in their aunt’s eatery at the open market. They decided to have a meal together before his journey. Altynai went to fetch something, perhaps extra chilli sauce from a market stall or something for Bauyrjan’s journey. He said he would stay and look after the eatery. There were no customers. When she came back five or ten minutes later, she found him, a rope around his neck, hanging from a wooden beam in the kitchen, a stool kicked over at his feet. She grabbed hold of him. She lifted him up. Bauyrjan, who was twice her height and twice her weight. She got him down somehow. Perhaps she lunged at the rope with a knife. She saved his life, short, sturdy Altynai. She lifted her big little brother down and called for help. He was taken to Ölgii hospital. Elnara and Adilbek came to Ölgii straight away. Everyone came. Everyone took turns sitting at his bedside in hospital. Elnara asked the imam from the mosque in Ölgii to come and make amulets for Bauyrjan and pray for him. There was nothing else that could be done. He was in a coma and if he did not wake up within forty-eight hours or so, he would die. The hospital did not have intravenous fluids to give him. He would simply die of dehydration. The hours passed. A day passed. A night. Towards the end of the second day, they began to think it would be too late. Then somehow, miraculously,

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A Magpie’s Tale

Bauyrjan woke up. He was delirious at first, and disorientated for some months after his suicide attempt. He never went back to that college. I don’t know what happened to him there. Perhaps he had been badly treated by his fellow students. He had been the only Kazakh in his class, perhaps in the college. The next time I saw him was the summer of Altynai’s wedding. One afternoon we found ourselves alone for a minute in the yard outside the yurt. He asked if I knew. I nodded. Then he pulled down the neck of his T-shirt slightly to reveal his scar. A smooth necklace scar at the bottom of his neck, where the rope had cut into his skin. A year later, Bauyrjan went to Ulaanbaatar to study. He enrolled in a training college for police and security forces. His youngest brother Bakhytbek joined him in the capital a year later and they shared a room. Bakhytbek enrolled on a fine arts programme. His parents advised that it would be hard to make a living with a fine arts degree. But he persevered. I imagine that Bauyrjan and Bakhytbek’s two student communities must have been quite different. I imagine them cooking together and studying, seeing friends, having adventures. I wonder what they made of the crazy traffic in the capital, the huge Hummers and newest models of four-wheel drives that whizzed down the potholed boulevards. What did they make of the shiny new shopping malls and high-rise buildings, where an emerging class of very wealthy people shopped and lived? Did they ever go to the ger district,18 where a large and ever-growing part of the country’s population lived without basic sanitation or running water? I wonder what their father Adilbek would have made of the capital in the Age of the Market, where the polarization of Mongolian society was so starkly apparent. Adilbek, who had studied in the capital in the 1970s, when the Mongolian People’s Revolutionary Party invested heavily in housing; when new schools, hospitals, colleges and factories were built for the benefit of all Mongolia’s citizens. Perhaps an individual can only believe in one new era in a single lifetime? Some people must have felt an ideological fatigue and disenchantment, or perhaps just cynicism, when state socialism was replaced by a new neoliberal ethos. How did that human factor affect how the new Age of the Market manifested itself in Mongolia from the early 1990s? Of course, there were the heroes of the democratic movement. There were the Václav Havels of Mongolia too. But over the years, personal gain and wealth accumulation seemed to become significant political and economic drivers in the Age of the Market. While a small minority stood to gain during this period of change, the majority of the population experienced personal loss and impoverishment.19 Perhaps I’m wrong about peo-

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ple’s responses to these changes. Perhaps you are shocked at first, but as the shock of the new becomes familiar, it becomes less shocking and you acclimatize. And those things that mattered most are still the same: your children, your family. Bauyrjan returned to Bayan-Ölgii a year before his younger brother did. He got a job in the local police force. Shortly after returning to Bayan-Ölgii, he married his girlfriend and a year later they had a son.

33



A New Homeland

K

hairat and his brothers came into western Mongolia not long after the Bolshevik Revolution in Russia, having left their homeland at a time when it was in political turmoil, economic crisis and under martial law; a time of heightened military and political clashes, when the death toll of the Kazakh population was at its highest in the entire period of Russian colonization. The brothers travelled far into the westernmost province of Mongolia, then named Khovd aimag. They worked for Mongolian herders and later a family of farmers and lived with the people they worked for. This may have been their first exposure to Mongolian and other local languages like Tuvan.20 How easy they found it to communicate is difficult to know, but they were not the only Kazakhs in the area, and there must have been other Kazakhs who could help and translate in the beginning. They worked and lived together for some time, but because they were still afraid of being caught and turned over to the Soviet authorities, they eventually decided to part ways. Khairat moved to the village of Ulaankhus. Here, in the 1920s, he married and settled down. Until the fall of the Qing Dynasty in 1912, Outer Mongolia had been under Manchu rule. The relationship between the Eastern Mongols and the Qing Empire changed over time.21 However, possibly because of its geographical position north of the Gobi Desert, the Eastern Mongol banners inhabiting Outer Mongolia enjoyed a degree of administrative independence from Peking until the late 1800s.22 Outer Mongolia may have been understood partly as being of important strategic purpose to the Manchu as a ‘mobile military reserve’ to be used to defend the empire, particularly its northern

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regions.23 Qing policy towards Outer Mongolia has been described as a conservative-protective one, and Outer Mongolia was in principle closed off to Han immigration.24 Much of the Eastern Mongol nobility and clergy is said to have identified with the Manchu and endorsed their rule. However, over time this became rarer as the Qing Dynasty ‘became less Manchu and more Chinese, and began to treat Mongolia rather as a colony to be exploited than as an ally’.25 It was after the Qing armies’ defeat in the Sino-Japanese War (1894– 95) and the Boxer Rebellion of 1900, and in light of concern at Imperial Russia’s active and expansionist interest in Outer Mongolia and Japan’s similarly strategic interests in Manchuria and Outer Mongolia, that Qing policy towards Outer Mongolia changed from the conservative-protective one it had hitherto been to a more aggressively colonial one.26 Under Manchu rule, the city of Khovd was the administrative centre for the westernmost aimag of Outer Mongolia – then a larger aimag incorporating today’s Khovd, Uvs and Bayan-Ölgii aimags.27 The amban (a resident Qing administrator, akin to a ‘district governor’) was based in the city of Khovd. Today the remnants of what was once a small fort, where the Manchu garrison was based, still stands on the outskirts of the city. In 1910, Khovd’s amban pushed for reforms including financial restructuring, a renewed investment in mining for precious metals (in competition with Russian mining in the region), the establishment of further military garrisons in the area and the foundation of schools.28 In Outer Mongolia as a whole, the shift to a more controlling colonial strategy had the opposite of its desired effect. The attempt to firmly integrate Outer Mongolia into the Qing Empire only fed the flames of an emerging Mongolian independence movement, and ultimately resulted in the Mongols seeking assistance from the Russians in order to oust the Manchu. On the eve of the fall of the Qing Dynasty in 1911, a Mongolian delegation to Moscow sought political and military support. Mongolia proclaimed its independence and a theocratic government was established under the leadership of the eighth Jebtsundamba (‘living Buddha’), who was declared the Bogd Khan (‘holy king’ or head of state).29 News of these events in Urga reached Khovd aimag some fifteen hundred kilometres away, and naturally caused concern for the amban and his garrison, who were ordered to leave. By 1912, Mongol troops professing allegiance to the newly instated Bogd Khan were advancing west across the country, threatening to advance into the Altai Mountains and possibly further into Xinjiang. In August of 1912, Mongol troops stormed the town of Khovd and attacked the residence of the Manchu amban and his garrison. The Mongolian troops looted Chinese shops, and in a grisly ceremony said to echo shamanic practices,30 ‘the living hearts of the Chinese prisoners

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A Magpie’s Tale

were torn out, the blood being used to anoint the war banners of the [Mongol] victors’.31 News or rumours of these events must have equally informed many Kazakhs’ decisions about whether to remain in western Mongolia. Following the Mongolian declaration of independence and the political and military instability that followed, Aurel Stein, the Hungarian archaeologist and explorer who was on expedition in north-western China, reported that he had observed the displacement of some 1,500 Kazakh households, who moved from the Altai Mountains on the Mongolian border into Xinjiang.32 Fifteen hundred households might have comprised as many as ten thousand persons, if each household numbered a couple with five other household members including children. These Kazakhs moved their yurts, animals and possessions on horse and camelback and on foot. The political situation in Xinjiang, although not stable, was to be preferred. The Han Chinese governor of Xinjiang at the time gave incentives to the different minority groups living in the area and supported different groups at different times for strategic and political ends. For instance, in response to the Mongolian declaration of independence from the Qing, the governor changed his position in relation to the Mongol and Kazakh groups living in Xinjiang. Fearing that the Mongols of Xinjiang would seek to follow the example of the Mongols across the border – that is, that there would be, in Han-ruled Xinjiang, Mongol calls to join newly independent Mongolia across the border – Xinjiang’s governor shifted his favour towards the Kazakh minority. He sought to isolate the Xinjiang Mongols from their compatriots across the border by forcing them to move further west. At the same time he supported the Kazakh, providing them with weapons and allowing Kazakhs who had previously been forced out of the northern Altai to return to this area.33 By March 1914, hostilities died down and Xinjiang’s governor and the Mongolian government withdrew their troops from the Altai front.34 Nevertheless, the years to come were characterized by continued political instability, military clashes and social upheaval in the wider region. In 1915, the Bogd Khan’s government had signed a treaty with Tsarist Russia and the recently declared Republic of China, in which it had to accept the status of Mongolia reduced to an autonomous region under Chinese suzerainty, akin to its status under Qing rule.35 Further geographical and political implications were that Inner Mongolia would remain part of the Republic of China and Tannu-Tuva would become part of the Russian Empire. Then, in 1919, the new Russian Soviet government recognized Mongolian independence. In response to this, Chinese troops invaded Mongolia, took Urga and deposed the Bogd Khan. While resistance to the Chinese occupying forces was being organized by Mongolian underground resistance groups, and support was being

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sought from the Russian Bolsheviks, a pro-Tsarist ‘White Russian’, Baron Roman von Ungern-Sternberg, entered Mongolia from eastern Siberia and, surprising the Chinese troops, ousted them, taking Urga and reinstating the Bogd Khan (who had merely been under house arrest) as head of state under the control of the baron. Baron von Ungern-Sternberg led a relatively small army composed of retreating White Russian troops, defectors, and ‘freelance’ Slav and Mongolian soldiers, many made homeless or destitute by the turmoil in the region. Many Buryat Mongols, who had fled south into Mongolia in response to the Bolshevik Revolution, also joined the ranks of the baron’s army.36 The baron was, apparently, allied with White Russian political actors based in the Russian Far East.37 He was possibly deranged, having apparently suffered severe sabre-inflicted head injuries elsewhere during the First World War. I wonder if Haruki Murakami’s character in The Wind-Up Bird Chronicle, who orders a Japanese captive to be skinned alive, is inspired by the historical character of the mad baron. The scale of the baron’s ambitions, and possibly the state of his mental well-being, can be gauged from his stated objectives. But his objectives also hint at the many different types of political aspirations that were in circulation in the early decades of the twentieth century. Baron von Ungern-Sternberg’s aim was no less than the ‘re-establishment’ of a Mongolian empire as well as the reinstatement of the Russian Tsar in European Russia. His mixed ‘army’ travelled through Siberia and Inner Asia, attacking towns and settlements at will, and similarly ‘won’ Mongolia by surprising and defeating the Chinese occupying troops in Urga. In western Mongolia, there is a memorial at Tolbo Lake, some fifty kilometres south of Ölgii. In 1921, a famous battle was fought here between pro-Bolshevik and pro-Tsarist factions on the barren, hilly shores of this saline lake. The ‘red’ factions were composed of Mongolian and Kazakh fighters, and likely also fighters from the other population groups of the area: Tuvans and other Western Mongols. The red faction won the battle. The red factions won the battle across the country. In July 1921, Mongolian revolutionary forces aided by Soviet units captured the capital, a people’s government was appointed and, again, the Bogd Khan was made constitutional monarch. The baron was eventually captured and handed over to the Bolsheviks. A Mongolian–Soviet treaty was signed the same year. The following years were characterized by political struggles between the Mongolian nationalists and communists, but in November 1924, the Mongolian People’s Republic was proclaimed and the capital was renamed Ulaanbaatar, meaning ‘Red Hero’. Mongolia became the world’s second Communist state.

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Family Ties

T

anatar and Erjan’s son Nurbek was born just after Nauryz, the year I was living with the family. When Nurbek was only a year old, his parents decided to take up an invitation from Amanjan. Amanjan had by this time settled and married in Kazakhstan. He had moved to Pavlodar in the northeast of Kazakhstan the same autumn that Ainagyl had married Älemkhan. Amanjan had travelled on his own and stayed initially with his sister. He found work at a local school in Pavlodar as a music teacher. He played the dombyra and had found, to his delight, that ‘traditional’ Kazakh music was being taught as part of the curriculum. Soon after arriving, he met a young Kazakh lady who lived with her elderly mother. They soon married and he moved in with her and her mother. Pavlodar is one of the oldest cities in northern Kazakhstan. It was one of the fortified posts on the Siberian defence line established by Cossacks in the 1720s and was named Koriakovskii Forpost. Large salt lakes in the area made the town a centre for salt-producing industries. Later, in the 1950s, with the Soviet-instigated agricultural programme known as the ‘Virgin Lands Campaign’, Pavlodar grew substantially, sitting as it did on the border of the vast, potential wheat-producing northern steppe area. Later, from the 1960s, Pavlodar became one of the major industrial centres not only in the Kazakh SSR but in the Soviet Union. Over the years, the city’s industries came to include metallurgic and chemical plants, farm machinery and arms production, and oil refinery. When Amanjan moved there, it was a city of approximately three hundred thousand inhabitants. Amanjan never liked Ölgii. He used to say there were too many cars, too much hustle and bustle. I wonder what he made of Pavlodar. Elnara went to Pavlodar only once. She said she couldn’t breathe

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there, and she was admitted to hospital with respiratory problems. The level of pollution was staggering, she thought, even compared with Ölgii in winter, with its permanent cloud produced by the coal-fired power station and thousands of private homes burning coal. Kharlyghash talked to Amanjan regularly from her new home in North America. He bought international calling cards and called his family in Bayan-Ölgii and Kharlyghash in America. They were short telephone conversations, often interrupted by poor line quality. In hindsight, Kharlyghash said that although she had talked to him, she didn’t really know how he was. He always said, ‘Everything is fine, I am doing well, I have a job!’ When Amanjan married in Kazakhstan, he and his wife wanted to come to Bayan-Ölgii to meet his side of the family and have a celebration, and the family in Bayan-Ölgii all wanted to go to Kazakhstan to celebrate with them, but the cost was too high. I wonder what their wedding was like. Did people have the same wedding traditions and ceremonies in northern Kazakhstan as they did at home in Bayan-Ölgii? Did Amanjan go to collect his bride from her home? Did a friend accompany him? Did Amanjan’s side of the family put on a feast to parallel the bride’s side? They were Bayan-Ölgii Kazakhs after all. Did they give speeches and sing songs? Did they top up everyone’s drinks until they were giddy and unable to stand up? Did they take out loans to have a party like his family in Bayan-Ölgii would have done, as I would have liked them to have done? Did he mind? Because I think they did not. In the end, Amanjan came only once to Bayan-Ölgii after he had married, and he came alone. He had lived in Kazakhstan for two years. Everyone was excited to see him and to hear how his life was in Kazakhstan. There were inevitable questions about their trying for a baby. He was sad to report that it appeared they were unable to have children. But he had a plan. He had thought it all through before coming. He talked to Adilbek and Elnara and they in turn talked to Erjan and Tanatar. Might he and his wife adopt Nurbek as their son? Tanatar refused. Adilbek and Elnara didn’t insist. This was a blow to Amanjan. He did know that Erjan and Tanatar had lost their first son. But his perspective was different. It had always been different. Perhaps as a compromise, Erjan and Tanatar later decided they would all go and live with Amanjan and his wife in Pavlodar. In this way they would not give up Nurbek, but they would still bring a child into the life of Amanjan and his wife. And they would try to make a new life for themselves in Kazakhstan, like so many of their old school friends and relatives had done in recent years.

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I saw Tanatar in 2008 when all the family was gathered for Altynai’s wedding, all but Amanjan. Tanatar, Erjan and Nurbek had by then returned to Bayan-Ölgii after a year in Kazakhstan. Nurbek had since had a little brother, born in Bayan-Ölgii. I asked how it had been over there, why they had come back, what had they done in Pavlodar? Tanatar, sitting in her front room with its sparkling-clean floor, surrounded by newly washed white bed valances and pillow covers, sun streaming through the window, smiled a shy, sad smile and said quietly that they had missed their family and home. They had returned. That was all.

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Kazakh Rebel Fighters of the Altai

By the 1920s, Khairat and his wife lived in the Ulaankhus area and had

two young children. Arman, a son, was born in the late 1920s. Arman would in time send his own son Daniyar off to university, first in Moscow and then in Almaty; and he would agree to let his 17-year-old daughter Elnara marry Adilbek, the smart young accountant from the Ulaankhus Collective. But when Arman was still a boy, the independent Mongolian People’s Republic was a young country, backed by the Soviet Union but still not recognized by China.38 Instability in Chinese warlord-ruled Xinjiang to the south affected those Kazakhs living there, and resulted in waves of refugees moving to neighbouring provinces39 and into Mongolia. In the 1930s and 1940s, Kazakh rebel fighters opposing the Chinese warlord in Xinjiang were operating in the Altai Mountains. These rebel fighters were led by a formidable leader by the name of Osman Batyr. The rebels’ aims were possibly to carve out an independent territory for the Kazakh and other Turkic and Muslim groups in the area, or simply autonomy and freedom from warlord rule. Were they, partly, inspired by the precedent set by Yakub Beg’s Kashgarian Khanate of the late 1800s? An independent Muslim Turkic-ruled polity in Inner Asia had been possible, in living memory. The period marked by the collapse of the Qing Empire and Tsarist Russia saw many different political and religious hopes and aspirations for the future of the region. Some Western Mongol groups followed charismatic leaders, who were thought to be the reincarnation of the legendary Amur-

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sana, the last to challenge Manchu rule in the 1750s. They looked back to the powerful Jungar-led Western Mongol Confederation that had existed more than 150 years earlier, merging millenarian ideas with political hopes and budding nationalist aspirations.40 Charles Bawden, too, described this as a period of political uncertainty and unrest in which, across Mongolia, people ‘sang the old songs and told the old stories about Amursana and Chingunjav, and were looking too for the return of Genghis Khan’.41 In the early 1930s, following a relatively independent ‘warlord decade’ in Xinjiang, the governor of the region established a more binding allegiance with the central Chinese Guomindang government based in Nanjing.42 Due to these stronger ties to the Chinese political centre, Soviet economic and political interests in Xinjiang were put in jeopardy.43 In 1942, Soviet interests and involvement were directly challenged when Xinjiang’s warlord Sheng Shicai ousted Soviet advisors and terminated Soviet mining and industrial agreements in the region, apparently wanting to avoid repayment of debts to the Soviet Union and taking advantage of the siege of Stalingrad and Russian engagements elsewhere in the Second World War.44 It is thought that the Soviet administration under Stalin responded to this by supporting Kazakh rebel fighters led by Osman Batyr in their struggle for independence from China. Osman Batyr accepted support in the form of supplies and weapons provided by the Soviet Union via the Mongolian People’s Republic – possibly a strategy deployed by the Soviet administration to avoid direct provocation of the Guomindang.45 It may seem surprising that the highest Soviet leadership should have supported a relatively small band of rebel fighters operating in the Altai Mountains, a political group with little hope of achieving their goal of an independent territory. Soviet motives were most probably tied to their interests in Xinjiang and to wider geopolitical interests. Osman Batyr’s fighters were as much at the mercy of Russia, China and other powers of the time as Yakub Beg’s khanate of the 1860s had been. The 1930s and early 1940s in the Mongolian Altai and northern Xinjiang were characterized by continued incursions by Kazakh rebels into Xinjiang and, in turn, by Han Chinese incursions into the western provinces of the Mongolian People’s Republic.46 Ulaankhus is situated relatively far into western Mongolia, but how far did Chinese troops penetrate into recently independent Mongolia? China did not acknowledge Mongolia as an independent country. How did this geopolitical uncertainty affect people living in western Mongolia? During these turbulent times, was the Ulaankhus area a relatively peaceful place? Did settlements in western Mongolia see Chinese military units, and perhaps for a time also retreating White Russian factions wish-

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ing to see the Tsar reinstated? Osman Batyr’s rebels might have been active further south, in the immediate border area with China, but to what extent were members of Kazakh families living on the Mongolian side of the border involved in this fight? Did Kazakhs in western Mongolia maintain hope that Osman Batyr would succeed in carving out an independent country, a republic or khanate that would include parts of the Mongolian Khovd aimag and of Xinjiang, and perhaps even parts of their Russian-controlled homelands to the west? The Soviet Union maintained a significant influence in Xinjiang until 1942.47 That year, when Xinjiang was declared a Chinese Autonomous Region by the Guomindang and Soviet government representatives were formally ousted, the non-Han minority groups, including the Kazakhs, rebelled and civil unrest continued until 1945.48 During these turbulent years, the number of Kazakh refugees entering western Mongolia from Xinjiang increased significantly. Osman Batyr is thought to have sought refuge in western Mongolia some time after 1943. He was followed by several thousand Kazakhs from Xinjiang.49 In 1946, the Chinese Guomindang government finally recognized the independence of the Mongolian People’s Republic. This saw an end to Mongolian and Soviet support for the Kazakh independence fighters in Xinjiang. Many Kazakhs subsequently moved north into western Mongolia.50 And so it was that by the late 1940s, the Kazakh, Uighur, Tuvan and other western Mongol and Turkic peoples inhabiting this vast area of Central and Inner Asia all found themselves citizens of communist states:51 the Mongolian People’s Republic, the Kazakh Soviet Socialist Republic and the People’s Republic of China.

