Drinking Camel's Milk in the Yurt – Expat Stories From Kazakhstan

by Monica Neboli

  Kim told me of a young bride who was being initiated into her new family and had to serve her in-laws.

  “If the father-in-law was not happy with the way she served him tea, he could beat her,” Kim said, before adding, “It is said the Kazakh bride wears braids, because once married she has no time even to fix her hair.” So busy is she with learning all the traditions of her new home under the tutelage of her mother-in-law.

  Neighbors and mutual indebtedness

  Kim also related the important role neighbors play in Kazakhstan. When Kim’s youngest daughter was born and wasn’t gaining much weight, her Kazakh neighbor took it upon herself to bring goat’s milk around daily to help the baby plump up. Kim wanted to pay her neighbor, but the woman would not hear of it. All she wanted from Kim was a promise of ‘insurance’: if anything happened to her goat in the future, Kim would pay for the vet’s bills.

  This reminded me of when I lived in China, where locals try to build guanxi, a mutual indebtedness, whereby a person can exact a favor from you on their own terms if they once did something for you. Money does not feature in this system, which is much more intricate and detailed than an ‘I’ll scratch your back, if you scratch mine’ approach.

  Some afterthoughts on Kazakh culture

  Of course, Kim and I talked about many other things as we sat in the shade of the green mountain, feeling its fresh, gentle breezes. She explained the importance for a man (and woman) to find kurdas, others who are born in the same year as him (or her).

  “It is as if Kazakh men who share the same birth year are blood brothers,” she said. This may have something to do with the ancient cycles of life that the Kazakhs regard as sacred.

  We also discussed the apparent need of the Kazakh people to blame another for their misfortunes. I had also observed this tendency of projecting blame onto others in my university setting by some of the Kazakh teachers I worked with. I wondered if it might be a residual mindset of a Soviet tendency to not take responsibility for one’s actions.

  An example Kim gave was of a Kazakh family with seven girls and three boys, who attributed the death of one of their boys to a Russian, who had just moved into the neighborhood, and had supposedly given the boy the ‘evil eye’. Someone else, outside the clan, is held responsible for any sadness visited upon the family.

  Reflections on the descent from Kok Tobe

  The hours had quickly eluded us, just as they used to in our long-ago phone conversations, and Kim and I knew our precious time together was coming to an end. A mother of four and a university teacher, we had our respective responsibilities to get back to.

  By this stage Kazakhs were scattered around the top of our Blue Ceiling. Our picnic lunch was finished and we had gone to a few of the gift shops to buy touristy T-shirts for ourselves or as gifts for family members. We quickly made our descent by retracing our steps on the asphalt pavement, winding down to Kim’s car. What a change from when I had first walked this road with other Peace Corps trainers. Many of the shacks and houses had been replaced by posh homes along some of the lower switchbacks.

  I cherished our shared experiences of the Kazakh culture we knew and loved. Even so, we both admitted that Almaty was a hard place to live in and the people sometimes difficult to love. That is what made our bond as friends all the more special, as if we two Minnesotans had each other’s backs in a land foreign to us.

  Nauryz in Kyzylorda

  by Roberto Boltri

  Early in the morning I am awoken by an uproar coming from the street below: cars and trucks honking and people yelling. I open my bedroom window overlooking the city’s Dostyk Square, before stepping out onto the balcony. The square has been transformed into a village of yurts in preparation for Nauryz, a traditional celebration connected with the earth’s cycles. The origins of Nauryz go back more than 2,000 years to the pre-Christian and pre-Islamic adoration of Zoroaster.

  Curious, I immediately make my way down to the street. I walk among the yurts, the traditional houses of the nomadic Kazakh people. Circular in shape, the structures are supported by flexible wooden sticks and covered by waterproof felt. It is a home that these nomads have known since the beginning of life (Herodotus, the ‘father of history’, speaks about the yurt in his Histories). The yurt’s most striking characteristic is its lightness – despite its size, it weighs only 100–200 kilograms – which makes it easy to transport, assisting the nomad’s mobility on the steppe. The yurt can also be assembled in a short time (two or three hours). The felt covering protects its inhabitants from both hot and cold weather, from rain and snow, making the home comfortable in every season. On the top of the yurt is a circular hole, which permits the escape of smoke from the fire underneath, in the middle of the floor space. This form of ventilation also allows the nomads to see the sky – thus the gap is called the ‘window on the sky’.

