Eating a horse

Yurts give an odd contrast of the temporary and the permanent. We ducked down to negotiate the solid wooden door set in the canvas and felt structure and I took off my boots to protect the thick richly patterned carpet. A group of people attired in intricately embroidered costumes invited us to squat down at a large polished table full of food, the shape of which echoed that of the yurt, with its latticework frame supporting the ribs of the structure soaring to the top where it was open to let in light and air.

More than a dozen yurts had appeared overnight on the playing field at Nazarbayev Intellectual School in Pavlodar where Liz works. A stage had been erected for performances of singing and dancing and all the teachers were in traditional dress. Nauryz is the spring celebration in Kazakhstan which dates back 3,000 years, but then our festival of rebirth is named after the ancient pagan goddess Eostre, who surprisingly was more concerned with fertility and rabbits than with chocolate.

Before the USSR Kazakhstan was part of the Russian Empire and before that home to a nomadic people who moved their stock around the vast steppe. They had no interest in international boundaries, but this is the only culture that the country has to draw upon to provide a national identity. The festival on the school playing field acted out the old traditions, but they can still be found in reality away from the cities. Last year I stayed in a yurt half way up a mountain in neighbouring Kyrgyzstan and, although my hosts told me that they only used them in the summer months, when they moved their flock up to the higher pastures, it seemed to me that little had changed over several centuries.

Inside the yurt each table was laden with food and I was given a larger helping than I really wanted of beshmarak. This is the national dish of chunks of horsemeat served on a bed of pasta. With the usual cutlery of just a spoon and fork I struggled to separate a piece of flesh from a lump of fat but the horse was quite tasty. Less so was the kumys, fermented mares’ milk. I was handed a bowl and, after gingerly taking a sip, I had to fight to control my features as they tried to screw into an expression of disgust.

The scene was splendid with the yurt decorated with tapestries and animal skins and even a live eagle adding to the atmosphere, but I was feeling awkward about the food and drink in front of me. I tried to ignore it and pretend that it wasn’t mine but I was a little relieved when the group we had found ourselves with suddenly got up and bade their goodbyes. It was at that point I was informed that we were with the judges who were assessing the standards of hospitality. We went straight to the next yurt where I was immediately presented with a large plate of beshmarak and a deep bowl of kumys.

Spring in Siberia

Spring in Siberia

Last week, when the dense coating of snow and ice had just died miserably, this path was mantled in an ooze of mud which made me abandon an attempted walk. Now the ground is mainly firm and this backwater of the River Irtysh, that has for five months been a solid expanse of ice thick enough to have cars driven on it, is reflecting clear liquid around its edges.

The ground which has been held in the iron grip of winter for so long seems to sigh with relief, as the tension eases from the boughs of the silver birches and the crows flap with an energy that suggests an expectation from life that exceeds bare survival. But I’m still wearing my duck down jacket and I would not risk stepping out of doors without a woolly hat. In the extreme cold my eyes were running with tears before I got a hundred yards from the warmth of our apartment and I would wear the ushanka I bought in Pavlodar market, the fur-lined ear-flapped headgear with the stereotypical Russian band of dark fur visible across the forehead.

This is Kazakhstan, not Russia, but the cold, the snow and the river recognise no borders. Incredibly there are still fishermen literally on the river. They bore holes through the ice and huddle in little tent-like structures. Lighting a fire to keep warm would clearly end in disaster so they rely on vodka to keep the blood in their veins flowing. It is a macho community and the size of any fish that can be landed is of course governed by the size of each fisherman’s auger.

I follow an earth embankment which takes me on a round trip inside a peninsular jutting into the might of the Irtysh and meet some coarse haired cattle. They are newly released from their winter prison and can barely contain their excitement as they explore the outside world as if newly born. And of course they are. Spring in Siberia is so sudden and so extreme that the whole world; the cows, the trees, even the soil is reborn. It almost makes me understand why some people are religious.