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One Hundred Per Cent Kazakh

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here is one dinner-time discussion that I remember particularly well. Kharlyghash also remembers it well. It took place on one of my first stays with the family in the autumn. We were sitting at the low dining table in the sunny front room in Soghakh, having stew with homemade pasta, talking about Europe and family. On my mother’s side, I am the descendant of Norwegian whalers, and on my father’s side I have a Central European background. My father is an ethnic German and his family lived in the Bohemian mountains, in what is today Czechia. That evening in Soghakh, it occurred to me that we shared a history of displacement. They were Kazakhs living in Mongolia, and my father had grown up in the Bohemian mountains but had in 1946 been expelled, along with some three million ethnic Germans from areas in Eastern and Central Europe where many had lived for generations. I explained that my father was German, that in fact his grandfather had been Czech; my father had met my mother in Denmark; and as for my mother’s family, they had in fact been Norwegian (with Swedish ancestors on her grandmother’s side). Little did I realize that I was digging a ditch for myself and it was getting deeper with each nationality that I added to the list. Adilbek looked at me, shocked. ‘WE ARE KAZAKH.’ I had never seen him vexed before and I never saw him angry again. But on this he was absolutely unequivocal. ‘We are Kazakhs! We may live in Mongolia, but we are one hundred per cent Kazakh!’ Everyone was looking into their bowls or studying the floorboards intently. I said nothing more. I retreated into silence and thought to myself, ‘Maybe I can’t really stay with this family all

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year. Maybe it’s just not going to work.’ We were both mildly offended, but let the matter rest. We never talked about it again. I suppose in hindsight, the exchange did help us get to know each other better, though not immediately in the way that I had hoped. Since that conversation, I have gradually come to understand Adilbek a little better. Kazakhs in Bayan-Ölgii very rarely marry someone of another nationality. Kazakhs don’t really marry Tuvans, Mongols, Uriankhai – all nationalities that live in western Mongolia. Kazakhs marry Kazakhs. At least in principle. Anything else is frowned upon. It’s not practical, one person explained to me. Mongols speak a different language, they have entirely different traditions, a different religion, a different culture, really. The gap is too wide to bridge. That’s not to say that relations between Kazakhs and other nationalities living in Mongolia are not mainly peaceful and perfectly functional. People from different ‘ethnic’ backgrounds work together, are neighbours, trade with one another, communicate perfectly well, go to school together, play football together and so on. But Kazakhs don’t marry non-Kazakhs. I heard tragic love stories illustrating this point. For instance, a young Mongolian woman and a young Kazakh man once fell in love. Their families did not approve, at least not the young man’s family. His parents did everything they could to persuade him not to marry her. But he went ahead in spite of this, and the young couple had a baby. But the woman’s Kazakh parentsin-law pushed her out, made her life a misery, made her leave, and as far as I remember, she died, according to the story, of grief and shame – such was the gist of this tale. The baby was brought up as a Kazakh child by its paternal grandparents. The young man left to work in Ulaanbaatar in his misery, never to return, so the story concluded. ‘You lose the girls when they marry’, it was explained to me. They no longer belong to your family. They are gone forever. ‘You keep the young men.’ ‘So is it easier for Kazakh young men to marry a foreigner?’ I asked. ‘Well . . . they bring a girl into the family. She kind of becomes Kazakh. Well, the child does anyway!’ ‘What about that story about the Mongolian woman and the Kazakh man?!’ There was a pause. ‘It just doesn’t work. Everyone is against it, it’s not really an option.’ When I told an Egyptian friend who is an anthropologist about this, she exclaimed, ‘But it is because they are Muslim! It is prohibited to let your daughter marry a non-Muslim!!’ ‘Well, hmm’, I objected vaguely. The issue seemed to have more to do with being Kazakh than being Muslim. And many Kazakhs don’t consider themselves Muslim. Daniyar once memorably said, ‘We are fifty per cent Muslim’, quoting the famous writer and political activist Bukei-khanov. Daniyar was also hinting at the fact that Kazakhs have lived as citizens of a state-socialist secular system in which

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any religious beliefs or practices had to be suppressed or hidden for nearly seventy years. The last person in the family to adhere to the Five Pillars of the Faith was Daniyar and Elnara’s grandfather Khairat. It was true that since the 1990s, many young people had been embracing Islam. Still, I did not feel that the deeply felt objection to mixed marriages had so much to do with this renewed interest in Islam among the younger generations. There was something else involved in this, it seemed to me, perhaps more to do with a distinct, historically shaped identity as a people, combined possibly with ideas of descent, clan and family. Most young men know their forefathers’ names seven generations back, and married women know their husbands’ forefathers. Once a woman has married, she must know these names, and omit them from her speech. If a part of a word used in daily speech is also part of the name of one of her husband’s ancestors, she cannot use this word. A teacher at the Ten Year School was married to a man whose father’s name was Bolat, which also means ‘steel’. She happened to be a physics teacher, and her students knew she was not able to say the name of the metal, and in class they asked her teasingly, ‘What is the name of that metal . . . ?’ There is a generic substitute expression for words that women cannot use, teris söz (‘wrong-word’), which can be used if another name cannot be found. Elnara was not able to use words with syllables contained in the names of Adilbek’s forefathers, and the children all grew up using substitute words for common things used in daily life. A sense of one’s ancestors and one’s in-laws’ ancestors is part of daily life. It informs the very words one is able to utter. So much would be lost if a young person married someone who was not Kazakh: a whole sense of family and knowledge of ancestors. The whole issue was tied up with respect for ancestors, and it was crucial to one’s place in a community, where everyone relates to everyone else in terms of family and clan. There was something wholly unsavoury, undignified and totally objectionable about the very idea of two people of different ethnic groups marrying. I still do not think this is entirely explained in terms of religion, although of course it is part of the picture. When Kharlyghash told her parents of her intention to marry a foreigner, her parents did not put up a fight; they did not tell her what to do, or prohibit anything, nor did they tell her that they would never support this. They said it would be difficult, but that it was her choice. They loved her and would support her, whatever she chose to do.

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The Red Terror

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he beginning of the twentieth century was marked by instability for all those regions and countries whose status had been disputed since the collapse of the Qing Dynasty, including Xinjiang, ‘Manchuria’, Outer Mongolia, Inner Mongolia and Tibet.52 These decades of uncertainty were of course also the time of the Chinese Civil War between the nationalist Guomindang and the Communists, and they were the lead-up to the second Sino-Japanese War (1937–45). The 1910s and 1920s were also a period of fundamental and far-reaching turmoil and change in what had been the Russian Empire and would become the Soviet Union. In Outer Mongolia, the period that followed the ousting of the Chinese and the mad baron was a period of political struggle between Mongolian nationalists and communists, in which the question of Inner Mongolia, still firmly part of China, was of central importance. Internal party-political struggles and purges characterized this period. Moreover, Japan was considered a threat to Mongolia. From the late 1920s, the Japanese openly pursued a policy of expansion into Inner Asia, and the Japanese threat in important ways shaped Mongolia’s national politics and international relations. To the north-east of Mongolia, Japan effectively controlled ‘Manchuria’ from 1915, and eventually in 1932 established the puppet state Manchukuo. South of the Gobi Desert, the status of Inner Mongolia remained uncertain. Two Inner Mongolian provinces, Hebei and Chahar, would eventually come under Japanese control in the mid-1930s, when officials and armed forces that might prove unfriendly to Japan were forced to withdraw. This prompted a closer relationship between the Mongolian and Soviet governments and a protocol of mutual support in case of attack was signed

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between the two governments. News of the Japanese forward advance in China and the fall of Nanjing (the capital of the Chinese nationalist Guomindang) to the Japanese in 1937 affected the internal political situation in Mongolia. The events that would take place in the late 1930s in Mongolia unfolded in a climate of geopolitical uncertainty and fear. The political situation between the Mongolian communists supported by the Russian Bolsheviks and the Mongolian nationalists was in important ways defined within this international environment. Both Mongolian nationalist and communist political figures were accused of counterrevolutionary activities and spying for the Japanese, and were convicted and executed. It was not until the defeat of the Japanese in August 1939 in the battle at Khalkhin Gol, near the village of Nomonhan on the border between ‘Manchuria’ and Mongolia – a combined Soviet and Mongolian victory – that the Japanese threat to Mongolia would be challenged.53 The position of Inner Mongolia and its relationship to newly independent Mongolia to the north remained in question until 1947, when cooperation between Mongol communists and the Chinese Communists led to the formation of the Inner Mongolian Autonomous Region. The Inner Mongolians are said to have played a key role in the outcome of the Chinese civil war between the Communists and the nationalist Guomindang and the eventual victory of the Chinese Communist Party in 1949.54 To the north, in the Mongolian People’s Republic, power was consolidated in the hands of the Mongolian Communist Party, and the country would begin to see fundamental changes to its administrative, political and economic institutions. From the time of the Eastern Mongols’ embrace of the Yellow Hat sect of Buddhism in the sixteenth century, Buddhism had become part of Mongolian society in fundamental ways. In Bawden’s words, ‘organizationally it developed almost as a state within the state. It was a body distributing high titles, owning enormous wealth in flocks and herds and in serfs, and enjoying such political prestige that the Manchu emperors tacitly recognized the supreme head of the Faith, the Jebtsundamba Khutuktu or “Living Buddha” of Urga, as quasi-ruler’.55 Across Mongolia, Buddhist lamaseries were an integral part of the administrative, political and economic system,56 and more than seven hundred lamaseries served as clinics and centres for the arts and learning in subjects such as Buddhist doctrine, philosophy, astrology and medicine.57 Markets thrived adjacent to monasteries. In the 1920s, 20 to 30 per cent of the Mongolian population were counted as Buddhist lamas.58 In most families at least one son customarily became a lama. By the early twentieth century, the Buddhist hierarchy is said to have rivalled, possibly even exceeded, the secular nobility in wealth and influence.59

The Red Terror



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In the 1920s and 1930s, the Soviet-supported Mongolian government led by the Mongolian People’s Party60 sought, in various ways, to limit the religious and political influence and role of the Buddhist clergy and sangha (the community of Buddhist monks and nuns). When the Bogd Khan died in 1924, no reincarnation was found, a political act in itself.61 In the 1924 constitution adopted by the Mongolian People’s Party, the right to vote and be elected was accorded to citizens over 18 living by their own labour, but ‘secular and ecclesiastical feudalists’ and lamas living in monasteries were deprived of these rights.62 In the years that followed, the government introduced high taxes on lamaseries and a ban on minors becoming lamas.63 The existing institutional, political, economic, educational and religious foundations of Mongolia would gradually be dismantled and replaced, and eventually the Buddhist clergy and community would be eliminated.64 The Muslim Kazakh living in the western aimags would equally be targeted in the religious and political purges of the late 1930s. The 1920s saw the beginning of the establishment of a secular educational system across Mongolia, and Buddhist religious schools and a small number of madrassas in the western provinces would coexist with newly established secular state schools until the 1930s.65 The Ulaankhus of the first half of the twentieth century had a mosque. By 1936–37, half a dozen further mosques had been built in Mongolia.66 Khairat had brought with him a heritage of Islamic learning and scholarship, and in Ulaankhus he instructed Kazakh children in religion and in reading and writing using the Arabic script. He had grown up learning the Arabic script, which was used by the local population in the Russian-administered Governorate-General of Turkestan (and later the Kazakh ASSR) until the 1940s. The Arabic script was used to write Arabic, of course, but also Kazakh. In the wider region, the Arabic script was used by large parts of the population in Chinese Xinjiang, and by Kazakhs who settled in western Mongolia, who of course brought with them their educational, cultural, religious and linguistic backgrounds.67 Elsewhere in Mongolia, until 1941, the classical Mongolian and Tibetan scripts were used. In 1941, after a brief spell of using a modified Latin script, the Cyrillic script was officially introduced across Mongolia, with additional letters added to the Russian alphabet for the Mongolian and Kazakh languages. As part of a national campaign for literacy, mobile yurt schools were established in all the Mongolian aimags and local ‘study circles’ became prevalent across the country. Here those who were literate were encouraged to teach others who would, in turn, be able to teach others.68 Khairat learned to read and write Kazakh using this new script long before official reforms to Mongolia’s script were introduced. As one of the

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A Magpie’s Tale

first teachers in Bayan-Ölgii, he began teaching children literacy using this new script. His great-granddaughter, Kharlyghash, who herself became a teacher in Ulaankhus, related that in the family it was said that Khairat was the last teacher in western Mongolia to know the Arabic script and the first to teach using the Cyrillic script. In 1930s Mongolia, however, Khairat deemed it best not to continue to teach children about Islam, and would choose not to teach his own children about their religion, even in the privacy of their own home. Politically motivated repression and executions would take place in the Mongolian People’s Republic throughout the Soviet-backed state-socialist period, from the 1920s until as late as 1985, but the 1930s were the period of the most intense repression.69 From the autumn of 1937, a period of eighteen months would see purges across Mongolia reaching the furthest aimags. This period of state repression and violence left tens of thousands of people dead or missing and over seven hundred Buddhist monasteries in ruin.70 Estimates of the death toll of the late 1930s vary. The total population of the People’s Republic of Mongolia in the 1920s is estimated at approximately eight hundred thousand. In September 1937, there were 83,203 lamas living in monasteries, or approximately 10 per cent of the population; by the following summer of 1938, there were almost no lamas left in monasteries.71 High-ranking lamas are said to have been executed, including abbots, whereas lower-ranking lamas were often forced to take up secular professions or exiled.72 Approximately twenty-two thousand people were killed between late 1937 and early 1939: it is thought that ‘at least 18,000 were Buddhist lamas. Others were political and academic figures, or nobility, although ordinary workers and herders were also targeted.’73 The events mirrored the purges that swept Russia and the Soviet Union. Although they may have been encouraged and instigated by Stalin, who in a symbolic gesture is said to have sent Choibalsan, then Mongolian Prime Minister, thirty thousand bullets as a symbol of how many lives would have to be sacrificed in the campaign,74 the Mongolian campaign was organized and carried out by Mongolians. Across the country the process is likely to have been assisted by the local population. The purges were not only an attack on the religious foundations of Mongolian society. They were an attack on the existing social hierarchy and power structures in a wider sense. Among the Kazakh, those who were considered counter-revolutionary were often religious practitioners, teachers, leaders, elders and figures of authority. ‘Class enemies’ and those deemed ‘politically deviant’ were often elders or ‘rich’ herders. The categories of those citizens who were considered class enemies merged and were intertwined: religious practitioners, elders and those with local au-

The Red Terror





thority and property were also politically invested and in many different ways symbols of another political order and historical phase, one that was to be eliminated. At the height of the purges the Mongolian government introduced new policies towards its minorities, seeking to establish a ‘completely new democratic administration’, altering established administrative and power relations and undermining the existing positions held by leaders, elders and mullahs.75 These new regulations were introduced in order to ‘combat primitive habits from the clan and feudal period’.76 In parallel with the elimination, exile or re-education of the Buddhist nobility, clergy, and ordinary monks and nuns, most Muslim clergy and teachers in the western provinces disappeared.77 Between 1937 and 1939, some two thousand Kazakhs living in the western provinces were executed for allegedly forming anti-revolutionary groups with the intention of reviving a Kazakh khanate.78 Some of these may have been Osman Batyr’s ‘freedom fighters’. When the larger geopolitical situation changed and relations between the Soviet Union and China shifted, support for Osman Batyr and his men ceased, and those who had fought on their side or sympathized with their cause were targeted as politically deviant, counter-revolutionary representatives of nationalist tendencies. Most families in Mongolia are likely to have been touched by the purges in some way, but of course some areas were affected more than others.79 Khairat, who with his brothers had fled conscription to the Russian army during the First World War, had survived the turmoil and violence in his homeland and fled into Xinjiang and ultimately western Mongolia, was killed in 1938. He was buried in a mass grave. The family do not know the location of his last resting place, and at the time no burial rites could be given. His son Arman was 9 years old at the time. Those who were purged were marked as ‘enemies of the people’, and their children in turn were marked as ‘children of enemies’. Their future was hallmarked by these events and the official understandings and condemnation of their parents. It was an official policy, apparently, that in job or school applications and other official documents, people declared if their parents or grandparents had been ‘enemies of the people’.80 Arman, who was just a young boy at the time of his father’s death, must have lived with this hallmark, at least for a time.

38



Kurban Ait

R

amadan fell from mid-October to mid-November the year I lived with the family. The autumn half-term break was also at the beginning of November, and Kharlyghash, Bauyrjan and Jibek came to spend the holiday with the family in Soghakh. Kharlyghash was the only person in the family to fast. She would get up on her own before sunrise, while everyone slept. The house was dark and cold. She lit a single candle on the table in the front room and quietly went to get coal and a large bowl of dried dung from the heap outside the house. This was the only time I saw anyone making tea for themselves. She started the fire in the stove and poured water into the wok-like pot. When the water boiled she stirred in tea leaves and twigs and salt. She had tea without milk. It was too early to milk the yak; it was sitting asleep by the pen and the calf was inside the pen still. She didn’t have the strength to pull the yak to the side of the pen and tether it, lead the calf to its mother to feed and then pull it off and milk the yak. Besides, the yak would not have enough milk to be milked twice in one morning. She didn’t want to wake anyone else, so she had black tea with salt. She had a little bread with butter. This was all she ate or drank until evening. While no one joined Kharlyghash in fasting, everyone intended to stay awake through the night of Kurban Ait. Kurban Ait is a day when people remember when the angel came down to speak to the Prophet Muhammed, they explained to me. People stay awake throughout the night until daybreak, hoping to receive the blessing of the angel. That night people also gave alms and food to poorer people. Many people went to mosque to pray throughout the night. Ainagyl said she would go to the local mosque with some friends of hers and I said I would like to join them.

Kurban Ait





The mosque stood at the northern side of the village. It was perhaps fifteen minutes’ walk from the house. It was dark when Ainagyl and I set out for the mosque. We wrapped up in our coats, double-layer woolly hats and scarves covering our faces and particularly our cheekbones, which ached when exposed to the cold air. Ainagyl chatted with her friends and as we walked a few snowflakes fell from the sky. The mosque was a small mudbrick and log cabin, with two main rooms and an entrance area. It might have been someone’s home, but for the crescent moon and small domed roof that sat over the entrance. Inside the mosque, we took our boots off and the smiling caretaker helped us wash our hands and faces, pouring a little heated water over our cold hands over a bowl on the floor. Then she indicated that we could sit down with the other villagers on rugs that were laid out on one side of the room. The caretaker sat down next to the stove, keeping the fire going and making a constant supply of hot tea. A spread of bread, deep-fried buns and sweets was laid out, and the caretaker brought us bowls of steaming salty butter tea. The imam welcomed us with a friendly smile. Ainagyl sat whispering with her friends and looking slightly embarrassed. She was unsure exactly what to do. A while later, the imam invited people to come to prayer. Not everyone got up to pray and Ainagyl motioned for us to stay seated at the back. She did not know how to pray and looked as though she’d rather be swallowed

Illustration 38.1. The mosque in Soghakh, 2005. © Anna Portisch

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A Magpie’s Tale

by a hole in the ground than reveal that this was in fact one of the first times she had been to the mosque. A dozen elderly villagers prayed, following the movements of the imam as he repeatedly kneeled down, lowered his head to the ground and stood up again. An elderly lady prayed at the front, close to the imam. Ainagyl quietly whispered in my ear that the elderly lady was in her nineties. And so we sat, a whole row of young women, looking enraptured at this elderly great-grandmother who was so fluid in her movements and so focused in her prayers. As we sat there watching the villagers praying, in the small mud-brick mosque, in the dark cold night, between the icy, dark mountainsides, I also wanted to pray for those people and with them. I am neither Muslim nor Christian and didn’t know the words of any prayer, but I thought, in my simple understanding, that wishes can make a difference, so I sat silently and wished that something good would come to these people. After prayers, everyone sat talking and had more steaming hot tea. I sat quietly looking and listening, warmed by the friendly atmosphere. Finally, towards the end of the evening, there was a small collection. People were asked to give what they could. Most people gave one hundred or five hundred tögrög. I had only a ten-thousand tögrög note on me! It seemed like showing off, to give ten thousand tögrög. Ainagyl shook her head discreetly – it was too much. But I had nothing else. I thought it was better to give something than nothing at all, and in the end I tried as carefully as possible to give the note so that no one would see. It was dark and cold outside, and while we had been inside the mosque it had started to snow properly. I was delighted that it was snowing. I love falling snow, and as a child I always went out for walks with my mother on the day of the first snowfall. If it started snowing in the evening we would go out in the dark and walk around the park, having snowball fights, making snow angels and just walking and listening to the quiet, muffled sounds of the city. I grew up in the safety of Copenhagen, where temperatures rarely fell below minus five degrees. We walked with Ainagyl’s friends until they turned off to walk across the valley in the direction of their own house. Our house wasn’t really very far away, and we knew what direction to go in. But the snow was disorientating. Ainagyl was quiet and worried. She said that snow was bad. She frowned and walked quickly and quietly. We could see houses in the near distance, all quiet and dark. No dogs barked. The snow kept falling around us, creating a soft, muffled air. Ainagyl and I were soon lost. We saw a house that looked like Saule and Erbol’s and headed in that direction, but as we got closer we realized it wasn’t their house, and we didn’t know whose it was. Ainagyl began to

Kurban Ait





worry that the snow was making us disorientated, and she wasn’t sure she could find the way back. I had lost my bearings entirely. We walked on. I said, ‘Well, surely if we are completely lost, we can knock on the door of the nearest house and the people there will help us’. Ainagyl didn’t think that was such a good idea. We didn’t know whose door we would be knocking on. Two girls alone, lost in the night. It wasn’t a good idea. We walked on. We were probably only lost for twenty minutes, but it seemed like we had wandered around in the snow for a much longer time. When we came home, Ainagyl went straight to bed without a word. On the night of Kurban Ait, Elnara sat with a prayer written on a small piece of paper, saying the words, quietly praying. Adilbek sat praying. Amanjan sat solemnly and prayed. I sat with them until Elnara went to bed. Then I crept under my duvet and sheepskin-lined coat on the settee in the corner of the front room and dozed off. Amanjan sat there the longest. Eventually he too went and lay down on his felt carpet on the floor in the bedroom. A plate of fried buns and a cup of tea was left on the table for the blessed visitor. In the morning, Ainagyl got up as the first person and cleared the table. I can’t remember who thought of it, – I think it was me. Ainagyl and I decided to say that a stranger had come in the night, had accepted a fried bun and drunk some tea and had left. Had this happened, the house would indeed have been blessed. When we said this, Adilbek smiled and said ‘Really?!’ as if he wanted to believe us. Ainagyl trailed off but I persisted. They were always pulling my leg, and of course, no angel had come in the night. He must know I was pulling his leg. Adilbek smiled but then said in a slightly disappointed tone, ‘You really mustn’t joke about things like that’. A few days later the imam paid us a visit. He came smiling into the sunny little yellow-floored front room, greeting everyone and bringing a Qur’an. It was for me. My gift had been generous, and he wanted to give me something in return. It was a beautiful leather-bound version of the Qur’an in Kazakh. The imam, himself the grandson of an imam who perished in the 1930s, had travelled to Kazakhstan to receive religious instruction in the 1990s. A set of Kazakh versions of the Qur’an had been donated to the mosque by an Islamic charity based in Kazakhstan to help the children of Soghakh to learn and read. His present was surely too big. How could I accept? These were for the local children to learn from. But the imam smiled a broad, friendly smile, and I smiled in return and thanked him.