  But if the yurt is the means for moving and migrating, it is also the place in which the nomads meet and socialize. It is a microcosm of family and community life; a place in which the rules of social life, clans, tribes, roles, sexes and generational hierarchies are played out. This is where the everyday rituals of existence meet mystical behaviors, both shamanic practices and religious ones. Men, women, guests, children… everyone has his or her place. One can only imagine the complex world of affection and emotion that exists here, of the traditions that have been built over the millennia. The yurt is the product of the nomad’s culture, but it also reinforces traditions and transfers values from one generation to the next. For centuries, during the cold nights on the steppe, the Kazakh nomads have gathered in yurts, listening to their bards while poems, all orally transmitted, are recited; poems such as the epic Manas kirghiso and Kurgulo kazako.

  In the square, every village has arranged its own yurt, inside which the village representatives are seated in a circle, drinking chai. I notice their poverty in their worn-out clothes and in the modest shoes aligned outside the entrance. On the square, women prepare the samovar (an ancient water boiler) and cook. Dotted about the area are containers of kymiz and shubat (horse and camel’s milk), appreciated throughout the Asian continent – especially kymiz: obtained through the fermentation of mare’s milk, it becomes sparkling and slightly alcoholic. This ‘sparkling milk’ is thought by the nomads to have therapeutic and aphrodisiac qualities. It is also lower in fat than shubat. I’m now a regular consumer of both.

  In the center of each yurt, on colored carpets, are big plates of beshbarmak (a traditional Kazakh dish of horse, beef, camel and lamb’s meat, served with dough and sprinkled with onions) and over these tower the black heads of sheep.

  Horses and camels are gathered on the square’s edge, and I’m immediately drawn to them. The most beautiful horses, in my opinion, are the white ones from Aralsk; their hair is unusually soft to the touch. Seeing a young camel on the back of a truck, I approach. The animal, perhaps ill at ease with the unfamiliar location, spits, hitting his target – my jacket – with great precision. The result is much hilarity.

  At the bottom of the square, the old, worn PAZ buses from the Soviet era stand, their bonnets open to cool the engine. Drivers and mechanics are gathered around, as well as passengers technically inexperienced but lavish with advice. The only certainty is that later, in the evening, the vehicles will start with a push from their passengers.

  In the square I find every kind of trade and service imaginable. Women crouched, foretelling the future with sunflower seeds… photographers and their mobile props: garlands of plastic flowers, Mickey Mouse puppets and cardboard reproductions of cars.

  I cross the square and head towards the theatre. As soon as I enter I feel I have jumped back 70 years, to the time of Lenin’s NEP. In the hall is a photographic exhibition of socialist labor heroes, typically Asiatic portraits with chests full of medals, honorary diplomas and enrollment cards of the USSR Communist Party and Komsomol, the Communist Youth League.

  The next gallery depicts glorious harvests of wheat, ri
ce and cotton, followed by images of the cotton harvests at the beginning of the disastrous receding of the Aral Sea, the reason for my presence here as an ecologist. In the center of the room is a television screen that broadcasts footage of old party and trade union meetings. Nobody watches, but it must remain as a reminder of a past that nobody here seems to regret.

  This celebratory exhibition suggests the old Soviet system was not all bad, especially in the services provided in the cultural and social sectors (schools, hospitals, transportation, theatres, cinemas). The system also managed to maintain peaceful coexistence, and sometimes solidarity, among the 130 minority groups of Kazakhstan. Nowadays, the general trend of both the international community and the ex-USSR populations seems to be a total rejection of the past. Only the elderly appear to see clearly the limits of the past but also the limits of the present. Everyone else reaches out to the future, with its promises of consumption. The fact that capitalism also has deep faults is neglected. For example, average life expectancy dropped by three to five years in countries of the former USSR after the transition from communism to an open market.