39



Mongolia’s Rich Cradle

T

he purges of the late 1930s coincided with the first national-level attempts to collectivize the Mongolian economy. From 1938, the property and herds of ‘rich’ Kazakhs were confiscated and attempts were made to redistribute the property among the poorer parts of the population.81 This occurred in tandem with the confiscation of the property and herds of the Mongol nobility and Buddhist lamaseries. But the collectivization efforts met with widespread resistance and the mass slaughter of livestock. Kaplonski hints that the confiscation of property from ‘feudal lords’ in other parts of Mongolia led to civil war.82 Across Mongolia, the process had to be postponed. Ten years earlier, the first five-year plan in the Kazakh ASSR83 had introduced collectivization and ‘forcible sedentarization’, or settlement of the Kazakh population, beginning in 1928. During this period, herds, agricultural produce and property were confiscated and redistributed, and Kazakhs were organized into collective farms, which were intended to combine agriculture and livestock raising. The collectivization process was intended as a step towards modernizing and industrializing the Kazakh pastoral economy, such that a much higher density of population might sustain itself through grain production and animal husbandry might become sustainable on smaller plots of land. Ultimately, these measures had disastrous consequences and resulted in widespread and long-term famine in the 1930s and food shortages lasting into the 1940s. The requisitioning of high quotas of grain and livestock is thought to have resulted in major food shortages, and these developments led to widespread protest. These protests were in a sense starved into silence: ‘Grow-

Mongolia’s Rich Cradle



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ing shortages later caused the protests to fail entirely, leading the herders of the steppe to flee in order to save their livestock in an initial wave of emigration’ in 1930.84 By 1931, 1.7 million Kazakhs are thought to have left their native regions, and six hundred thousand had fled the Kazakh ASSR into neighbouring countries.85 The Soviet authorities in Moscow received warnings from regional authorities of the Volga, western Siberia and Uzbekistan, ‘complaining of the arrival of large numbers of ailing, famished Kazakhs who were causing disorder and criminality and propagating epidemics’.86 The human death toll was not only a result of food shortages and disruption caused by protests and the fleeing of hundreds of thousands of persons, but also of the outbreak of epidemics such as typhus, tuberculosis and smallpox. Muhamet Shayakhmetov, who was a child at the time, lived to write an autobiography that describes the devastating famine that was exacerbated by a failed harvest in 1932, unusually harsh winters and the outbreak of a smallpox epidemic. His estimate of the death toll is a conservative one, at 1.2 million people.87 Of the six hundred thousand persons who fled the Kazakh ASSR, approximately two hundred thousand fled to China, Afghanistan, Iran and Mongolia and remained there.88 Elnara’s maternal grandparents fled the Kazakh ASSR during this period. They settled in Xinjiang and their daughters Gyldana and her sister were born there. The two sisters eventually migrated with other Kazakhs across the Altai Mountains from Xinjiang before the border was finally closed in 1946. Some Kazakhs who settled in western Mongolia in the 1930s would have been among those who fled collectivization and famine in the Kazakh ASSR, only to face political purges and collectivization measures in Mongolia in the late 1930s.89 From the 1920s and the proclamation of the Mongolian People’s Republic, some provisions had been made for the thousands of Kazakhs who had come into the westernmost Mongolian province, then the larger Khovd aimag. Those Kazakh who initially moved into Khovd aimag in the early decades of the twentieth century worked mainly as labourers for agriculturalists, while others gained access to land from Mongols, and still others were encouraged by the government to settle on unused grazing land.90 In 1930, the Kazakh were formally allocated land in western Mongolia, and again in 1938, at the time of the political purges, thirty-five thousand square kilometres were allocated to the Kazakh.91 At the end of the 1930s the Little Hural92 set up a special council for Kazakh National Minority Affairs.93 The Constitution of 1940 guaranteed

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A Magpie’s Tale

that the Mongolian minorities would enjoy equal rights with the Khalkha Mongol majority. The Mongolian People’s Revolutionary Party (MPRP) officially declared its intention to ‘resolutely struggle . . . against any and all manifestations of unfriendly relations among the different nationalities and [work to] ensure . . . true friendship among them’.94 The minority and nationality policies of the MPRP reflected Stalinist priorities and more generally Marxist-Leninist ideas around the eventual merging of all nations into one ethnos or socialist nation.95 In 1940, the western-most Mongolian aimag was divided into three provinces: Bayan-Ölgii and its neighbours to the east, Khovd and Uvs aimags. Within Bayan-Ölgii aimag, the Kazakh were given seven districts (Khujirt, Tsagangol, Deluun, Tolbo, Tsagannuur, Bayannuur and Ulaankhus) and the Uriankhai were given three districts (Altanstogt, Tsengel and Sagsai).96 This was intended to give the Kazakh population and other smaller minority groups ‘a province of their own’.97 With the establishment of Bayan-Ölgii, Kazakhs now began to be formally integrated into the Mongolian state. Their numbers and the numbers of their livestock began to be recorded, they began to pay taxes in Mongolia and men were obliged to join the Mongolian Revolutionary Army.98 Some authors note that Bayan-Ölgii was formed by the government of the Mongolian People’s Republic by request from the Soviet Union in order to assist the Soviet operations in Xinjiang.99 Others suggest that the Mongolian government feared Western Mongol separatist movements, groups that looked for a political leader in the reincarnation of the legendary Amursana. Rather than potentially lose the western parts of the country, the Mongolian government pursued policies aimed at integrating the Kazakh as part of the Mongolian People’s Republic, granting them a high level of autonomy and thereby keeping other groups’ separatist tendencies in check.100 ‘Bayan Ölgii’ means ‘Rich Cradle’ in Mongolian; the Kazakh name is Bai Besik. The establishment of Bayan-Ölgii aimag was an important step in the successful integration of the Kazakh and other minorities within the young Mongolian People’s Republic. It was also importantly a development that allowed the Kazakh to begin to see Bayan-Ölgii as their homeland.

Part V Notes



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Part V Notes 1. The Empress Dowager signed an abdication edict in the name of the child Emperor Hsuan t’ung on 12 February 1912. See Forbes, Warlords and Muslims, 11. 2. Clarke, Xinjiang and China’s Rise, 21–27. 3. Ibid., 26. 4. Ibid. 5. Ibid. 6. Ibid., 27. 7. The Guomindang or Chinese National People’s Party was established in 1913 by Sun Yat-sen. 8. Forbes, Warlords and Muslims, 18–19; see also Lattimore, Pivot of Asia on the Russian–British rivalry over Xinjiang and Chinese interventions and policies in the area. 9. British Consul-General at Kashgar C. P. Skrine quoted in Forbes, Warlords and Muslims, 19. 10. Clarke, Xinjiang and China’s Rise, 29. 11. Forbes, Warlords and Muslims, 19. 12. C. P. Skrine, cited in ibid. 13. Forbes, Warlords and Muslims, 9. 14. Ibid., 34. 15. Ibid., 6. 16. Bawden, ‘A Journey to Western Mongolia’, 129. 17. Approximately 10 per cent of Mongolia’s Kazakhs lived in Khovd Province in 2000: NSO, Census, 51. 18. Ger is the Mongolian word for yurt. 19. See also Empson, Subjective Lives, who describes the journeys of five Mongolian women as they navigate economic hardship and the fluctuating extractive economy of the first decades of the twenty-first century. 20. Tuvan is a Turkic language and is closer to Kazakh than Mongolian. 21. To begin to explore this subject, see for instance Bawden, The Modern History; Bulag, The Mongols at China’s Edge; Crossley, A Translucent Mirror; Elverskog, Our Great Qing; Kotkin and Elleman, Mongolia in the Twentieth Century; Sneath and Kaplonski, The History of Mongolia (vol. 3). 22. Kotkin and Elleman, Mongolia in the Twentieth Century, 27. 23. Lan, ‘China’s “New Administration”’, 39. 24. Elliott, The Limits of Tartary, 618. 25. Bawden, The Modern History, 4. 26. Lan, ‘China’s “New Administration”’, 40–41; see also Ewing, ‘Ch’ing Policies’. 27. Khovd was also the site of the capital of the once-strong Jungar-led confederation under Galdan Khan (ruled 1670s–1690s). 28. Lan, ‘China’s “New Administration”’, 48. The official state language under Manchu rule was Manchu, although only a small part of the wider population could speak or write the language. The Manchu ruler Nurhachi is credited with commissioning a Manchu script in 1599, to be adapted from Mongolian, and the Manchu script is closer to the Mongolian script than to Mandarin. The emergence of the Manchu script and written language in this sense accompanied the rise of the Qing and the

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29.

30. 31. 32. 33. 34. 35. 36.

37. 38. 39.

40.

41. 42. 43. 44. 45. 46. 47. 48. 49. 50. 51.

52. 53. 54. 55. 56.



A Magpie’s Tale

formation of the Qing state (see Crossley and Rawski, ‘A Profile of the Manchu Language’). The eighth Bogd Khan was Tibetan but had lived all his life in Mongolia. He was the ‘spiritual successor of an ancestor who had been a lineal descendant of Genghis Khan’ (Bawden, The Modern History, 195). Ibid., 33. Forbes, Warlords and Muslims, 13. Bulag, Nationalism and Hybridity, 98. Svanberg and Benson, China’s Last Nomads, 62. Forbes, Warlords and Muslims, 13. Bulag, Nationalism and Hybridity, 3; see also Nivison Haining, ‘Between the Kremlin and the Forbidden City’. Kaplonski, The Lama Question, 58. Buryatia lies on the eastern shore of Lake Baikal. The Buryat are a Mongol people. Their land was ceded by the Manchu to the Russian Empire in 1689 under the Treaty of Nerchinsk. Ibid., 48. The Republic of China would not recognize Mongolian independence until after the Second World War, in January 1946. Jacobs, ‘The Many Deaths’, 1295, notes that between 1936 and 1940, approximately ten thousand Kazakhs fled requisitions of domestic animals imposed by Xinjiang’s warlord Sheng Shicai, moving into Gansu and Qinghai provinces. Znamenski, ‘Power for the Powerless’. See also Bowlt et al., The Russian AvantGarde on the influence of the peoples and material cultures of Siberia and Asia on the Russian avant-garde. Bawden, The Modern History, 192. The Guomindang established Nanjing as its capital in 1927. Bulag, Nationalism and Hybridity, 98, footnote 17; see Benson, The Ili Rebellion. Jacobs, ‘The Many Deaths’, 1296. Baabar, Twentieth Century Mongolia, 397; Jacobs, ‘The Many Deaths’, 1296. Baabar, Twentieth Century Mongolia, 397. Ibid., 395. Ibid., 396. Ibid., 397; Svanberg and Benson, China’s Last Nomads, 86–87. Bulag, Nationalism and Hybridity, 3. It is interesting to consider that the Chinese nationalists and communists, who rejected fundamental elements of the Qing Empire, nevertheless adopted the idea of China’s ‘ideal boundaries’ based on the Qing expansion into Inner Asia. As Perdue puts it ‘the Chinese built on the past they rejected’ (China Marches West, 4), much like the Soviet Union would incorporate the entire expanse of the Tsarist empire. See Baabar’s discussion in Twentieth Century Mongolia, 395. Following the defeat at Khalkhin Gol, Japan shifted its expansionism towards the Pacific and South East Asia. Bulag, The Mongols at China’s Edge, 2. Bawden, The Modern History, 33. Sneath, ‘Mobility, Technology, and Decollectivization’, 230–31; Sneath, ‘Notions of Rights’, 41–59; Wallace, Buddhism in Mongolian History.

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57. Demberel and Penn. ‘Education and Pastoralism’, 196; see also Heissig and Tucci, Die Religionen. 58. Levinson and Christensen, Encyclopaedia, 170; Morozova, ‘Revolutionary Mongols’, 24; Morozova, Socialist Revolutions. Kaplonski, ‘Introduction’, 641, notes that at the end of the nineteenth century there were as many as eighty to one hundred thousand lamas in Mongolia, however ‘only a fraction of these . . . lived in monasteries, and many took only low level vows, or left after being educated in a monastery but before being ordained, and spent their time as herders who had families’. 59. Kaplonski, ‘Introduction’, 640. 60. In 1925 the Mongolian People’s Party (MPP) was renamed the Mongolian People’s Revolutionary Party (MPRP). 61. By 1929 the government had instituted an official ban on recognizing any reincarnations. 62. Sanders, ‘Mongolia’s New Constitution’, 508. 63. Kaplonski, The Lama Question, 42. 64. See Kaplonski, The Lama Question on the purges of the late 1930s, and Kaplonski’s articles ‘Prelude to Violence’ on the role of the show trials in 1937 as a preparation for the purges that were to sweep across Mongolia, and ‘Neither Truth nor Reconciliation’ on personal and collective memories of the political violence of the 1930s in the post-Soviet period. A Memorial Museum for Victims of Political Persecution in Ulaanbaatar commemorates the victims of the purges of the late 1930s. The walls of the ground floor are inscribed with twenty thousand names of victims. 65. Subjects taught in secular state schools were of course entirely different from the subjects that continued to be taught in Buddhist monasteries or Islamic madrassas., e.g. arithmetic, geometry, history, geography, physics and chemistry, and the Mongolian language (Demberel and Penn, ‘Education and Pastoralism’, 196). 66. Sanders, ‘The Turkic Peoples’, 185–95. 67. See Bellér-Hann, ‘Script Changes in Xinjiang’. 68. Demberel and Penn, ‘Education and Pastoralism’, 197. 69. Kaplonski, ‘Thirty Thousand Bullets’, 156. 70. See Kaplonski, ‘Prelude to Violence’, 321; Bawden, The Modern History, 328–80. 71. Kaplonski, The Lama Question, 43. 72. Ibid. 73. Kaplonski, ‘Thirty Thousand Bullets’, 156. The Buryat Mongols are said to have been disproportionately targeted during the purges, and possibly between one-third and half of those who perished were Buryat. They were considered ‘politically suspect’, as ‘white Russian sympathizers’. Many had fled the Russian Bolshevik Revolution into Mongolia (Kaplonski, The Lama Question, 58). 74. Baabar, quoted in Kaplonski, ‘Thirty Thousand Bullets’, 160. 75. Sanders, ‘The Turkic Peoples’, 185. 76. Ibid. 77. See Finke, ‘The Kazaks of Western Mongolia’, 118. 78. Bulag, ‘Dark Quadrangle’, 466. 79. Kaplonski, ‘Thirty Thousand Bullets’, 160. 80. Ibid., 158. 81. Sanders, ‘The Turkic Peoples’, 185. 82. Kaplonski, ‘Thirty Thousand Bullets’, 161.

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83. In 1921 the Kazakh Autonomous Soviet Socialist Republic (ASSR) was established. In 1936, it became an SSR. 84. Ohayon, ‘The Kazakh Famine’. 85. Ibid. 86. Ibid. 87. Shayakhmetov, The Silent Steppe, 135. Estimates of the number of Kazakhs who perished as a result of these collectivization measures vary. See Ohayon, ‘The Kazakh Famine’, who notes that it has been firmly established that between 1,150,000 and 1,420,000 Kazakhs perished, but that the number is likely closer to two million, or half the Kazakh population. While six hundred thousand Kazakhs fled the Kazakh ASSR (and did not return), we do not know how many of these people survived. See Cameron, The Hungry Steppe; Mendikulova, The Historical Fate, 94. 88. Mendikulova, The Historical Fate, 94. 89. Kader, ‘Constructing Kazakh Identity’. 90. Finke, ‘The Kazaks of Western Mongolia’, 110–11. 91. Sanders, ‘The Turkic Peoples’, 189. The total area of Bayan-Ölgii is 45,700 square kilometres (Finke, ‘Le Pastoralisme’, 261). 92. Executive Committee of the Legislature of the Mongolian People’s Republic; the first Great Hural was called to session in November 1924. 93. Sanders, ‘The Turkic Peoples’, 185. 94. Ibid., 45. 95. Bulag, ‘Dark Quadrangle’, 467. 96. Kader, ‘Constructing Kazakh Identity’. 97. Baabar, Twentieth Century Mongolia, 396. 98. Kader, ‘Constructing Kazakh Identity’. 99. Bulag, Nationalism and Hybridity, 98. 100. Finke, ‘The Kazaks of Western Mongolia’, 119.

PART

VI



Broken Ties

40



Stuck

However much the family made me feel welcome and however much

I loved them, whenever I came to stay, a few weeks would pass and then I would begin to feel restless. It would be a perfectly normal morning, with everyone going about their business as usual. Bakhytbek would be off to school, Ainagyl would be sorting things out around the house, Elnara would be sewing or working on something else, Adilbek would be reading the newspaper. But inside me the urge to leave would grow steadily stronger. This was probably partly because there was no easy way of leaving. Drivers from Soghakh did not go to Ulaankhus often. This was why Kharlyghash had had to leave the same evening she had come with me to Soghakh, on my first visit. No other drivers would be going to Ulaankhus that week and she needed to be at work the following morning. Sometimes cars travelled from Kök Moinakh to Ulaankhus. They were likely to be full to capacity and did not go through the village or wind their way past the houses, but drove straight through Soghakh along the dirt tracks on the east side of the valley near the school. A few times, Ainagyl took me over to the school and we sat for hours in the sunshine and waited to see if a car would come through. Once we managed to be there at the right time, and I got a lift to Ulaankhus. Another driver who sometimes took people to Ulaankhus was a tall, skinny, elderly, unhealthy-looking man, who lived with his wife and family on the other side of Soghakh a few kilometres away. Kharlyghash and I walked over to see him a few times to see if he was planning to go to Ulaankhus, or if we could persuade him to go. If no one else was going, he would refuse. There would not be enough passengers to cover the cost of

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A Magpie’s Tale

the petrol and make the journey worth his while. His car was unreliable and Kharlyghash never liked his driving and only ever asked him as a last resort. One time in midwinter, the time of year when the temperature hovered around minus thirty degrees Celsius at night, Kharlyghash and Jibek had to go from Soghakh to Ulaankhus, and the tall skinny driver was the only person who was driving that week. He had filled the car with passengers, but was initially delayed. Kharlyghash and Jibek waited at home for him to come to collect his passengers on his way through Soghakh. The car was giving him trouble and they started out on the journey after dark. As they left the last few houses in Soghakh behind, the driver got out a bottle of vodka and began to pass it around to his passengers and had a large swig himself. After a while, the car broke down and the driver got out to start the engine with the hand crank. They continued and the male passengers kept passing the bottle of vodka between them. Kharlyghash and Jibek sat squashed by the door and politely refused a drink. The car broke down again and was revived, but finally, somewhere between Soghakh and Ulaankhus, it stopped and the driver could not revive it. It was very cold and they were nowhere near a house of anyone they knew. Kharlyghash and Jibek and several of the other passengers stayed in the car while the driver went to seek help, and it was not until the early hours of the morning that they finally reached Ulaankhus, which is only some twenty kilometres from Soghakh. Both Kharlyghash and Jibek were ill for a week after the trip with fever and had frostnip in their feet and toes. I used to get restless in Soghakh like I have never been restless before or since. One time Kharlyghash was in Soghakh with me and tried to help as best she could. She told me how Peter, in desperation to leave Ulaankhus, had once gone around to the drivers’ houses he knew and managed to persuade someone to drive him, alone and at great cost, to Ölgii – something locals never did. I felt better knowing it wasn’t just me who experienced this restlessness. On one occasion I drove back to Ölgii on the back of a motorcycle, wrapped in felt boots and a thick winter coat. On another occasion I considered walking to Ulaankhus. Twenty kilometres is after all not an impossible distance to cover. Peter had once walked to Ulaankhus. But there were guard dogs along the way, and the people who lived at the far end of the settlement were not to be trusted, according to Adilbek. He insisted: it was a very bad idea. A man could perhaps manage it, but for a girl or woman to walk such distances on her own was not an option.

41



The Strong-Willed Girl

T

hat winter, Gylnar, the cousin who worked as a music teacher at the local school, had stayed with the family in Soghakh for a stretch of time, and then with Erbol and Saule next door, while teaching at Bakhytbek’s school. In midwinter, Gylnar and I went to Ölgii together. The family needed supplies to feed the early-born lambs, and Gylnar also needed to go to town to participate in the evaluation of entries for a school competition. We got a ride in a car from Soghakh to Ulaankhus, and then on to Ölgii in Bolat’s car. When we arrived in Ölgii, we stood in the central square for a moment, talking about where to meet later. I needed to go to the pharmacy and she would go to the school and meet me in the afternoon. As we stood there in the quiet central square on that cold January morning, I gradually became aware of someone shouting on the other side of the road. I ignored the man’s voice, thinking he was drunk. The shouting continued, but no one else was about. Gylnar seemed to have frozen. I looked round at the man. Gylnar stood stock still. I asked her a question but she stared past me at the square behind. Then I heard her name being shouted: ‘Hey! Gylnar’s come to town. Gylnar is here . . .’ One of the drivers of Ölgii’s dilapidated fleet of Lada taxis was hanging out of a car door in a heavy sheepskin coat with a cigarette in his mouth, shouting in our direction. He clearly wasn’t in a friendly mood. Gylnar was shaking and asked if I could go with her to her aunt’s eatery in the open market. ‘He is a friend of the guy who wanted to marry me’, she explained as we walked quickly across the square towards the market, with the driver’s shouts hanging in the frosty air behind us.

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A Magpie’s Tale

The previous winter, the annual province competition for schools had been held over two days in Tsengel. Gylnar had accompanied her music students to the competition and stayed in student dormitories like other teachers who had no relatives in the village. Some of her students had won medals. Everyone had been happy. On the last day, the students had been sent home in vans and the teachers were arranging lifts. Most cars were already full, and when Gylnar found that a good friend from her old school happened to be in town, she happily accepted a lift from him to Ulaankhus. A few friends of his were coming along, and as they drove, Gylnar chatted to them about the competition, although her companions were a little subdued. The road that connects Tsengel with other villages, and ultimately Ölgii, is like a braided network of dirt tracks that criss-crosses the mountainous landscape. Between villages, one or two isolated houses sit at the foot of sheltering hills, protected from the spring winds. Relatively few cars drive the distance – at busy times perhaps five cars per day. As darkness fell they came down the mountainside towards Ulaankhus where the lights from the windows could be seen. They passed the turn in the track that leads to Ulaankhus. Gylnar asked her friend why he had not turned off. At first she joked, asking him if he was tired; had he not recognized the turning? He kept silent, as did his companions. She asked again and again where they were going, now in a serious tone, but got no answer. She realized she had been tricked and pleaded with the men to take her home to her parents’ house. She cried and tried to force her old friend who was driving to stop the car. She tried to open the door, but was restrained by the men who sat on either side of her. They drove like this for several hours until they reached her old friend’s parents’ home in Ölgii. Here she was met by a gathering of his relatives, who had prepared her wedding party. A scarf was placed over her hair, they dressed her in a wedding dress, the imam from the local mosque was there to bless the couple’s union, and she sat silently and modestly, looking at her hands, through the long night of the party. In the morning her parents were called and they drove to Ölgii to see their newly wedded daughter. When they arrived, she surprised everyone by saying she wanted to leave. She did not want to marry her old school friend. He had asked her in the past and she had said ‘No’ and she still meant it. She had told him in the car. She did not want to marry him! She insisted to such a degree and for so long that her parents, who were reluctant to take her home, had to do so. When they got home to Ulaankhus her mother was furious with her. Gylnar had brought shame on the family, because she had let herself be deceived, she had been too friendly with her school friend in the past and ‘led

The Strong-Willed Girl



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him on’ or ‘led him to want to marry her’. She should never have accepted a lift from him. And why would she not marry him? He was a nice, eligible young man! She was even friends with him. In her anger, her mother beat Gylnar with the fire poker from the stove. She still had scars on her arms from that day when I met her.

42



Dimpled Bakhytbek

Jibek was born just before Bauyrjan was adopted. Elnara had a stroke near

the end of the pregnancy. The stroke affected her left side. The left side of her mouth was slightly inclined downwards. Her left eye looked as if it had the slightest squint. It gave her a slightly critical look. This was a lasting effect. The stroke also affected her mobility in her left arm and leg, but this she regained. She did not get any blood-thinning medication. I don’t know if she even went to hospital. They wouldn’t have been able to give her any appropriate treatment. For a few years Jibek was the youngest girl. She had three older sisters. Altynai and Ainagyl did the bulk of the housework with their mother. Jibek was often left alone. Later, when Jibek was a teenager, her mother would sometimes have to shout to get her to help with a task. This was never the case with Altynai or Ainagyl, and it wasn’t in any sense like Elnara’s relationship with her eldest daughter. Kharlyghash was protected, partly because of her problems with her hip, although that wasn’t the sole reason, since Ainagyl also had the same pain in her hip. Kharlyghash was listened to. She would sit and chatter away, while the others prepared a meal or tidied and swept the floor. Perhaps it was because she was the eldest, the one with a job, the funniest, the most quick-witted, her father’s child, the family’s gemstone and cornerstone. The first child they kept. And last came Bakhytbek. His mother’s child. Her last son and last child. Her own pregnancy, her own child. There were no parents-in-law to satisfy. Her own father, Arman, had passed away and only her mother was still alive when Bakhytbek was born. There wasn’t the same pressure, and no one to intervene. She named him. She owned this process. She loved him openly, and he her. There was love between every single person and the

Dimpled Bakhytbek



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others, evidently. But some of the love was more out in the open. Although it is probably not quite right to say that everyone had their own favourite, everyone was particularly close to someone. Amanjan’s favourite was probably Jibek. Kharlyghash’s favourite was perhaps Erjan. He was only a year younger. They had grown up together, slept in the same bed as children, started school together. But Bakhytbek was everyone’s favourite. He was sweet and considerate and funny, with the broadest smile and the deepest dimples. He was the apple of everyone’s eye. Because he was the youngest son, he was given responsibility for the herd of sheep and goats from an early age. His mother was the one to help and advise him. The two of them would sit at breakfast, chairs closely together at the low dining table, and talk and work out what was to happen that day. He would lean into her and she would put her arm around him. Elnara taught him how to feed the newborn lambs with a bottle, what to do when a ewe was in labour, where the herd might have strayed while he was at school, which animals were likely to make it through the winter and which were not. Bakhytbek could identify each of the forty sheep and goats. He knew their markings and colourings and their ways of walking and running and behaving. He knew when they had been born and how strong they were. He knew what each animal’s nature was like and he could spot when something was wrong straight away. One late afternoon in January when it was getting dark, he came back with the herd ahead of him in a fluster. One ewe had started lambing. He separated her from the herd and brought her into the shed at the back of the house. Elnara came to check on them. Amanjan spent some time with him. They made a wager. ‘If it’s a brown lamb it is yours. If it’s a black lamb, it’s mine.’ Erbol and Saule’s boy from next door came to see what was happening and chat with Bakhytbek for a while. Bakhytbek stayed with the ewe until late at night when it had got very cold. He was brought a candle so that he could see and a bowl of stew and hot tea. Late at night, with Amanjan’s help, Bakhytbek pulled the lamb out. It was the first lamb that year. January was much too early for the lambing to start, but because it was such a cold winter and snow covered much of the ground, many of the pregnant ewes were undernourished and either miscarried or gave birth too early to very small lambs that did not live. But Bakhytbek’s lamb lived. It was the first of a handful of lambs that would spend their first few weeks inside the house with us. It was much too cold for them to stay outside at night, so a small makeshift pen was constructed in the corner of the front room out of an old tabletop and a broken chair. The lambs slept there at night and at the first sign of dawn – well, actually, well before any first sign of dawn that I could perceive – they would bleat. They would bleat

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A Magpie’s Tale

for their mummy. ‘I am huuuungry! I am huuuuungry! BAAAA! BAAAA!’ Their ‘ba’ is high-pitched and earth-shattering. The mother ewe would answer from outside the house. She would ‘Baaaa!’ in a lower baritone. This would go on for some time. Elnara would get up, as would Bakhytbek, and they would take the lambs out to the ewes to feed. Then, during the day, the lambs would roam the front room. When they got a little bit older, they were given fodder, along with the older animals. They began to butt their horns together. They looked very funny when they did this and Bakhytbek would laugh and hold out his fist and be the other lamb, pushing with his fist at the space between the emerging horns, and the little lamb, which was surprisingly strong, would put all its weight into the fist. Around mealtimes and teatimes, the lambs would go dangerously near the hot stove and would have to be kept away. Elnara found them very annoying. They got under her feet all the time. One time she pushed a lamb away from the stove such that it flew across the yellow floorboards. But still, a minute later it was busy trying to inch up to the stove again. Perhaps the source of heat was what attracted them. Bakhytbek’s was a small herd of forty sheep and goats, a size deemed too small to sustain a family long-term. Meat and dairy from goats, sheep, cows, horses and sometimes camels (together with flour) are the staples of the diet. A herd of fewer than one hundred animals is said to be unsustainable over time. The maths work out something like this: that year, the family had forty animals. We slaughtered a dozen in November to sustain us through the winter. That left twenty-eight animals. During the harsh winter, two animals died. Then in late winter and spring perhaps ten lambs were born. Most survived the first months. That left the family with thirtysix animals. And in summer, from May to October, one animal is slaughtered every ten to fourteen days, that is, two a month. This means that over the summer, in total a dozen animals are slaughtered, depending on when you begin and how far the meat can be stretched. That leaves about twenty-four animals at the start of the next winter, fifteen fewer than the previous year. And so on. Bakhytbek was to inherit the herd, but it was obvious that the family didn’t have great wealth in animals. Despite this, his siblings sometimes called him by his nickname, Boltibai, referring to his ‘great wealth in animals’. This was intended in the nicest possible way and was funny exactly because he was so unlike a rich herdsman. Once Bakhytbek had finished eight years of schooling in Soghakh, his parents decided to return to Ulaankhus. There was no real reason to stay on in Soghakh. The house was taken down. The wooden beams in the structure,

Dimpled Bakhytbek





the wooden floorboards, the door and window frames and windowpanes they took with them, to be used for other purposes elsewhere. There is an empty spot now, where the house once stood; where we sat around the table and talked; where we slept and snored and cooked and shared our meals and drank at least three bowls of tea at teatime. The little steamship on an arctic ocean.

43



A Short Break

I

n midwinter, my friend Célina, one half of the French couple who had cycled from Turkey to Mongolia, got a bad toothache, and in January she travelled home, from Bayan-Ölgii to Paris, to have her tooth seen to. In Ölgii the ‘dentist’ would have pulled it clean out, with pincers probably. I was surprised by her decision to go all the way to Paris to see a dentist. I found it at once extravagant and inconceivable. I couldn’t afford to travel to London for a dental or medical emergency. It seemed excessive and wasteful to go to such lengths for a tooth. No one in the family could afford to travel for emergencies, not even really to Ölgii. But with her freer mobility and her sensible mindset, if only subconsciously, Célina prompted me to take a break too. Finally, in spring, I decided to go to Beijing for a few weeks. I went to the local travel agency in the central square in Ölgii and booked a flight from Khovd to Ulaanbaatar, and enquired at the market about cars to Khovd. My Peace Corps friends had a friend in Khovd who was going to be away and they arranged for me to stay overnight in a room at the student dormitories. Eventually I found myself in a car destined for Khovd, some fourteen hours’ drive from Ölgii. I didn’t know the driver, nor was he someone known to the family. On the outskirts of Ölgii, he pulled out a bottle of vodka and handed it round. He was cheerful and talked a lot, joking and cajoling his passengers to drink. We were his guests. ‘Drink, drink!’ I smiled and said ‘No thank you’. I didn’t really care if I offended him. I don’t remember much from the trip other than being squeezed into a corner of the back seat. The car was full and the other male passengers happily took up our host’s invitation. A woman, a young boy and I sat qui-

A Short Break





etly and passed the bottle on. It was a long, bumpy journey and I remember feeling rattled to the core when we finally arrived. The car didn’t break down, and it was May. It was pleasant weather, maybe 10–15 degrees. I was interested to see a pretty grove of trees along the way, where the Khovd River cuts its way through the rocky, hilly landscape. The driver stopped and we all went down to the river to wash our faces and hands in the cool water. It sparkled like silver in the sunshine. At Khovd airport the next day, I had to haggle and argue with an airport official about the validity of my ticket. When I finally walked towards the aeroplane across the dusty runway, I began to cry. I had somehow stopped thinking I could leave. After a week in the capital, I was on the train from Ulaanbaatar to Beijing. This is the last leg of the Trans-Siberian Railway, the section that doesn’t go to Vladivostok. I slept for most of the journey. I slept through my fellow passengers getting off the train; I even slept through the changing of the wheel gauge on the border between Mongolia and China, when the train is lifted several metres up into the air and the carriages are set down on a narrower gauge. But before falling into my deep sleep, just after our departure from Ulaanbaatar railway station, I met two elderly gentlemen who happened to be from Denmark of all places. Travelling on the Trans-Siberian Railway had been a dream of theirs for years, and their wives, so it seemed, had finally allowed them to go. To my tired brain they might as well have been from Mars. It turned out that the compartment of these two retired men in their seventies was the heart and social hub of the entire train. They had brought plenty of snaps (the strong Danish alcohol distilled from potatoes) with them to last them well beyond the Urals and had stocked up further along the way on Russian vodka. Word was that along the way one of them had become so inebriated, they had had to take him to hospital in Irkutsk, where the two of them had stayed for a week as a consequence, breaking up their journey midway. They invited me to come for a drink in their compartment, and I went to say hello. It was such a coincidence, said one, that I should be Danish . . . I smiled. And that my name should be Anna. I continued to smile. And that I should be an anthropologist, said the other. I looked from one to the other. ‘Because there is another Anna on the train! And she is also Danish, and she is also an anthropologist!’ said the first. ‘Reeeally?’ I said, my smile stiffening slightly as I thought to myself, ‘Honestly!’ I stayed a little while longer, hearing about their trip and declining another shot of vodka. I didn’t have the stomach for it. I wobbled down the length of the train to my own compartment, drew the curtain and drifted off to sleep. Clearly they were hav-

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A Magpie’s Tale

ing the time of their lives. They even thought there were two Annas, both anthropologists, both Danish, on the same train. The next day I met her. Her name wasn’t Anna but Anne. And she was Danish and she was an anthropologist. She was on her way to Beijing with her husband and son. She was expecting a second child and had a doctor’s appointment in Beijing. She was lovely and said we must keep in touch. We must have dinner in Ulaanbaatar when we were all back. We weren’t the only anthropologists in Mongolia, by the way. There were two other anthropologists conducting fieldwork that year. They were also Danish. Extraordinarily, we were four Danish women conducting fieldwork in Mongolia that year. On the last leg of the train journey I got talking to a Norwegian couple. They had booked a room in a hotel in an old Hutong area of Beijing. As I didn’t know where exactly I would be staying, I decided to go with them. The hotel was a former stately home, a grand mansion where Chiang Kaicheck had once stayed – the head of the Guomindang nationalist government in China from 1928 to 1949, and subsequently head of the Chinese nationalist government in exile in Taiwan. The house was beautiful. At the centre was a small courtyard garden with well-tended trees and plants. They had a room, yes, I was welcome to stay. It was a little over my budget, but I thought, ‘I’ll stay for a night, then I’ll find something cheaper’. The room was beautiful and spacious. There were two single beds, the softest I have ever slept in. I turned on the television and a pianist was playing a Chopin piece my mother used to play to me. I sat, shell-shocked, on the soft bed, listening and looking at the leaves of the tree outside my window, and cried again. As we walked down the little streets later, darkness was falling. The red lanterns outside a restaurant shone in the distance and I thought to myself, this is the most beautiful place on earth. The next morning I asked at the hotel reception if I could stay another week. The man at reception smiled at me and said yes, of course, as if he had known all along that I was not there for just one night. And after that week had passed I asked if I could stay yet another week. Each morning I went to the dining room in an adjoining house and had the most delicious porridge and buns and green tea served at a large dinner table where I was the only guest. The breakfast room seemed to me like a fairy tale: a baroque mirror hung over a grand marble fireplace, fine inlaid marquetry tables and carved chests stood by the windows, tall vases with flowers decorated the room, Chinese rugs covered the dark parquet floor. I sat alone in what I imaged to have been the main dining room as the dust particles slowly fell from each strand of my hair and the soft green tea gently washed through my body.

44



Broken Crown

A

manjan looked surprised when I said I was born too small and spent the first few weeks of my life in an incubator. He too was very small when he was born, he said. He too spent his first months in an incubator. I must have looked surprised. ‘A Kazakh incubator!’ he said with a smile. His father’s fox fur-lined hunting hat. They laid him in the warm, soft, fur-lined hat and hung it up on a hook on the wall next to the stove, the warmest place in the house. We both laughed as we imagined the scene. The first time Adilbek presented Amanjan to me he hesitated, on that first day when I came to Soghakh – the day in late August when the camel sat, disgruntled, outside the house, tired from carrying its heavy load of hay. Adilbek hesitated, then he said, ‘Mening bauyrim’ – my little brother, my youngest brother – and laughed sheepishly. I spent months thinking through the practicalities of their mother’s life; their mother who had apparently had children over a period of some twenty-five years. I accepted this, thinking it was perhaps possible, if she had married very young and a few of the children had been adopted into the family. I didn’t realize Amanjan had been adopted. A few years after I had returned to London, Kharlyghash had moved to the United States and was doing a foundation course for university. She sent me an essay she had written for her course. The subject was her own birth. She had spoken to her mother over the telephone and had written everything down faithfully: My parents were married in 1976 when my mom was 18 and my father was 24. In Kazakh culture as soon as young couples get mar-

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A Magpie’s Tale

ried they are expected to have a child as soon as possible. They don’t wait and they don’t plan. If the bride can’t get pregnant in a year they start to worry because it is considered to be bad luck. Luckily my mom got pregnant in a year. After nine months my parents had their first son. They were really excited and happy but they had to give up their son because in Kazakh culture young couples have to give their firstborn baby to the husband’s parents. Firstborn children have to be raised by their grandparents. At that time everyone had to follow this custom. This was also my parents’ case. [When] . . . my parents had their first baby my grandparents came from another town to pick up the baby. Starting from that day, the boy was my grandparents’ son and considered to be my father’s younger brother. My parents, especially my mom, were really upset but they couldn’t do anything to change the custom. In the triptych photo frame that hung in the living room, there was a photo of Elnara as a young woman with a small baby swaddled tightly in a blanket. This was her firstborn child. It wasn’t Kharlyghash, as I had thought for years. It was Amanjan. In the photo, she holds him firmly in her arms and looks the photographer straight in the eye. She is 18 or 19 years old. She was kidnapped for marriage and her firstborn child was given to her parents-inlaw. He was the image of his father, and he still was when I met him. When he was a few weeks old, Elnara went to her parents-in-law’s house and stayed with him in his new home for a few weeks. She continued to breastfeed him and then weaned him slowly. He began to have sheep’s milk from a bottle. He slept in his adopted father’s fox fur-lined hunting hat next to the stove. Perhaps because he was a frail little thing, his adoptive mother named him Amanjan. Aman means well, healthy. Be well. Amanjan’s social position in the family was, from then on, as his grandparents’ youngest son and his biological father, Adilbek’s, youngest brother. Nevertheless, Kharlyghash had been surprised when Adilbek had introduced Amanjan to me as his youngest brother. But it would have been equally strange for Adilbek to have introduced Amanjan as ‘my son’. They had never lived as father and son. Introducing Amanjan to me was also an unusual situation in itself. It was rare that Adilbek had to introduce his children to someone who knew nothing of any of them, who had no background knowledge about the family. It made him hesitate for a moment. He was aware of how the other family members, who were listening, would perceive his statement. ‘Amanjan is my youngest brother’, he said and laughed sheepishly. Come to think of it, I don’t remember Ainagyl, Altynai, Bauyrjan, Jibek or Bakhytbek being

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formally introduced to me: ‘This is Ainagyl, my daughter, this is Bauyrjan, my son . . . ’, and so on. No. Perhaps Adilbek’s hesitation and his sheepish laugh were due to something entirely different. It was only after I had lived there for almost a year that Kharlyghash told me what a fortune teller had once foretold many years before. The fortune teller had predicted that Amanjan would marry a ‘Foreign Lady’. Perhaps when Kharlyghash brought me home, this was on his mind. Perhaps Adilbek didn’t hesitate because he wasn’t sure how to introduce Amanjan, but because that prediction suddenly occurred to him. ‘I may be speaking to my future daughter-in-law!’ When a first child is given in adoption to its grandparents, this doesn’t always mean that they will be separated from their biological parents. They may all live in the same household. When the youngest son marries, he stays at home with his parents and his new wife moves in with all of them. He and his wife, and eventually their children, take care of the old couple. The youngest son continues to herd the animals for which he has probably had responsibility since he was a young boy. He decides with his parents when to move to summer, autumn, winter and spring settlements. He probably continues to use the same spring, summer and winter pasture that his parents have known. His work falls under his parents’ authority. The young wife works under her mother-in-law’s authority. This was the case for Ainagyl. Her husband had lived alone with his elderly mother, a widow, until he married. He was the youngest son and had inherited the herd, the house and the yurt, and he and Ainagyl lived with his mother and took care of her in her old age. If the firstborn child is adopted by its paternal grandparents, the arrangement can be a very practical arrangement for all. The young couple, the child’s biological parents, who live under the same roof, are likely to be busy working. The grandparents may be in good health and can take an active role in the child’s life. The different roles in the household complement each other and each generation has responsibilities to care for one another. The child’s social status within the wider family is also raised considerably by being adopted by its grandparents. I don’t know whose child Amanjan was. I suspect he was his adoptive mother’s child. When she died he wasn’t anybody’s child. Adilbek was not the youngest son and he and Elnara did not live in the same village as his parents. Elnara was against giving Amanjan to her parents-in-law, but she was not in a position to make such decisions. As he was growing up, Elnara and Adilbek did see Amanjan. When their son Erjan was old enough to get his own horse, Adilbek took Erjan and Amanjan to Ölgii and bought them each a yearling. Amanjan was close to Kharlyghash,

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A Magpie’s Tale

Erjan, and his other ‘nieces’ and ‘nephews’ and saw them often, and he knew his ‘older brother’ and ‘sister-in-law’ well. And of course, Elnara and Adilbek had Kharlyghash only a year later, and then Erjan followed another year later, then Ainagyl followed, and Altynai, Jibek, Bauyrjan and finally smiley dimpled Bakhytbek. Elnara was always busy. When they lived in Ulaankhus, she worked in the local crafts workshop. Adilbek was busy, often off on trips to the countryside for his work. Amanjan’s adoptive parents were quite old when they adopted him. He was 10 years old when his adoptive mother died. After this, he and his elderly adoptive father lived with his other adoptive siblings. The youngest son would normally have taken them in, and this was of course Amanjan. But he was much too young to take care of his elderly father. His adoptive brother, Amanbergen, who was the youngest biological son, was a good deal older than Amanjan. By the time of their mother’s death, Amanbergen and his wife had already moved to Kazakhstan like so many of their relations. So Amanjan and his frail, elderly adoptive father lived nowhere permanently, spending instead some months with one sibling, moving on to another’s house after a while, and then another’s. His adoptive father died when Amanjan was in his late teens, and by this time, many of his adoptive siblings had moved to Kazakhstan. He had moved in with his ‘older brother’ and his family, that is, his biological parents and siblings, for the first time in his life, only a year before I met the family. The youngest son normally inherits the largest proportion of the family’s animals, the winter house and the summertime yurt with its hand embroideries and felt furnishings. When a boy is adopted and becomes the youngest son, this depends on the family situation. The youngest biological son – Amanjan’s adoptive older brother, Amanbergen – had grown up as the youngest son. He had been treated as if he were to inherit the property of the elderly parents. He had taken on the responsibilities that went with this position in the family. By the time Amanjan was adopted into the family, Amanbergen was already married and had moved to Kazakhstan, taking the family yurt with him. It is the youngest son who carries the family line forward. The inheritance and family line is passed from youngest son to youngest son. Every man with respect for himself knows his seven forefathers, or jeti ata. The seven forefathers were all the youngest (or only) son. The family yurt is passed on to the youngest son when he marries, and it continues to be a family home under his and his wife’s care. The crown of that yurt (called the shangyrakh) symbolizes his line of descent. The crown sits at the centre of the roof, held up by at least seventy long roof poles that are inserted into small holes lining the side of the crown. It is the centrepiece of the entire

Broken Crown



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Illustration 44.1. The crown of a yurt (shangyrakh). © Anna Portisch.

wooden structure. When it is an old crown, the crown of a long line of descent, it is named a ‘black crown’ or khara shangyrakh. The name ‘black crown’ possibly derives from the fact that in the old days people had an open fire directly under the crown (in a metal bowl placed on a tripod).1 An old crown would have been blackened by soot and smoke after many years of use. A ‘black crown’ family is of high status. It is a symbol of a long, unbroken line of sons. Over the years it became evident that the older Amanbergen and his wife could not have children. If Amanjan and his wife had had a child, would they have continued the family line? If they had been allowed to adopt Nurbek, could he have been considered the youngest son of the youngest son, both adopted, to continue the family line? When the youngest son fails to have a son, it is said that the crown of the yurt, the symbol of the family line, is ‘broken’, and people consider this a great misfortune. Of course, that does not mean that no sons have been born in the wider family. It simply means that the youngest son has not had a son of his own. The crown is ‘broken’.

45



The Visitor

B

efore she decided to accept my invitation to come to London, Kharlyghash wrote me a long, doubtful email. Was it safe for a young woman to travel to London on her own? A big capital city, halfway across the world. Crime rates must be high. The traffic must be dangerous. It would be easy to get lost. I replied with an equally long email. Once I started thinking about it, it occurred to me that, on balance, London was probably safer than Ölgii. We had no rabid dogs. No guard dogs. You didn’t have to go around carrying a large rock in your hand to throw at potentially unfriendly dogs that might come too near. There were no open manholes you could fall down when it was dark. There were drunk people at certain times of day, but they were usually not as drunk as drunk people in Ölgii. There was rarely any violence associated with drunkenness, or at least it was relatively easy to avoid such behaviour. Should something go wrong, the hospitals were pretty good. They had medicine and reliable electricity, and doctors were unlikely to ask to be bribed. The food was varied. I promised to prepare salty milk tea and mutton stew for her every day if she preferred. The traffic was not too crazy. People respected the red lights and didn’t drive very fast down the streets in giant Hummers without any regard for humans or stray dogs, like many drivers in Ulaanbaatar did. You wouldn’t get kidnapped here for marriage. It was normal for a young woman to travel on her own. People wouldn’t look at you twice if you travelled on buses or tube trains on your own. Kharlyghash had been to Ulaanbaatar before. She had worked with Peace Corps workers and met many foreigners in Ölgii. But her family was worried, particularly her father. Kharlyghash, alone, halfway across the world, with no money. They had none to give her should anything

The Visitor



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go wrong. How would she get home on her own if it turned out I wasn’t there at the other end to meet her? What if something went wrong and the money didn’t come through for the ticket? And to travel alone all that way, with a stopover in Moscow? She didn’t speak Russian. Adilbek must have cried when she nevertheless decided to go and left for Ulaanbaatar. ‘I will never see you again. Remember that I love you.’ I would wire money to her to cover the flight cost, but she had to pay for her flight from Ölgii upfront, which was a huge cost to her. Kharlyghash arranged to stay with her mother’s older brother, her uncle who worked as a pilot for the Mongolian airline company, MIAT. He had travelled all over the world and was happy to help his niece. Adilbek wrote a letter for his wife’s brother and gave it to Kharlyghash in a sealed envelope to bring to her uncle. When she arrived in Ulaanbaatar she gave her uncle the letter from her father. Adilbek had written to ask him a favour. Please might he pretend to try to find a ticket to London for Kharlyghash but then tell her that all was sold out, she could not go. Kharlyghash was too dear to them, they could not lose her, they worried that she would not manage in London. Surely it would not be safe for her to go. Tickets were often sold out. It wasn’t an implausible lie. The uncle could easily have done this. Instead he told Kharlyghash straight away what the letter she herself had brought him said. Over the next couple of days he helped her pick up the money I had wired to her and secure a ticket to London via Moscow. She arrived in Heathrow a few days later, tired and limping out of the arrivals gate. It seemed miraculous that she should be there. She had taken a while getting through immigration, and I had started to worry. She had stayed to help a fellow Mongolian passenger who was coming to London for a holiday. He did not speak English and Kharlyghash helped interpret between an immigration official and the Mongolian traveller. On one of the first days she was in London, we went to the Aeroflot office on Piccadilly to book her return flight. These were often sold out well in advance and we thought it best to secure a seat for her. I was surprised when she said she would like to stay for five or six weeks, rather than the four we had talked about. In the end we booked a return flight almost six weeks away. At first she didn’t want to tell me her reason for wanting to stay longer. She was embarrassed. She didn’t know what I would think. After some deliberation she told me that a young man from the neighbouring village of Sagsai was intent on marrying her. He was so intent that he wouldn’t listen to her and would under no circumstances take no for an answer. He had been against her going to London, and when she prepared to go anyway, he had asked her when she would be back. She had told him

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A Magpie’s Tale

she would be back four weeks later, and reasoned that he would probably wait for her at the airport in Ölgii with some relatives. But they couldn’t stay in Ölgii forever. They would probably have given up after two weeks and gone home. I had booked a place for Kharlyghash on an English language course, which she didn’t need, but which might stand her in good stead for jobs and further education later. During the week, we got the bus together into Bloomsbury. Kharlyghash went to her classes at the language school and I went to the computer room at university and worked on my thesis. In our free time I tried to show her all the places and things I love in London. One evening we went to a Prom concert at the Royal Albert Hall with some of my friends from university. We brought a large picnic and found a nice spot in Kensington Gardens not far from the Hall. Before the concert, we had dinner under the tall trees in the warm summer evening. I don’t remember exactly what the programme was, but there was a violin concerto by Mozart. Peter was a wonderful violinist and when he had travelled to Mongolia to be a Peace Corps worker, he had of course brought his violin with him. He had been assigned a small mud-brick house in Ulaankhus, not far from the small main square with its birch grove. He managed valiantly, as far as I know, but like most of us foreigners he had his own encounters with practical problems. There was, of course, no washing machine. Washing clothes took a long time. If you did it once a week, it took a few hours. You had to collect water, get the fire going, heat the water, scrub the clothes with a piece of soap and rinse at least twice with more water, which had to be brought into the house from the well or the river. The clothes were always extremely dusty and the water was always a grey-brown colour in the wash and the first rinse. It was, frankly, a pain to have to wash clothes. I swear I spent more time that year washing my clothes than learning about textiles, the main reason I was there. Well, as a violin player, Peter had developed calluses on his fingertips, and when he spent hours washing clothes, these would soften and disintegrate, which made it impossible to play. I arrived a few months after Peter had left Bayan-Ölgii, and Kharlyghash, his co-worker at the school, was still trying to make sense of many of his odd and inexplicable habits. When she found out about his problem with his fingertips, she offered that she and her siblings could just integrate his washing with their own. But he was mortified by this. Under no circumstances should they be encumbered by his dirty laundry. So he persisted with his own laundry. One time, Kharlyghash recounted, Peter had played a piece of music to her that he loved. The way she told the story, it sounded like he had tor-

The Visitor



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tured her. She had had to sit for hours on end on a small, uncomfortable stool listening to the violin, which sounded to her like someone strangling a cat. How could people stand the sound of this instrument, she wondered. That evening in London when we went to the Prom concert, Kharlyghash was surprised to see how big the strings section was. ‘It must be wonderful to play as part of an orchestra’, she said, genuinely astonished. I am not sure what she made of the sound of quite so many strings. She is really quite polite.

46



Journey to Kazakhstan

T

he first Elnara heard of Amanjan’s hospitalization was from his wife in Pavlodar. Amanjan had been taken to hospital because his liver was failing. At hospital they had told him he must not drink another drop of alcohol. If he did, he might die. He was 34 years old. Kharlyghash talked to her mother from America over the phone and later she called me in London. It was very serious. He had nearly drunk himself to death. I could hardly imagine this. When I had lived with the family Amanjan never drank. He never went to Ölgii or Ulaankhus on binges with old schoolmates or cousins, like Erjan was reported to do. He never hung out in bars or nightclubs in Ölgii. He wasn’t even drunk for the New Year’s Nauryz celebration in March, or at the summer wedding of his cousin, Daniyar’s son. Amanjan’s wife, apparently, was an alcoholic. I imagined them living with her elderly mother in a little house – like the suburban Russian-style houses I had seen in Kazakhstan and Kyrgyzstan. I would have liked them to have lived down a little unpaved lane, romantically situated, in the shade of tall poplar trees. Whitewashed walls, little windows with bright blue painted frames, lace curtains, plastic flowers in the window. Perhaps they had a guard dog. Inside there might have been a wood-burning stove, much like the type used in Bayan-Ölgii. Carpets would have hung on the walls over sofas and beds, perhaps with motifs of running horses or hunting eagles, mountains and perhaps the national symbol of Kazakhstan, the crown of the yurt. But for all I know, they may have lived in a flat in a communist-era apartment building, like Amanjan’s older adoptive sister and her children. In this case they might have had running water and central heating. In any case they were not wealthy. They were probably near the

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bottom-most rung of society. But they had a home, and he did work. He worked, as far as I know, at a local school as a dombyra teacher. Amanjan died a few months after his first hospitalization. He knew that he couldn’t carry on drinking, that it would lead, inevitably, to his death. So he carried on drinking, all the time, after that. It was suicide. In those months leading up to his death, his family in Bayan-Ölgii had said they would take care of him, that he should come home. He belonged in Ulaankhus. But his wife didn’t want him to go and she wouldn’t come to Mongolia with him. She wanted to be with him until the very last. This was what Kharlyghash was told. In a more charitable light, perhaps his wife knew he was dying and didn’t want him to undertake a long journey, and never see him again. Less charitably, perhaps she was a selfish alcoholic in denial about her husband’s impending death. Either way they had no money to buy a ticket. Where were his adoptive sisters and brothers at the time? Adilbek’s siblings. How well did they take care of the adopted youngest son? Did they try to stop him drinking? Some of them lived in the same city. Some of them had been adamant that he come to Kazakhstan only a few years earlier. They contacted Adilbek and Elnara when they saw he was not well. There was a rivalry over Amanjan, which perhaps carried on even as he was dying. Amanjan’s adoptive sisters always gave him a hard time about being too close to his biological mother, Elnara, making him feel guilty that in this, he wasn’t honouring his adoptive mother. The letter that had arrived on that day during my first visit to Soghakh, the letter from the relatives in Kazakhstan that was brought by the old post office clerk to the house and that Adilbek read wearing my glasses, that asked them to come to Kazakhstan, to emigrate, was also about Amanjan and where he belonged, who could claim him. Elnara stood firm; I will never leave this place, she said as we sat on an old flour sack looking down the length of the Soghakh Valley at the mountain that stood at its mouth. She wasn’t just talking about herself, she was an anchor for the family. The first time Elnara left Bayan-Ölgii was when she went to her firstborn child’s wake. She must have got her international passport and transit papers for Russia before he died. She must have intended to go and see him when she heard he was not well. The journey to Pavlodar was a four-day non-stop bus journey, which took her north to the Russian border, past Ainagyl’s home, through the Russian Federation, into Kazakhstan and on through the north-eastern steppe region to Pavlodar. She arrived in time for the Seven Day Wake. Did they put up a yurt? Did those present cry as she entered the room and sing the wailing song? I know she cried and she couldn’t breathe. Did

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A Magpie’s Tale

she see him there, on a bed? Did they wrap his body in seven metres of white cotton? Did they carry his body on a syrmakh to the grave? Did they do those things in Kazakhstan? It was her husband’s relatives who lived in Kazakhstan. She had no relatives of her own there. Kharlyghash was worried sick that her mother would not make it there, and she worried that she would not make it home again. She worried that she would also lose her mother. Elnara speaks only Kazakh. How would she manage with Russian speakers all around her, with no experience of travelling? She had never even gone to the Mongolian capital. Who would help her? Although his body was buried in Kazakhstan, the family held a wake for Amanjan in Ulaankhus as well. They announced his death on the Kazakh radio station, just as every death is announced in Bayan-Ölgii. The broadcast invited relatives to come to the wake on such a day, in such a place. Amanjan’s relatives in Bayan-Ölgii all came to the wake, from his mother’s and his father’s side. Daniyar’s wife and children, Berik and his family, Erbol and Saule and their children, everyone. I can see them there. Did they erect a yurt? Is that done, when the body is elsewhere? The soul of the dead is supposed to be able to leave through the crown. Only his mother, Elnara, was in Kazakhstan. Adilbek cried and cried. Elnara blamed him for Amanjan’s fate. He should have stood firm against his parents, against tradition. In America, Kharlyghash gave birth to a daughter, Salta, their first child, only a few months before Amanjan’s death. Kharlyghash couldn’t go to her older brother’s funeral or wake. She couldn’t make it to New York, then to Beijing, then to Ulaanbaatar and then to Bayan-Ölgii and on from Ölgii to Ulaankhus in time for the Seven Day Wake. She couldn’t travel with the baby to her brother’s wake. She was torn in two. She had to go to the wake. But she was simply too far away and not able to travel. Peter, who was training to be a doctor, worked night shifts often, and at night Kharlyghash was alone with the baby. She said to me on the telephone that she felt she was losing her mind. Thousands of miles from Bayan-Ölgii, on the other side of the world, Kharlyghash felt like Amanjan was walking around in her house. One night she went around the house, turning the photos of Amanjan around so they faced the wall. She dreamed about him. Elnara used to say that when you dream of the dead it is because they miss you, they want you to join them. It is a bad omen. It is a sign that you may soon join them. You must not go with them in your dream or you will not wake up. When Kharlyghash told her mother of her dreams, she merely said, ‘Don’t worry. I’m sure it’s just because you miss him.’ This made Kharlyghash worry even more. She knew what it meant to dream of the dead.

Journey to Kazakhstan



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The second time Kharlyghash was pregnant, four years later, Erjan joined Amanjan. He had felt unwell one day after coming home from work at the school in Ulaankhus. He had stayed on the sofa the next day and had tea and soup that Tanatar made for him, and watched his two young children playing. Then he had died. When Erjan, her closest younger brother, died, Kharlyghash dreamed of her two brothers again and again until she was afraid of falling asleep. I told her, ‘Talk to them. Tell them you won’t forget them but that you need rest. That you have a baby, two young children, that you cannot leave.’ I don’t know what she made of this. She is extremely rational. She probably thought that I too, like her mother, was telling her fibs to keep her from falling apart. Why couldn’t they have talked to her while they were alive? Why didn’t they say, ‘I’m not very well, I feel alone, I feel ill, I am sorry’, anything. But you don’t. You don’t talk about how you feel. That is a strange preoccupation in my world: being preoccupied with attaining happiness for yourself. But it’s not about you alone. It’s not about you being happy, or depressed, or unable to stop drinking. It’s not about you, because there are more people than you. It’s about the family, everyone. And your preoccupations need to be overcome so that everyone can manage. Perhaps it was all of this, the fact that Elnara didn’t know how her children were, the fact that she had not seen with her own eyes that they were really OK in those faraway places. Perhaps it was also her journey to Kazakhstan and back that convinced her, even emboldened her, to travel halfway across the world for her firstborn daughter’s wedding celebration.

Part VI Note 1. See Aouelbekov, ‘Découpage’; Kämälashuly, Kazakhtyng Baiyrghy Baspanalary, 26.

PART

VII



New Worlds, Old Ties

47



Two Worlds

T

he summer Kharlyghash was in London, we went to St Paul’s Cathedral one Sunday. I strode up the nave towards the dome, wanting her to feel confident in entering the cathedral. As I turned around, I saw that she was walking into the space cautiously, looking around, shoulders hunched. When I smiled at her, she gave me a look that was a conscious caricature of being impressed. She was not impressed, but she could see that it was expected of her. ‘Well, this is very impressive’, her look seemed to convey. ‘I feel very small.’ It struck me how modest the mud-brick mosque in Soghakh was compared with this. And at once the very fact that so many resources had been put into building – well, let’s face it, an ostentatious architectural masterpiece that aims to show off our wealth as well as our faith – seemed to me such a sad fact, not a happy one. I had wanted to show Kharlyghash that this too was her world, not in a religious way, but in a cultural heritage sort of way. But what seemed to echo back to me from the airy dome was the fact that while there are people who have no milk for their tea, who have no coal to heat their small living spaces to get through the icy winter, whose animals perish in increasing numbers with each harsh winter that passes, there is also the wealth of this part of the world, and these two worlds are one. This too was part of her world, but that fact wasn’t a happy one, it was sad beyond measure. One day Kharlyghash was looking for something in her suitcase, and she took everything out. Among the things she had brought to London was the embroidered wall hanging that her aunt Juldyz had made when she was born. A wall hanging is usually made of heavy cotton or corduroy, with a

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A Magpie’s Tale

red velvet border. It measures approximately two to two and a half metres by one and a half metres. It is supposed to hang over your bed, so it needs to be the length of a bed. A wall hanging probably weighs three or so kilos and takes up a lot of space in a suitcase. ‘Why are you carrying an embroidered wall hanging around!?’ I asked in surprise. Her parents, not having any money to give her, had made her pack the wall hanging so that should she get in trouble and need money, she could sell it. Did I know if it could be sold somewhere in London? How much would it fetch? I looked at her in surprise. ‘Oh, don’t sell it! I mean, if we sold it on eBay we might get £150 or £200. But it is surely worth more as a wall hanging that was given to you when you were born.’ I objected in this vein and wasn’t even really sure where we might be able to sell the wall hanging. There were some galleries that specialized in Central Asian textiles in Bloomsbury, but they were effectively middlemen and I didn’t think they would give us a good price. Kharlyghash was slightly disappointed at the relatively small price that such a large and intricately embroidered piece would fetch. Probably it would be better to sell it in Ölgii to tourists, she reasoned. In the end I wound up borrowing the wall hanging. I had put in a proposal to curate an exhibition of Kazakh textiles at a gallery that was part of my university. It would take pride of place in that exhibition. But Kharlyghash was left, on her homeward-bound journey, with no wall hanging to sell in case of an emergency. That summer, we went to Brighton and Kharlyghash saw the sea for the first time. We sat under trees in London’s parks. We went to cafes. We went to the British Museum, the National Gallery, Tate Modern. We walked around Covent Garden. We made home-made ice cream and I made the greenest pea soup for fun, just to surprise her, and she didn’t eat it. I made her walk much too much and her hip ached, but she never complained. In the last few weeks of her stay, I asked her to take the bus on her own to the language school. She must have thought I was joking when I first suggested it. We were on the bus and I said, ‘I’m not going to say where we should get off this time, you do it! In a few days, I think you should take the bus on your own.’ She stared at me. She had never done anything like that to me in Bayan-Ölgii. She went with me everywhere, she accompanied me to all my interviews, she translated them all with me, she made sure her family took care of me, that I was well fed and warm. And here I was, suggesting she should take the bendy 38 bus on her own from Hackney into central London, the bus that made her feel carsick each time she boarded one. And she would need to get off at the junction of Southampton Row and High Holborn, one of the busiest junctions in central London.

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I was so proud of her when she did it. She even got a fine on the bus coming home to Hackney one day as her Oyster card had run out and she hadn’t been sure where or how she could top it up, and I was proud of her for managing that situation too. I had emailed Peter a few months before Kharlyghash was due to arrive. She had also emailed him to say she would be travelling to London. I thought Peter would want to know that she would be in London. I knew they were very good friends and that he would be excited for her. He was working in an ice cream parlour in New York City, saving up to start his medical studies that autumn. He emailed back that he would be coming to London too. When he arrived, he took her out one day and proposed to her. She came home and was excited and happy and scared and worried at the same time. She didn’t know what to do. If she said yes, would she ever see her family again? Would she be able to be part of their lives? When he had lived in Bayan-Ölgii and washed his clothes by hand and played violin to her in his mud-brick house, Peter had asked her if she would ever consider marrying a foreigner, and she had said, ‘And leave my mother and father? Leave Amanjan, Erjan, Tanatar, Ainagyl, Altynai, Jibek, Bauyrjan and Bakhytbek? My aunts and uncles, Gylnar and all my other cousins? For one man? Never. I would never leave them all for one man.’ In London, Peter had to wait almost a week for her answer. Kharlyghash did not sleep at all at night. She had felt quite jet-lagged when she arrived, but now she tossed and turned and worried all night. She looked like a ghost in the daytime. She talked to me a little bit. I said I thought it wouldn’t mean never seeing her family again. But of course it wouldn’t be as easy to see them as it would be if she stayed in Bayan-Ölgii. But what if she married that overly persistent guy who even now as we spoke was probably standing at the airport in Ölgii with all his relatives, waiting for her? If she lived in Sagsai, her life would be different too. She would be away from her family too. And she didn’t love that guy. She wanted more than anything to marry Peter, but she worried and thought it was probably impossible. She had no idea what their life would be like. Where would they live? How would they live? What was his mother like? What strange customs did they have? Were Americans as morally suspect as Kazakhs thought them to be? Would Peter be true to her? What if she found herself alone, without the means to return home or unable to manage on her own? Would she ever be able to work? Would she get to know people? Could it work, seeing as their backgrounds were so different? Would their love be enough to get them through whatever challenges lay ahead? On Peter’s last day in London, Kharlyghash went for a walk with him in central London. She told me afterwards that she had been so nervous, and

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A Magpie’s Tale

so worried about everything, that she had not been able to decide which she would renounce, her family and her home or Peter. She decided just as he was about to go into the underground to get the train to Heathrow and fly back to New York. I imagine them crossing the traffic lights on Southampton Row, both of them sad, and her turning towards him to say goodbye, and then saying, ‘Yes! Yes, I will marry you!’ And he was so surprised and ill prepared that he made a ring for her out of an old string that was attached to his rucksack. She beamed when she came home to Hackney, she was radiant with happiness. And she worried about what lay in store for her at home in Bayan-Ölgii.

48



Brave New World

A

rman and Gyldana had Daniyar in 1953. Daniyar must have started school at the local school in Soghakh. His little sister Elnara started school five years later, and attended it for the four compulsory years. Daniyar went on to study for the equivalent of an undergraduate university degree in Moscow, and later a doctorate in the capital of the Kazakh SSR, Almaty. After his studies, Daniyar returned to Bayan-Ölgii, where he was offered a job at the new museum in Ölgii. He was a prolific writer. He wrote purely ethnographic material. He didn’t add ideological content. He wrote comprehensively and in detail about the cultural practices and livelihoods of the Kazakh. He travelled frequently to the countryside, collecting historical and ethnographic artefacts that were exhibited in the displays at the museum. That collection, held at the museum, was in fact mainly his creation. By chance, I once accompanied him on such a trip to the countryside. In Soghakh, a few weeks after the winter slaughter, Bakhytbek spotted a car approaching the house. The car parked outside the house and Daniyar stepped out on the driver’s side. He was followed by two other men. There was a bit of a commotion, as we hadn’t been expecting guests. Elnara quickly organized dinner, and a choice piece of meat was brought in from the storeroom. Ainagyl laid out the family’s best syrmakh in front of the dining table for the guests to sit on. Tea was brewed and bread set out on the table while Ainagyl started making home-made pasta for a ‘five-finger’ feast. Daniyar was accompanied by a colleague and friend from Ölgii and a relative from Xinjiang. He had travelled to Xinjiang for the first time in the 1990s, when this became possible, to search for relatives there: the descendants of the family that stayed on the Chinese side of the border, who

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A Magpie’s Tale

did not move north into western Mongolia in the first half of the twentieth century. He had found distant cousins, and one of the men accompanying him on this trip was in fact a cousin, who had now come to visit the family in Bayan-Ölgii. Daniyar wanted to show him some of Bayan-Ölgii and to introduce him to the family. That evening he quizzed the children about their school work, and Adilbek and the visitors talked for a long time. The following day, Daniyar and his party were going for a drive further into the countryside. He was on museum business and also wanted to go hare hunting. Did I want to come? ‘Of course!’ The following day, we drove several hours north, past remote winter settlements. We stopped to visit a family who were not relatives, and who were perhaps slightly taken aback by the arrival of the curator from Ölgii Museum and his entourage. Their log cabin sat on its own, nestled between the hills on the western side of the Soghakh Valley. There were no shops or schools for at least thirty kilometres. There were no roads. We came by dirt track. The nearest village was Kök Moinakh, near the Russian border, which must have been a good half a day’s drive from the house in Soghakh. Unusually, the log cabin lay quite alone, in the barren, rocky hills. I had thought of Soghakh as remote. But the place we had driven to that day struck me as very nearly The End of the World. The place brought to mind a fairy tale I loved as a child. To save her true love, a young girl

Illustration 48.1. Winter house, Bayan-Ölgii province, 2004. © Anna Portisch.

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must walk on her bare feet to the remotest place in the world, where there is a desolate lake, and an island in the lake, and a barren mountain on the island, and a well on top of the mountain, and a duck in the well, and an egg in the duck, and a key within that egg: we had arrived on those shores. And here lived a welcoming family in a cosy log cabin. Inside the log cabin, with the fire blazing in the stove, I looked at the collection of family photos hanging in a large frame on the wall, similar to our triptych frame at home in Soghakh. There, in the midst of the arrangement, were two photos of the husband and his sister posing in the Red Square in Moscow, and another photo of relatives posing in Sühbaatar Square in Ulaanbaatar. The husband had studied, like Daniyar had done, in Moscow. He was a physicist, and now a herder. His wife had studied in Ulaanbaatar. The couple were a little younger than Daniyar. Daniyar asked the husband if they had any artefacts from the time of his parents or grandparents that they might want to donate to the museum. The man found an old wood steeple in the shed. They donated this to the museum. After having had a meal and tea with the family, Daniyar drove us to a valley further north, a vast rounded hollowed-out cauldron in the barren hills, with an icy white stream that followed the course of the rocky grey and brown landscape at the bottom. On the hill, looking out over the valley, was a small, lonely stone cairn, no more than half a metre high. We were far from any houses or settlements now. The cairn was part of the landscape. The stones were grey, black, brown and many other colours. But the cairn was also a small human creation in, or conversation with, the place. Daniyar placed a stone on top of the cairn. We all stood in silence for a while, taking in the valley below. We drove back towards Soghakh under a leaden sky. It would snow later. Halfway back to Soghakh Daniyar stopped the car abruptly and charged out, rifle in hand, and fired. He walked for some time. I thought it completely impossible that he had hit anything at all. But he returned triumphant, holding a hare by its long ears. They dropped me off in Soghakh and the three of them, with the hare, continued to Ölgii. The flat I rented in Ölgii was located in the same apartment building where Daniyar and his wife had brought up their children. It was a large, fourstorey apartment building with four stairwells, sitting along the tree-lined avenue that stretched from the central square in Ölgii towards the outskirts of town, where the hills lead to Sagsai. When it was built in the 1960s, it must have been one of the most modern apartment buildings in Ölgii. Each apartment had running water, an indoor toilet and shower, and central heating that was connected directly to the Ölgii power station. The view looked out over the hills. The building was situated a few minutes’

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walk from the museum and the central square. I imagine Daniyar, having recently completed his doctorate and returned from Almaty, living with his wife and their young children, walking to work at the museum each morning, greeting friends and relatives as he crossed the central square and passed the general post office, the state-run shops and the provincial government building with its busts of Lenin and Sühbaatar nodding to him. The museum sat in the opposite corner of the central square, and housed a small section on the natural history of the region, a local history section and a large collection of ethnographic artefacts, including a complete yurt with its furnishings. Daniyar’s office was off one of the long corridors on the ground floor. His wife worked as a doctor at the general hospital in Ölgii, which lay just a few minutes’ walk from the central square. The children must have attended the state-run kindergarten, and later the best schools in Ölgii. The family had moved out of the apartment building in the early 1990s, after a series of earthquakes left part of the building structurally unsound. They built their own mud-brick and log house, and this was where they lived when I went to see them together with Kharlyghash years later. When I moved into the same apartment building where the family had lived, it had become quite dilapidated. The stairwell was dark, the light bulbs having long since been taken out of the fittings. The steps had partly collapsed, the paint had peeled and the façade had a mottled, worn look. As Kharlyghash said jokingly about many things in Bayan-Ölgii, ‘It looks like it has been through a war!’ In spring, there was a knock at my door. A lady from the Deluun area, south of Ölgii, had come to town, hoping to sell various Buddhist artefacts. She had heard that a foreigner was living in the top floor flat, so she knocked on my door. On my kitchen table she unwrapped one treasure after another. A small bronze statue of Tara, the feminine counterpart of the Boddhisattva;1 oblong, handwritten books in the Tibetan script wrapped in silk cloth. These artefacts had survived the purges of the 1930s. The lady wanted three hundred dollars for them and I couldn’t afford it. I asked her why she didn’t go to the museum. These things belonged in the museum. ‘The museum doesn’t pay. I am selling them because we need money’, was her obvious answer. Only later, after the lady had left, did it occur to me that I should have bought the artefacts anyway and given them to the museum. The last time I saw Daniyar was at his son’s wedding. I remember helping peel a mound of potatoes for the potato salad with a little kitchen knife in the yard at the family home. Everyone was cheerful and happy. The party was held in a big sun-filled hall. Happy people were milling about, chatting,

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talking, laughing, and there was dancing later in the evening. Amanjan was there. Elnara was there for her older brother’s son’s wedding. Adilbek, Bauyrjan and Jibek were there. Altynai, Kharlyghash, Bakhytbek, smiling, jolly. Erjan and Tanatar. Adilbek had thought it proper that I should make a contribution to the party, and we decided I would sing the only song in Kazakh that I knew, ‘El Köshkende’ (‘The People Who Move’). Adilbek and Bakhytbek accompanied me on the dombyra. I was worried about getting up in front of all those people, a worry completely incomprehensible to them. And it was all fine. Adilbek said afterwards, ‘What were you so worried about? That was OK.’ An aunt passed by and smiled and said, ‘That was all right.’ And I thought, ‘Yes, it was all right. What on earth was I so worried about. It wasn’t like I was getting married.’ That must have been one of the last times Amanjan saw his cousins and aunts and uncles. At least, it must have been the last time he saw them all together. Perhaps it was also the last time Daniyar saw so many of his closest relatives all gathered together. He was lucky to live to see his eldest son married, and to such a lovely young lady. The son had graduated as a teacher and found a job. He later completed his father’s life’s work, compiling all of Daniyar’s ethnographic work on the Kazakh of western Mongolia, published and unpublished, into one large volume. Daniyar died two years after his son’s wedding, only a few weeks before his niece’s wedding to Peter. The song that I sang at the wedding, ‘El Köshkende’, I have imperfectly translated as ‘The People Who Move’. The song was written by Murat Pushataiuli, a relation of Saule’s, in fact. He tragically died in a plane crash in the 1990s. An aeroplane destined for Bayan-Ölgii from Ulaanbaatar crashed somewhere east of Khovd and all those on board died. Many of his poems have been set to music and are still sung and recited widely in Bayan-Ölgii. This is the poem in Kazakh: Ysh Oighurdyng basynan el köshkende khara jeli Khovdanyng jeldetkeni Beibit kynde bölenip aghaiynnan boidy kydik oidy mung mendetkeni Kerei Uwaq Naimanym buzylmaghan khaimaghyng, kimge tastap barasyng, Bayan-Ölgii aimaghyn . . .

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Oighyr äkem bolghanda Soghakh sheshem Oigha kösem emespin tilge sheshen Uly köshti bastaghan er ulandar Ata jurtkha jetingder aman-esen Naiman Uakh Kereiĭm makhtanyshym mereiĭm tutiningdi tuzeshi budan artykh ne deiin. Kharlyghash and I translated the poem as follows: When people moved from Ysh Oighur a black wind blew from Khovd Peaceful times with our relatives are over we are in doubt and full of sadness My Kerei, Uwaq, Naiman unbroken cream to whom are you leaving Bayan-Ölgii province? Oygur is my father, Soghakh is my mother I am neither a wise nor a clever spokesman yet I want to say to those who are leading our people away I hope you reach your destination safely. My Naiman, Uwaq, Kerei The clans I am so proud of May the smoke from your chimney rise straight to the sky What else can I say? There are more verses, which are not included here. I am certain this translation could be improved. Also, I can’t convey very well the mood of the song without the melody, without singing it. The song is about the people who moved, and the sadness felt by those who stayed behind. Ysh Oighur is a place in the north-west of Bayan-Ölgii. Soghakh – well, you know Soghakh now. It is the place where Elnara and Daniyar grew up, where the family lived for many years. Soghakh is my mother. Khovd is the neighbouring province. Naiman, Uwaq and Kerei are clans of the Kazakh Middle Jyz. Unbroken cream we translated as a metaphor for standing by each other in good and bad times. And yet, some people had to leave, and this is

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a farewell song to them. It is a farewell song from parents to children, from brothers to sisters, from aunts and uncles to nieces and nephews. People who grew up together, who went to school together and worked and built a life together. ‘May you be safe. May the smoke from your chimney rise straight to the sky.’ Will we see you again?

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fter Peter had proposed to Kharlyghash outside Holborn station, she went home to Bayan-Ölgii. It would be done properly. Peter would have to save up. He would come to Bayan-Ölgii the following summer and they would have a wedding with her family. His parents were to come from Connecticut. For now, Kharlyghash would go home and work at the school and make preparations. Of course, there was the issue of the guy from Sagsai, who had tried to dissuade her from coming to London. He did think he was going to marry Kharlyghash. He was determined to marry her. I wonder if it ever occurred to him that he might not have her, if she didn’t want to marry him. I suggested she could write him a letter to the effect of, ‘I’m sorry, I don’t love you. I’m marrying someone else whom I love.’ Kharlyghash didn’t think that was a good idea. She thought he probably wouldn’t take heed of any such letter and that it would be better to just keep a very low profile. She returned to Mongolia with a toothache and a string around her finger. It turned out that the guy from Sagsai was not a minor issue, or he would not be reduced to one. Kharlyghash’s strategy to avoid him at the airport worked, but in the autumn, he and his family drove to Ulaankhus to talk to her parents. Adilbek and Elnara stood by Kharlyghash. If she did not want to marry him, it was her choice. Everyone was worried. Sometime later he came again. This time he came with some family members, and they did not announce their presence. As Kharlyghash walked back from school that day, they came up to her and put a bag over her head and shoved her in their car. They drove her to their house in Sagsai, fifty kilometres away across the hills.

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I don’t know how they behaved towards her. She didn’t tell me how it happened or how the family treated her. I have pieced together a picture of bride kidnappings from snippets and stories. Perhaps the respected elders in the family talked to Kharlyghash and tried to persuade her. It’s hard to be rude to a respected elder or refuse to do what they tell you. The family was really quite nice. The father was a teacher at the school. He would get her a job. They might have said: ‘He’s a lovely guy! You won’t find a better match. He’s been waiting for you all summer. We were all expecting to celebrate your wedding. You’ve delayed and delayed. The least you can do now is accept.’ When they realized she wasn’t pretending to be hard to get, when Kharlyghash really wouldn’t accept, they might have tried another tack: ‘So you think you are better than us? You think you are different? But your American friend, he will never come. You really believe he will come to marry you? Even if he tries he won’t make it.’ Or perhaps they put her decency in question. ‘You’ve gone to London and stayed with strangers. You travelled on your own and walked the streets alone. You are lucky he will still have you. Your reputation is destroyed. Everyone knows.’ And so on, and on, and on. Perhaps they kept her for a week. But she did not budge, and in the end they had to take her home. She had missed work. Everyone at school, in fact everyone in Ulaankhus and beyond, must have known that she had been kidnapped by the guy from Sagsai. Her parents must have been very worried. When you say ‘No’ to a guy who kidnaps you, you are at fault. So Kharlyghash would have returned to work with all her colleagues knowing that she had rejected the guy, even though she had been taken to his house and was as good as his bride by the mere fact that she had come to be kidnapped in the first place. She had been seen talking to him the summer before. The gossip must have been rife. Some years later, at Altynai’s wedding, when we were all in Ulaankhus again, Kharlyghash told me she no longer spoke to the home economics teacher at her school, Didar, a distant relative, whom we had interviewed when I had lived in Bayan-Ölgii. Didar and her husband had always been kind to Kharlyghash. They had helped her in her job at the school. They had also known Peter when he worked at the school and he had considered them friends. Now Didar had cut her off. She no longer even said hello to her. She had stopped talking to her that winter when Kharlyghash had returned from London and was waiting for Peter. Didar’s husband was an in-law to the family. When all this was afoot, and Kharlyghash was waiting for Peter, Didar’s husband went round to Adilbek and Elnara’s house one evening, drunk, and yelled and shouted. Why had they let their daughter go

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astray like this? It was outrageous. It was despicable. They had brought dishonour and shame on the whole family. He broke things. He made a scene. Later that winter, the Sagsai guy and his family did it again. They came to Ulaankhus and kidnapped Kharlyghash a second time. They kept her at their house in Sagsai for a longer period and tried to persuade her to write a letter to her parents, a letter that says you are willing to marry the man who has chosen you. Kharlyghash held fast. And Peter did come for her. There were deaths on both Elnara and Adilbek’s sides of the family just a few weeks before Kharlyghash and Peter’s wedding in Ulaankhus. Daniyar died not long before his niece’s wedding. His funeral and Seven Day Wake were held. The family was in mourning. Then Juldyz, Adilbek’s sister, who had furnished the homes of the entire family with beautiful embroideries, including the one her niece had brought to London, died, leaving two daughters, two young women. Their father had died some years before. It wasn’t a good time to celebrate a wedding. In the event, the wedding was a small affair; close family were present, but not many from the two extended families came. One relative who came, it was reported, had the audacity to say that he had only come because of the presents. Receiving presents, that is, not giving them. Although people knew Peter, and had worked with him for years and loved and respected him, they didn’t think the wedding was right, and they were pretty nasty about it. Of course, the timing wasn’t good, and to top it off, Peter’s parents had not been able to come from America in the end. It is almost inconceivable that there should be a wedding where the groom’s side is simply absent. Granted, it would have been a very small side, but nevertheless. Of course, you might have a kidnapping and wedding where only the bride is present. But that is entirely different in so many ways. The wedding couldn’t have been postponed. It was overdue and there was a very small time frame within which it could take place. Kharlyghash and Peter had to travel to Seoul in South Korea to keep their appointment at the American embassy (there was no American embassy in Ulaanbaatar) in order to apply for a visa for Kharlyghash. The appointment had been made months in advance. They needed to fly out of Ölgii to Ulaanbaatar to make their connecting flight a few days later to Seoul. In the event it proved very difficult to get a flight from Ölgii to Ulaanbaatar. The planes were all full. They went to the travel agency in Ölgii again and again. Finally, the day before they were due to fly to Seoul, they got on a plane to Ulaanbaatar. They made their connecting flight to Seoul. They landed, as planned, in time for their appointment at the American embassy. As they walked through immigration, Peter showed his passport (as an American he did not need a visa to enter South Korea), and Kharlyghash showed her

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passport. She had no visa. In the midst of the stress, uncertainty and sadness of the previous months, no one had considered whether she needed one. She was incarcerated. Kharlyghash said she slept in what seemed to be a large school assembly hall along with a lot of Mongolian girls and women. She found out that many Mongolian women try to enter South Korea illegally, and if they do manage to get into the country, they often wind up in jobs they would never have accepted at home. Many of them are promised jobs as waitresses or in the ‘service sector’, but actually end up working as prostitutes, in a ‘debt’ situation where their Mongolian contact has paid for their flight or travel, a cost that has to be ‘repaid’. Kharlyghash said that while incarcerated, the women were treated fairly well. They had burgers, chips and Coca-Cola. She was given one phone call to contact Peter on his mobile phone. Miraculously they managed to talk and work out how to pay for her return flight and where she should go in Ulaanbaatar. Peter and Kharlyghash had to pay for a full-price return flight. Once back in Ulaanbaatar, she stayed with a Peace Corps worker who Peter knew there. She didn’t contact any of her family or friends. She made an appointment with the South Korean embassy in Ulaanbaatar to apply for a visa. I emailed her and when I heard she was in the capital on her own I asked for her telephone number. She was despondent. She was sitting in the flat of the Peace Corps worker, unable to sleep, waiting for her appointment at the embassy. Peter had advised that she apply as if nothing had happened. I wondered if the South Korean immigration authorities kept records of those who had attempted entry and had been refused. If they did, it might be better to own up and state that she did not realize, on her first trip, that she needed a visa. I probably just added to her worries. She eventually got her visa for South Korea. Peter managed to change the date of their interview at the embassy. Kharlyghash borrowed money from their Peace Corps friend to buy another ticket to Seoul and somehow they managed to communicate and meet when she got there. They had their interview at the embassy, which in comparison with the rest of the summer’s events must have seemed like a pleasant stroll in the park.

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second celebration of their marriage took place five years later. The groom’s side was enormous, and the bride’s side had just one family member. It was Kharlyghash’s mother, Elnara. Of course, there were many friends on the bride’s side, including Kristian, Julie and I. The wedding was held on a beautiful hillside in New Hampshire, overlooking forested hillsides that were turning golden and red in the early autumn. An old apple orchard surrounded a converted barn and old farm buildings, in which all the guests were accommodated. It was a mild autumn and bright golden yellows and oranges were beginning to colour the hills. It was a happy celebration. There were no bad feelings or angry guests, and no tears, apart from the groom’s. As they were saying their vows again, on that beautiful sunny hillside, Peter began to cry, and Kharlyghash cracked up laughing. Salta sat contentedly in her grandmother’s arms. In the months before the wedding, Kharlyghash had tried to persuade her parents to come. Her father was not well enough; his eyesight was very bad. But Elnara could travel and she could stay with them for a long period. She could stay the winter if she wanted to. Kharlyghash looked at different travel options. But Elnara was hesitant. How would she manage? It wasn’t realistic. Travel to Ulaanbaatar was possible, perhaps. Bauyrjan and Bakhytbek would be there. It would be the beginning of their first term at university. She could stay with them. But on to Beijing? She knew no Chinese, English or Russian. She could communicate with no one and would be unable to read any signs. She had never flown in an aeroplane and had never navigated an international airport. No, it would be unlikely to work, and it would be a waste of money!

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After moving to America, Kharlyghash had got to know another young Kazakh woman from Bayan-Ölgii, who had married an American and now lived in Chicago. Incidentally, that autumn, this very young woman had invited her parents over for an extended visit and they were, as luck would have it, travelling to North America just weeks before Kharlyghash and Peter’s wedding. Kharlyghash had the idea that her mother could travel together with them. Between them they could communicate with officials and navigate the international airports. This swayed Elnara. In the end, Elnara travelled first to Ulaanbaatar with the other Kazakh couple, and stayed there with Bauyrjan and Bakhytbek. Kharlyghash and Peter wrote instructions in English with their address and contact details, flight information and so on and emailed this to Bauyrjan, who went to a printing shop in Ulaanbaatar and had it printed and gave it to his mother. Bauyrjan and Bakhytbek took Elnara to the international airport where they met the Kazakh couple from Bayan-Ölgii. Her sons saw her off through passport control. Then she and the couple waited together for their flight to Beijing. They waited and waited. The plane was severely delayed. When the flight was finally ready for boarding and they set off, they knew they would miss their connecting flight to New York. When they arrived in Beijing they had to somehow communicate with those who were expecting them in America that they had missed their flight and would be arriving much later. The next flight to New York was twelve hours later. The Kazakh couple were reallocated seats on a much earlier direct flight to Chicago. Before they set off, they were able to help Elnara send an email to Bauyrjan and Bakhytbek in Ulaanbaatar to tell them to let Kharlyghash know that their mother would be arriving much later. Then Elnara waited. She waited without really being sure how long she would have to wait, without being sure that she would have a place on the next flight and without being sure that the staff knew that she needed to go to New York. She couldn’t speak to anyone. When I saw her in New Hampshire she said, in her serious manner, without betraying any feelings, that she had thought she was going to die. She would waste away in Beijing International Airport, in a corner, without food or drink, without anyone noticing. When she finally boarded the plane, she remembered to walk up and down the aisle, like I had told her on the telephone. I worried about the less likely things. She had suffered from a stroke in the past. ‘Remember to drink water and walk up and down the aisle inside the aeroplane’, I had told her. Kharlyghash worried about the more likely things. Would her mother find her way? Would she manage two international flights and three international airports, where she would not be able to read the signs, nor

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understand any of the announcements, and where she would be unable to communicate with anyone? Arriving in New York, Elnara followed the flow of people and made it through passport control. Her papers were all in order. No one asked her any particular questions. She had her printed instructions from Kharlyghash. When she came out, she saw crowds of people waiting for their families, their friends and loved ones. She saw people calling out, embracing and laughing. She scanned the crowds again and again. Was she in the right country? Had she actually landed in New York? Kharlyghash was not there. Peter was not there. There was nobody waiting for her. As it happened, the afternoon when Elnara finally arrived, there was an unusually severe traffic jam due to an accident on the highway leading to JFK International Airport. The lanes leading to the airport were closed for several hours. Peter and Kharlyghash and little two-month-old Salta were sitting in traffic, completely stock still, while Elnara paced the arrivals hall at JFK. She walked up and down looking for Kharlyghash everywhere for what must have seemed an eternity. Kharlyghash must have thought of every conceivable way she might have been able to get to the airport. She couldn’t get out of the car and walk. That was surely more risky than staying in the car, and eventually the lanes must open and they would go. Anyway, it was illegal. Just wait, just wait, we will get there. When everyone had left and there was a lull in the crowds issuing forth at arrivals, Elnara was left pacing up and down, up and down. Eventually a security officer, a big Black guy in uniform, went up to her and asked her if she was OK. She looked at him in horror, the first Black man she had ever seen, and then thrust her letter from Kharlyghash at him. He read it and kindly made a phone call to the mobile telephone number on the paper. Peter answered. They were stuck in traffic! They were on their way. ‘Please keep her there and we will be there as soon as we can!’

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An Autumn Wedding

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ne of the three other Danish anthropologists who were in Mongolia carrying out their fieldwork the same year I was there was doing her PhD at Cambridge. Having met in Ulaanbaatar after I returned from Beijing, we became friends. We kept in touch once we were both back at university in England. I eventually met and fell in love with her brother, Kristian, and our daughter, Julie, was born in 2010. When Kharlyghash and Peter were to celebrate their wedding, the three of us travelled to North America to celebrate with them. We arrived in JFK a few weeks after Elnara had arrived and hired a car and drove to New Haven. Elnara was staying with Kharlyghash and Peter. She was tired. She took long naps in the afternoon. She was jet-lagged and slightly shellshocked from her journey. But she was as sturdy and compact a presence as ever. It had been a year since Amanjan’s death. I didn’t know whether to cry when I saw her or shout for joy that she had made it to America. She sat on the sofa and winked at 2-year-old chubby-cheeked Julie, beckoning her to come over. Julie looked at this grandmother, this wide, smiling face with deep-set, black, almond-shaped eyes, a slightly sceptical look and a scarf over her hair, and she buried her face in my skirt and started to cry. We laughed. One afternoon after we had had enormous tubs of ice cream together in front of the Yale University Classics library, I plucked up the courage to speak to Elnara. The words tumbled out and I wanted to cry – I had only understood recently that Amanjan was her first child, her son, and it must have been terrible for her. I was devastated when he died. There was a pause. I searched her face for an answer. She looked at me. I asked her if she

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understood what I had said and she said ‘No’. We smiled. I thought, maybe it’s better not to talk about it. I should have said it again. I should have cried. Or should I? I cried and cried when I heard about his death. I sat at home in Greenwich on the bed with Julie, who was just a baby, in my arms and cried and said his name, and Julie looked at me in astonishment with her big eyes. That autumn, we all drove upstate to New Hampshire for the wedding. We stayed for the weekend at the old converted apple farm. Kristian, Julie and I had a beautiful warm room with views of the hills. There was a cot for Julie and a comfortable armchair for sitting and looking out over the landscape. The curtains and armchairs were upholstered with English floral patterns, roses and honeysuckle. The carpet was thick and soft under our bare feet. There was a well-equipped kitchen downstairs where we could cook and eat and a lounge with a large TV and enormous sofas where the children could play. When we woke up on the first morning, a delicate silver frost had covered the grass and golden leaves. More people arrived that morning and throughout the day. Most people knew each other from school, college or university. There were family members and old friends of the family. There were young couples and their children and Peace Corps workers who had worked in Mongolia. On the first night, we had dinner in an adjoining converted farm building. Some people were staying upstairs in the building and their children roamed the downstairs communal living space. There was a corner full of toys and children’s books. A long wooden table in the centre of the room was laid out with food. Some people were sitting at the table, having dinner and chatting. Some people stood and chatted, plates in hands. Women stood with babies in slings, drinking cans of beer, discussing politics, education, love, life. Burgers were grilled and a large plate of salmon was laid out on the long dining table around which people gathered, sat for a little while, then moved over to the other side of the room to talk to an old friend or help themselves to a cold beer. Men in woolly socks played with raucous toddlers who vied for control over a blue plastic truck. Julie was as raucous as the rest. Kharlyghash, who was busy with Salta and was welcoming guests, said her mother was in their rooms and did not want to come out. She said she felt she didn’t know anyone. I went to get Elnara and she came quite willingly. She seemed to have been expecting to be called. We walked over to the crowded building and I directed her to a seat on the corner of the table. At first no one paid much attention or acknowledged her coming in, aside from Peter’s mother, who was chatting away with a recent arrival, holding a glass of wine. Elnara sat in the middle of the hubbub and I got her a paper

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plate with the lovely salmon and salad that sat in the middle of the table for anyone to help themselves. We later got her a burger, but the meat was not cooked through and she couldn’t eat it. I was annoyed that we couldn’t manage to find a well-done burger for her, the way she liked it. I tried to explain that here people liked semi-rare meat, and sometimes even rare meat, but as I was saying this I was thinking that no one eats rare or semirare meat in Mongolia, because of E. coli and other bacteria. People began to come to say hello to Elnara: ‘It’s amazing you are here, welcome’, and so on. I translated as best I could, and told her who was who (as far as I knew) and what they were repeatedly saying to one another: ‘Hello! How are you?! How are you doing?!’ – Amansiz ba? Amansing ba? Jaksi ma? I told her that at the party, the following day, things would be more formal. Everyone would sit down to eat. Food would be served, et cetera. I looked at her sitting at the corner of the table and wondered if she had expected to be received as an honoured guest, the only relative on Kharlyghash’s side, Salta’s grandmother. Elnara had grown up serving her elders first at mealtimes, and in the correct order, with the correct cut of meat, helping her mother do the housework, hiding as a young girl when honoured guests came to the house. As the eldest relative and a grandmother, had she expected to be served the best cut of meat by a younger woman on Peter’s side? Had she thought she would be expected to say a few words? To speak to the elders on Peter’s side? To sit at the head of the table, seen and respected? Was she surprised at the informal arrangement that evening? Was she disappointed, or relieved, not to be in the spotlight, not to have to perform in any particular way? She withdrew early for the night with Kharlyghash and Salta. She said she was tired and her head ached from all that English being spoken around her. At the wedding party the next day, Elnara seemed to be in her element. She sat with the Kazakh couple, who had driven over from Chicago with their daughter for the wedding. They talked and danced and laughed and Elnara looked like she had always known her daughter’s wedding would unfold like this. There were speeches and songs and poems, and Peter gave a speech and told us how he had fallen in love with Kharlyghash. When he’d finished his undergraduate studies, he’d applied to the Peace Corps and had really hoped to be posted in China. He had studied Chinese Area Studies at university, spoke some Chinese and loved the country. Then he had been posted to Mongolia. He had spent the summer at an introductory summer camp for Peace Corps workers outside the Mongolian town of Sühbaatar and done his best to learn Mongolian. Then he was finally stationed

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A Magpie’s Tale

in Bayan-Ölgii, in a Kazakh school in Ulaankhus. He’d begun work at the school and started to learn Kazakh. Kharlyghash was his co-worker. One weekend she had invited him to come and stay with her family in Soghakh. He came down with a cold before the weekend and considered cancelling and just staying at home in bed in his little mud-brick house in Ulaankhus. But he went to Soghakh in the end. He was feeling miserable and the bumpy car journey to Soghakh did not help. He found he could speak Mongolian with Kharlyghash’s father and this lifted his spirits. But at night he slept on the bed in the front room, which was a little like a hammock, under the Chinese ticking clock, and lay awake coughing, his nose running, thinking, ‘What AM I doing here?’ He lay awake for hours, feeling miserable. In the middle of the night it struck him, quite suddenly: ‘Of course! I am going to marry this amazing girl, Kharlyghash. That is why I am here!’

52



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I

n late May 2014, as the black spring winds blew from the north, dust crept into every crevice and nook and cranny in their log cabin in the mountains north-east of Kök Moinakh, and Ainagyl tried to commit suicide. Älemkhan’s mother used to go to visit her other children in Kazakhstan now and then. She had left for several months that spring. Altynai, who now lived in Ölgii with her husband and children, was always aware of Ainagyl’s situation and worried about her. She knew what was going on between Ainagyl and her husband. So Altynai and her husband went to see Ainagyl and Älemkhan while his mother was away. They found Ainagyl and Älemkhan fighting and in a very bad way. Their relationship was always worse when his mother was away. ‘Their life is hard and Ainagyl is abused all the time’, Kharlyghash explained to me over the telephone. Älemkhan seemed to drink constantly. While Altynai was visiting, Ainagyl and Älemkhan had a particularly nasty fight, and that night Ainagyl slit her wrists with a knife. Altynai found her. She brought Ainagyl to hospital in Ulaankhus and later she was moved to Ölgii hospital. Ainagyl didn’t want anyone to know. She didn’t want uncles or aunts to know. And she didn’t want a divorce. It would be shameful. She had made this bad choice and she must live with the consequences. All of her family said she should not go back to him. She could stay with her parents in Ulaankhus. She could move in with Bauyrjan and his wife and their son when they got a house in Ölgii. She would probably get the children if she divorced Älemkhan.

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Kharlyghash said that Älemkhan used the children to persuade Ainagyl to come back home. When she was in hospital in Ölgii, he contacted her and asked her to come home as one of the children was ill. I asked myself if that night when she fled with 1-year-old Erkin, years before, had made her stronger. Stronger or weaker? If you are stuck and beaten and you fear for your life and you manage to flee, does that make you stronger? Does it make you feel that you have overcome a hurdle of unimaginable proportions, and now you can manage even greater hurdles? But then you recover and think things over for a time and you find that you can only return to the situation from which you fled. For all the strength and courage you have mustered, it was in vain. You have no choice but to live and die in that situation that nearly killed you. If they had lived in a village, close to her family, close to a friend, anywhere but in that godforsaken part of the mountains, she might have had other temporary sanctuaries and that might have helped. Like Saule. Sometimes Leila came into our house, quiet as a mouse, and went and sat on the sofa, and as she sat there, she cried, quietly. Amanjan would leave without a word. He would go to Saule and Erbol’s house and try to mediate. Try to stop Erbol beating Saule. Leila was the messenger. Erbol got drunk too. He spent what little money they had on cheap vodka. The kind that eats your liver up and eventually kills you. Ainagyl had no messenger. There were no neighbours. There was no Amanjan. Ainagyl didn’t want anyone to know. And despite the fact that I love her, I have told these stories about her and her family. A magpie, a thief. That is what I am. Mixing shiny and dead fragments to furnish a nest. And why? Because these were the most important things I learned. They weren’t the detached observations you can put in academic writings. They were the attached things that pull at your heart. That run in your blood, that make you laugh and breathe and smile, and sometimes nearly choke you with sadness. How would I have felt if someone had arrived on my doorstep and asked if they could stay a while? If they had eaten my food, drunk my tea, sat in my chair and slept in my bed, and then gone away and written about my family and me? Perhaps I wouldn’t have minded. I wouldn’t have minded if Kharlyghash had done that. I would have possibly liked my name to be changed, and so I have changed everyone’s names. I would have liked to have had a say on the draft, and so I passed it to Kharlyghash, to change or to add to or

Conclusion



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to veto outright. I waited for months without bothering her about it. She is always busy and I didn’t want to push her. Then I started to worry. I thought she might have read it and now she hated me and would never speak to me again. I called her and told her that I didn’t mind if the manuscript was never published. Her friendship was more important to me than a manuscript. She said, ‘It’s fine . . .’ And later, ‘It made me sad. It made me realize a lot of sad things have happened to my family.’ If someone had written about me I might have found it odd to read about myself and my family from someone else’s perspective. Maybe my anthropology background makes me feel I ought to somehow have captured the family’s experiences and perspectives. But of course, that is not possible, and these are my stories; they are about how I have understood what happened to them. While I spent years thinking about them and writing about them, they moved on. They live in new houses, in new places; they have made friends with new people, have studied, had children, had careers. I am the only one to roam the old house that is no longer there in my dreams and imaginings, dwelling on the past and talking to the dead. And the living. Smiling and wondering at how much has happened since. Wondering if it is true that in the act of remembering something, we replace the original recollection, and create something new. Most of them are on Facebook now. I don’t feel better connected with them for all that, but I love sometimes getting a short message from Jibek or Altynai or Bauyrjan. Altynai writes every so often: ‘How are you, sister? Have you forgotten how to write Kazakh? Have you forgotten us?’ Not long ago, Bakhytbek posted a photo of his parents. It must have been from their last trip together to North America to see Kharlyghash and her family. Adilbek did eventually decide to travel to America. Adilbek and Elnara are dressed like a Mongolian khan and his queen. They are smiling and laughing at each other. A long time before I came to Mongolia and met Ainagyl and her family, my mother died. I was 26 years old at the time. For a while after her death it seemed to me that however you struggled and tried to do the right thing, and perhaps achieved little things in your life, you would eventually die, and none of what you had done would mean anything. It would all disappear and be forgotten, and just a strange kind of vortex would remain, for a time – a black space of nothingness where you had been, a node marking all those people you had connected and all the struggles you had taken on and the activities or projects you had started, and perhaps finished. I told my father how pointless it all felt. I thought he would have no answer to this. But to my surprise he had a ready answer. ‘There is still love.

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Not romantic love. Not God’s love. Just love. That is the only measure and the only thing that matters. Do all that you do out of love. The big things and the small things.’ This is my sonnet to Ainagyl and her family: That in black ink my love may still shine bright.

Part VII Note 1. Tara is the feminine counterpart of the Bodhisattva (‘Buddha-to-be’) Avalokiteshvara. She is said to have come into existence from a tear of Avalokiteshvara that fell to the ground and formed a lake. Out of its waters rose up a lotus, which, on opening, revealed the goddess.

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———. The Headless State: Aristocratic Orders, Kinship Society, and Misrepresentations of Nomadic Inner Asia. New York: Columbia University Press, 2007. Sneath, David, and Christopher Kaplonski (eds). The History of Mongolia, Volume III, The Qing Period–Twentieth-Century Mongolia. Folkestone: Global Oriental, 2010. Soucek, Svat. A History of Inner Asia. Cambridge: Cambridge University Press, 2000. ‘Special Report on Ethnic Germans’. The New Humanitarian, 1 February 2005. Retrieved 12 January 2020 from https://www.thenewhumanitarian.org/feature/2005/02/01/ special-report-ethnic-germans. Svanberg, Ingvar. Kazak Refugees in Turkey: A Study of Cultural Persistence and Social Change. Stockholm: Almqvist & Wiksell International, 1989. ——— (ed.). Contemporary Kazaks: Cultural and Social Perspectives. Richmond: Curzon Press, 1999. Svanberg, Ingvar, and Linda Benson. China’s Last Nomads: The History and Culture of China’s Last Kazaks. Armonk, NY: M. E. Sharpe, 1998. Taupier, Richard P. ‘The Oirad of the Early 17th Century: Statehood and Political Ideology’. Doctoral thesis. Amherst, MA: University of Massachusetts, 2014. Thomas, Alun. Nomads and Soviet Rule: Central Asia under Lenin and Stalin. London: I.B. Tauris, 2019. Vitebsky, Piers. Reindeer People: Living with Animals and Spirits in Siberia. London: Harper Perennial, 2005. Wallace, Vesna A. (ed.). Buddhism in Mongolian History, Culture, and Society. Oxford: Oxford University Press, 2015. Waugh, Louisa. Hearing Birds Fly: A Nomadic Year in Mongolia. London: Little, Brown, 2003. Werner, Cynthia, and Holly Barcus. ‘Transnational Migration, Globalisation and the Persistence and Adaptation of Rural Livelihoods: A Case Study of the Kazakh Diaspora in Western Mongolia’, in Mary Cawley et al. (eds), The Sustainability of Rural Systems: Global and Local Challenges and Opportunities (Galway: National University of Ireland, 2013), 145–53. ———. ‘The Unequal Burdens of Repatriation: A Gendered View of the Transnational Migration of Mongolia’s Kazakh Population’. American Anthropologist 117(2) (2015), 257–71. Willerslev, Rane. ‘Not Animal, Not Not-Animal: Hunting, Imitation and Empathetic Knowledge among the Siberian Yukaghirs’. Journal of the Royal Anthropological Institute 10 (2004), 629–52. Znamenski, Andrei A. ‘Power for the Powerless: Oirot/Amursana Prophecy in Altai and Western Mongolia, 1890s–1920s’. Etudes Mongoles et Sibériennes, Centrasiatiques et Tibétaines 45 (2014), special issue, Epopée et Millénarisme, Transformations et Innovations. Retrieved 24 January 2022 from https://doi.org/10.4000/emscat.2444.

Index

A Abulkhair Khan (of the Kazakh Little Jyz), 139–40 Adilbek (the father of the family), 25–26, 32, 39, 40, 43–47, 48, 49, 50, 51, 52, 53, 54, 55, 58–9, 60, 68–69, 73, 79, 81, 96, 98, 106, 110, 112, 129, 163, 164, 165, 166, 173, 178–79, 180, 189, 200, 211–14, 216–17, 221, 222, 232, 235, 238, 242, 251 adoption, 163–64, 173, 211–15, 221 Ainagyl (Elnara and Adilbek’s daughter), 8–11, 12, 23–24, 28, 30, 33, 34, 38, 39, 48, 50, 53, 61, 73, 77, 94–95, 96, 97, 100–2, 105–6, 128, 186–89, 199, 204, 213, 231, 249–50 alcoholism, 58–59, 78, 128–30, 220–21, 249–50 Älemkhan (Ainagyl’s husband), 8, 10, 11, 128, 249–50 Almaty (established as Vernyi), 66, 113, 115, 141, 155n73, 175, 231, 234 Altai Mountains, 1, 7, 54, 120, 121, 125, 131, 134, 139, 141, 148, 155n57, 162, 169, 170, 175, 176, 191 Altai Tavn Bogd National Park, 54 Altynai (Elnara and Adilbek’s daughter), 11, 33, 77, 96, 100, 101, 105, 147, 163, 165, 174, 204, 214, 235, 249, 251 Amanjan (the young uncle), 7, 10, 24, 26, 27–28, 32, 34, 39, 48, 50, 74, 81, 94, 95, 96, 97, 104, 108, 113–16, 128, 130, 164, 165, 172–74, 189, 205, 211–15, 220–23, 235, 245–46, 250

amulets, 19, 53, 100, 119–20, 147, 165 Amursana (Jungar prince defeated by Manchu Qing in 1750s), 133–34, 155n51, 175–76, 192 Arman (Elnara’s father), 46, 47, 175, 185, 204, 231 B bag (smallest administrative unit, Mongolia), 68, 83n24 Bakhytbek (Elnara’s and Adilbek’s youngest son), 7, 32, 33, 34, 38, 39, 43, 48, 50, 64, 71, 77, 101, 128, 166–67, 204–7, 214, 231, 235, 242–43, 251 Balkhash, Lake (Kazakhstan) site of Kazakh-Jungar battle, 132 site of refuge during 1916 revolt, 150, 151 Bauyrjan (Elnara and Adilbek’s son), 23, 50, 77, 81, 96, 97, 98, 119, 129–30, 163–67, 186, 204, 214, 235, 242–43, 249, 251 Bayan-Ölgii province (aimag), xiii, 14, 21, 45, 50, 51, 53, 55, 65, 66, 68–70, 73, 76, 80, 89, 90–95, 107, 110–11, 114–15, 120, 145–46, 152n9, 162, 167, 169, 173, 174, 179, 184, 190–92, 196n91, 221–22, 228, 229, 231–32, 235–36, 238, 243, 248 establishment of, 90, 191–92 See also education and hospitals and migration Bolshevik, Russians, 171, 182 Boney M., 121, 147

Index 

bridekidnapping, 34–35, 46–47, 102, 103, 201–3, 212, 238–40 British interests, Central Asia, 141, 159 Buddhism Eastern Mongols’ adoption of Gelugpa denomination, 153n20, 182 role in (Outer) Mongolia (and until 1930s purges), 182–84, 194n29 Tibet, 126, 134, 153n20 Western Mongol alliance and protection of Gelugpa sect, 126, 132, 134 Yellow Hat (Gelugpa denomination), 126, 153n20 Yuan emperors adoption of, 153n20 See also purges Bukhara, Khanate of, 123–24, 132, 141, 155n75, 159 Buryat Mongols, 171, 194n36, 195n73 C carbon monoxide poisoning, 164 Central Asia definition of, 4n1 maps, xiii, 123 China People’s Republic, 160, 177, 182, 194n51 recognition of Mongolian independence, 175, 176, 194n38 Republic, under Guomindang (Chinese nationalist party), 160–61, 170, 182 See also Manchu Qing Empire and Ming dynasty Choibalsan, Khorlogiin (Prime Minister of the Mongolian People’s Republic), 184 CMEA (Council for Mutual Economic Assistance), 83n9 Mongolia’s membership, 66–67 collectives dissolution of (Mongolia), 57, 67–68, 69–70 establishment of (Mongolia), 44, 190 Ulaankhus Collective, 44, 45–46, 54–58, 55, 67–68

z 

261

collectivization Kazakh ASSR (from 1928), 190–91, 196n87 Mongolia (1950s), 44, 190 conscription of Kazakhs to Mongolian Revolutionary Army, 192 of Kazakhs to Russian military labour units (1916), 148–51 Cossacks, 138–39 detachments deployed in the 1916 revolt, 150–51 establishment of the Siberian defence line, 139–41, 172 and Russia’s expansion into Siberia, 124, 138–39 securing Russian trade, 139 settlement of Kazakh steppe, 132, 139–41, 143 titles and rights, 138–39, 140 curd (in Kazakh Khurt), 9, 51, 63–65 D Daniyar (Elnara’s older brother), 101, 113, 119–21, 122, 147, 148, 175, 179, 220, 231–35, 240 Dayan (area of Ulaankhus district bordering China), 54, 57 district (in Mongolian sum, Kazakh sumon), Mongolia and collectivization in the Mongolian People’s Republic, 44 and formation of Bayan-Ölgii aimag in 1940, 192 introduction under Manchu, 83n2, 154n43 Ulaankhus, 44, 54–55, 55 domestic animals, 204–7 and the collectives (Mongolia), 57–58 distribution at dissolution of Ulaankhus Collective, 67–68 lambing, 205–6 subsistence economy, 69–70, 72, 84n28, 96–99, 206 winter slaughter, 96–99 domestic violence, 8–11, 47, 108, 128–30, 203, 249–50 Dörben Oirat. See under Oirat

262 

z Index

E earthquakes (Bayan-Ölgii), 104, 234 Eastern Mongols, 153n14 alliance and relation with Manchus, 127, 168–69 relations and wars with Western Mongols, 125–27, 132, 133–34 See also Buddhism and Khalkha Mongols education boarding schools, 45, 51, 77, 78, 79 Buddhist centres for learning (Mongolia, before the 1930s purges), 182–83 community celebration of first school day, 33–34 establishment of secular educational system, Mongolia, 183–84, 195n65 further education, Mongolia after 1990, 67, 77–79, 91, 100–1, 106, 110–11, 163–67 Islamic education, 149, 160–61, 183–84, 189 Kazakh language in schools (BayanÖlgii), 44–45, 114–15 Russian educational policies relating to Kazakhs, late 1800s, 142 during state-socialist period, 38, 44–45, 65–66, 90, 231 Elnara (the mother of the family), 7, 11, 28–30, 31, 32, 34, 35, 38, 46–47, 48, 49, 50, 51, 53, 68, 70, 73, 78, 80, 95, 96, 106, 108, 119–20, 129–30, 163, 165, 172–73, 175, 180, 189, 204–6, 212, 213–14, 220–23, 231, 235, 238, 239, 242–44, 245–47, 251 Emancipation Edict (under Alexander II, 1861), 143 emigration to Kazakhstan (from BayanÖlgii aimag), 49–50, 70, 90–95, 102, 113–16, 172–74, 214, 220–22, 235–37 Erbol (neighbour, married to Saule), 33, 63, 65, 68, 73–74, 96, 97, 108, 250 Erjan (Elnara and Adilbek’s son), 23, 77–82, 100, 105, 163, 164, 172–74, 205, 213–14, 220, 223, 235

F family relations favouratism, children, 43, 54, 100, 163, 213 See also adoption and funerals five finger food (bes barmakh), 30, 231 fuel acacia, steppe, 165 coal, 31, 37, 57, 81, 88, 97, 111, 135, 164, 173 dried dung, 31, 37, 48–49, 97 funerals, 73–76, 164, 221–22, 240 G Galdan Khan (Western Mongol Jungar Khan), 126–27 gender relations language and ommission, 180 marriage and alcoholism, 8–11, 128–30, 249–50 (see also domestic violence) marriage and ethnicity, 178–80, 239–40 young women’s position, 34–35, 79–81, 100–6, 107–8, 109–12, 201–3 See also bridekidnapping and social hierarchy Genghis Khan, 126, 132, 153n13, 176, 194n29 Genghisid (white bone) descent, 126, 132, 152n7, 153n16, 153n17 German minority (Kazakhstan), 113–14, 116n10 gossip, scandalous (ösek), 59, 101, 104, 239 Gyldana (Elnara’s mother), 53–54, 121, 147, 191, 204, 231 Gylnar (a cousin), 33–35, 201–3 H hip dysplasia, 53, 147, 204 hospitality, 58–59, 145 hospitals (Mongolia) after 1990, 70, 78, 80, 165, 204, 249–50 pregnancy and birth, 80

Index 

state-socialist period, 53, 146, 166, 234 I Ili Valley, 155n57, 161, 162 contested territory between Russian and Qing Empires, 160 Inner Asia definition of, 4n1 maps, xiii, 123 Inner Mongolia, 170, 181–82 formation of Inner Mongolian Autonomous Region (1947), 182 Irtysh River, 139, 140, 155n57 Islam Kazakhs’ adoption of, 132 Kurban Ait, 186–89 and marriage, 179–80 See also purges and Ramadan J Japan battle at Khalkhin Gol, 182, 194n53 expansion into Inner Asia, 169, 181–82 and Mongolian political purges, 182 and relations after 1990, 67 second Sino-Japanese war, 182 Jebtsundamba Khutuktu (Bogd Khan, Mongolia’s ‘Living Buddha’), 169, 170, 171, 182, 183, 194n29 Jeti ata (seven forefathers), 180, 214 Jibek (Elnara and Adilbek’s daughter), 23, 33, 34, 50, 81, 96, 129, 130, 163, 165, 186, 200, 204, 205, 214, 235, 251 Juldyz (Adilbek’s sister), 52–3, 227–28, 240 Jungars (Dzungars), 126–27, 131–34, 139, 152n13, 154n33, 176. See also Western Mongols jut (disastrous climatic winter conditions), 205–7 Jyz (Kazakh clan confederations), 123, 132, 140, 141, 152n9 incorporation into Russian Empire, 141

z 

263

Great Jyz (Uly Jyz), 141 Little Jyz (Kishi Jyz), 131, 133, 139–40, 141 Middle Jyz (Orta Jyz), 133, 141, 142, 156n76, 156n90, 236 K Kalmyk Khanate, 131, 132, 133, 139, 154n33 Kampan (semi-private trading organizations, early 1990s), 68–70, 77 Kashgaria, Khanate of (1865–1877), 159–60, 175 Kazakh freedom fighters (Xinjiang, 1930s–40s), 175–77, 185 Kazakh language, xi, 25–28, 45, 114–15, 193n20 Central Asian refugees, 161, 168 script types, 183–84 See also education Kazakh (Autonomous) Soviet Socialist Republic, 66, 113–14, 177, 183, 190–91, 196n83, 231 Kazakh Khanate, 123 Kazakhstan, Republic of, 91–94, 113–16, 116n10, 220–22 Khairat (Elnara’s paternal grandfather), 148–49, 151, 159–62, 168, 175, 180, 183–85 Khalkha Mongols, 45, 66, 83n4, 90, 124, 125, 126, 127, 192. See also Eastern Mongols Kharlyghash (Elnara and Adilbek’s daughter), 11, 13, 17–18, 21–24, 25, 29, 39, 47, 50, 51–54, 57–58, 63, 65, 70–71, 77–79, 80, 81, 87, 94–95, 100, 104, 109, 110, 119–21, 128, 129–30, 131, 135–36, 163, 164, 173, 180, 186, 199–200, 204, 205, 211, 212, 213, 214, 216–19, 220, 222–23, 227–30, 235, 238–41, 242–44, 245–48, 249–51 Khiva, Khanate of, 123, 132, 141, 155n75, 159 Khoshut, 126, 133, 152n13, 153n16. See also Western Mongols

264 

z Index

Khovd aimag (province), 91, 92, 126, 162, 165, 168–69, 177, 191, 192, 193n17, 208, 235–6, 235–36 Khovd aimag centre, 165, 169, 208 Kokand, Khanate of, 141, 159 Korean minority in Kazakhstan, 115 Kök Moinakh, 9, 10, 11, 61, 106, 199, 232, 249 L land hunger (in European Russia) and settlement of Kazakh steppe, 143–44 M macroeconomic crisis, Mongolia, 63–71, 72–73, 83n18, 90–93, 146 Manchu Qing Empire, 122, 123, 127 decline and fall of Qing Dynasty (1911), 127, 168–70, 181 and Eastern Mongols, 127, 155n51 and Khanate of Kashgaria (1870s), 159–60 Khovd garrison, 169–70 wars with Western Mongols, 131, 133–34, 154n33 Manchukuo, 181 Manchu, the, 124, 127 Maoists. See under China, People’s Republic market economy, transition to, (Mongolia), 61–62, 65–71, 72–73 migration, forced (of Kazakhs) during collectivization in Kazakh ASSR, 190–92 in connection with 1916 revolt, 148–51, 159–61 from Russian-ruled governorates (from 1860s), 122, 142–44 during ‘war-lord rule’ in Xinjiang (c. 1912–1940s), 159–62, 168–71, 175–77 Ming Dynasty, 124, 125–26, 127 Mongolia, xiii Constitution, 90, 116n1, 183, 191–92 independent status (1910s and 1920s), 169–71 Mongolian Peoples’s Republic, 171, 177, 181–85, 191–92

Outer Mongolia under Manchu Qing rule, 168–69 policies in relation to minorities in western aimags, 90–91, 191–92 See also Inner Mongolia Mongolian language, 25, 44–45, 83n4, 114, 168, 179. See also education Mongolian People’s (Revolutionary) Party, 166, 183, 192, 195n60 mosques (in Bayan-Ölgii and Mongolia), 75, 165, 183, 186–89, 187, 227 N Nauryz (New Year’s celebration falling on spring equinox), 82, 145–46 Nerchinsk, Treaty of, 127, 194n36 O October Revolution, 160–61, 171 Oirat, Dörben, 125, 152n13. See also Western Mongols Ölgii aimag centre, 14–17, 19–22, 45, 49, 55, 69, 78, 80, 87–89, 91, 94–95, 100–1, 104–5, 107–8, 110, 111, 120, 135–36, 145, 165, 172–73, 201, 202, 208, 213, 216, 218, 228, 231, 233–34, 240, 249–50 Open Market, Ölgii, 19–20, 20, 39, 68–69, 87, 89, 136, 165, 201 Ordos Mongols. See under Eastern Mongols Osman Batyr. See under Kazakh freedom fighters P Pavlodar, 49–50, 94, 113, 139, 172–74, 220–21 Peter (Peace Corps worker), 25, 27, 36, 200, 218–19, 222, 229–30, 238, 239–41, 242–44, 245, 247–48 photographs, family, 12–13, 43, 50, 55, 100, 212, 233 privatization and liberalization (Mongolia). See under market economy purges, political (Mongolian People’s Republic, 1930s), 181–85, 190, 191, 195n64, 234

Index 

Q Qing Dynasty, the Great. See under Manchu Qing Empire R rabies, 74, 137 Ramadan, 186 refugees, Kazakh. See under migration, forced revolt in Central Asia (1916), 148–51, 168 routines, daily, 28–32, 36–40 Russia (tsarist period) colonisation of Central Asia, 123, 121, 122–23, 138–44 expansion into Kazakh steppe, 139–44 expansion into Siberia, 138–40 governorates, Central Asia, 141–42, 148, 155n75 (see also Turkestan, Governorate-General) and 1916 Central Asian revolt, 148–51 Russian (and Slav) settlers in Kazakh steppe, 142–44 Russians, White (pro-tsarist), 161, 171, 176 S Saule (neighbour, married to Erbol), 27, 63–65, 96–97, 222, 235, 250 sedentarization of Kazakh nomads under Russian tsarist rule, 142–44 under Stalin, 190–91 Shangyrakh (crown of the yurt), 1, 31, 74, 211–15, 215, 220, 222 khara shangyrakh (black crown) family, 215 Siberia, 140 defeat of Khanate of Sibir in 1580s, 139 Cossack expansion into, 124, 138–40 Siberian defence line, 123, 139–41, 172 smallpox epidemics, 134, 191 social hierarchy, 108, 109–12, 115, 246–47 daughter-in-law, the, 47, 79–80, 109–12

z 

265

domestic responsibilities, 38–39, 47, 204–6, 213, 246–47 See also adoption and gender relations Soghakh, village of, 18, 24, 27, 33, 46, 49, 60–62, 61, 68–69, 70, 75, 77–78, 79, 87, 92, 96, 104, 105, 119, 129–30, 164, 186–89, 199–200, 206, 231, 232, 236, 248 Soghakh Eight Year School, 33–34, 61, 63, 68, 70, 77–78, 201, 231 Soviet Union, 44, 51, 54, 155n53 dissolution of, 66–67, 68, 72 and the Mongolian People’s Republic, 170, 171, 175, 181, 182, 184 and Xinjiang, 160, 161, 176–77, 185, 192 See also CMEA and education and trade Stalin, Josef, 83n9, 115, 176, 184, 190, 192 Structural Adjustment Programmes (Mongolia), 67 subsistence economy. See under domestic animals Syr Darya River, 132, 141, 148 syrmakh (felt carpets), 16, 32, 93, 119–20 learning to make, 28–30 social uses, 231 uses at funerals, 74–75, 222 See also textiles T Tanatar (married to Erjan), 23, 33, 78, 79–81, 82, 164, 172–74, 223, 235 Tashkent, 124, 141, 148, 149, 150, 155n75, 156n91 tea and hospitality, 58–59, 145 preparation of, 37, 37–39, 186 textiles, domestic as furnishings, 23, 31, 32, 50, 52–53, 63 motifs, 119–20 recycling of materials in production, 52–53 as wedding presents, 52–53, 76 See also syrmakh and tus kiĭz

266 

z Index

Tibet, xiii, 124, 127, 131, 181 alliances with Western Mongols, 126, 132, 133 and the Manchu Qing position in Inner Asia, 134 See also Buddhism Tolbo Lake, battle, 171 trade and Cossacks in the Kazakh steppe, 139–40 Governorate-General of Turkestan during the First World War, 149 independent Kazakh traders (Mongolia, early 2000s), 89, 94 and the kampan (1990s Mongolia), 68–69 Mongolian-Chinese trading posts (1990s), 68 Russian trade with Kazakhs of the Little Jyz, 141 during state-socialist period (Mongolia), 54, 65–67, 83n9 (see also CMEA) Trans-Siberian Railway, 143, 209 transport (Mongolia) of goods after the collectives were disbanded, 68–70, 72 of goods and herder households by the collectives, 57 public (provided by individual drivers in the 2000s), 19–23, 78, 129–30, 199–200, 202 Turkestan, city of, 124, 141, 149 Turkestan, Governorate-General of, 142, 148, 149–50, 151, 155n75, 160 tus kiĭz (embroidered wall hangings), 31, 52–53, 227–28 (see also textiles) Tuvans, 168, 171, 177, 179 U Uighur, the, 134, 160, 161, 177 Ulaanbaatar, 45, 53, 65, 73, 74, 78, 90– 91, 92, 95, 146, 166, 171, 216–17, 233, 235, 240–41, 242–43 Ulaankhus district (sum) centre, 18, 19, 22, 24, 25, 28, 33, 43–44, 46, 47, 51, 54–55, 55, 57, 60, 61, 70, 78, 79, 80, 81, 92, 129, 163, 168, 175, 176, 183,

199–200, 202, 206, 214, 218, 221, 222, 238, 239, 240, 248, 249 Ulaankhus Ten Year School, 23, 25, 29, 50, 51, 78, 79, 81, 82, 89, 165, 180, 239, 248 Ungern-Sternberg, Baron Roman von, 170–71 Ural Mountains, 138, 143 Urga (renamed Ulaanbaatar in 1924), 169, 170, 171, 182 USSR, See under Soviet Union Uvs aimag (province), 91, 165, 169, 192 Uzbek Shaybanid Dynasty, 123–24 V Verniy. See under Almaty W Wake, Seven Day, 221–22, 240 War, First World and the 1916 revolt in Central Asia, 148–51 and trade, Central Asia, 149 See also conscription War, Second World, 176 Western Mongols, 122, 123, 125–27, 131–34, 152n13, 153n14, 176 alliances with Tibet, 126 (see also Buddhism) relations and wars with Eastern Mongols, 125–27, 133–34 relations and wars with Kazakhs, 122, 131–33 relations and wars with Manchus, 126–27, 131, 133–34 winter houses, 1, 30–32, 57, 60, 74, 144, 206–7, 214, 232 winter, weather, 1, 39–40, 48, 63–64, 73–74, 82, 96, 135, 188–89, 200, 205–6 (see also jut) X Xinjiang, xiii, 121, 126, 127, 131, 133, 134, 140, 151, 181, 183 family connections in, 191, 231–32 Kazakh minority in, 122 ‘warlord’ rule (c. 1912–1940s), 160–62, 169–70, 175–77

Index 

See also Kashgaria and Kazakh freedom fighters and Soviet Union Y Yakub Beg, 159–60, 175, 176. See also Kashgaria, Khanate of youngest son, position and responsibilities of, 47, 106, 110–11, 204–7, 212–15, 221

z 

267

yurt, 1, 18, 31, 44, 49, 52–3, 57–58, 74–76, 83n1, 115, 119, 121, 131, 145, 146, 170, 183, 193n18, 214–15, 220, 122, 234 Z Zongtang, Zuo (Manchu general), 159–60