  In my ideal world, elements of the past would be recovered and adapted to this new transition society, to its democracy. These new economic rules would not be solely based on the market, but also include social dynamics, in a new, revised form of ‘the welfare state’.

  After 10 years of having lived in different countries, including the former Yugoslavia and Uzbekistan, my greater fear is not the rebirth of communism – which I think improbable – but inexorable, unstoppable consumerism. To extend a Chinese proverb: if communism has been a skin disease, consumerism may quickly become a heart disease. Consumerism, inspired by Western culture, risks making Asia – cultural, sophisticated and wise – rough, violent and too quick to compromise in its rush to accept Western consumer-driven ideals.

  The Cultural Heritage of Kazakhstan

  by Annemarie van Klooster

  I always wanted to go to Asia, with its high humidity, green landscapes and friendly people. And yet Kazakhstan – central Asia – is not the Asia I had imagined. I still remember the endless horizon when I first landed in the country and looked out onto the steppe: there were no trees, no houses and, honestly, no green at all. It felt so empty. I’m from a small town in Holland that is surrounded by meadows, so you can imagine how desolate the landscape looked to me. But there was also something magical about it, because I could see the ‘end’ of the world, far away in the distance.

  We don’t have camels in the suburbs of Holland. We have cows and horses safely grazing behind fences. Here, camels roam around freely. They belong to someone, of course, but are free to come and go as they please. They graze on small patches of grass growing in the shade of apartments, or under trees, and often they eat from the garbage bins.

  Another difference is that we use the Roman alphabet, while the Kazakhs use the Cyrillic alphabet, which looks to me like gobbledygook! I had made sure our children got English lessons before we left Holland because they would be going to an international school, but I had forgotten about Kazakh lessons for myself. How was I supposed to communicate in this country? A dictionary wasn’t enough to get by and the language course I had been expecting from the company was not provided. In the beginning, I felt too intimidated to find a teacher. And because I didn’t expect to be in Kazakhstan for very long, I thought, What is the point?

  However, what I regret most is how long it took me to understand the people. If you are going to live in Kazakhstan, or any other part of this world, learning the language is so important. It’s the only way to integrate into the local community and start to feel at home. I did try to integrate in my own way, sometimes even by making a fool of myself. If I needed beef or chicken and not horse meat from the butcher’s, I pretended to be a cow or a chicken. As you can imagine, the staff had a good laugh at my expense.

  I was always being asked where I came from and I’d proudly tell them I was from Golandia [Holland]. This would make the men smile…

  “Aaahhh, Ruud Van Nistelrooy!” they’d say.

  Football is not my cup of tea, but fortunately I do know the name of one of our best strikers.

  The locals knew other things about Holland too. Amsterdam’s red light district and, of course, tulips. I was even told that tulips originally came from Kazakhstan! I also learned that Adam and Eve’s garden was allegedly in Kazakhstan. The apple that led to their downfall is supposed to have come from the Almaty region, or so the story goes.

  The Kazakh people are very proud of their country. Unfortunately, after the period of Russian communism, the newer generations entered what I call ‘the plastic period’, with an increased demand for synthetic materials. In the two-plus years I have been here, I have seen several old buildings with beautiful wooden window frames and walls with cane as insulation being destroyed. It pains me that local residents and local government don’t realize the value of these houses. It’s their history and they can never replace it.

  This approach is part of their development though. The country is growing fast, with international companies spending lots of money. People are now able to live a more ‘western’ life. There is also an internet service, broadening their view and showing them other possibilities. They want to have it all, and I can’t blame them! I remember myself at 18 years of age, with the first paycheck I’d ever earned. I wanted everything, which sometimes resulted in a distressingly empty bank account. Here you experience something similar; in many electronic stores you see more counters that grant credit than counters with regular pay terminals. This results in big loans that are never paid off. The interest rate is half that of Holland, but the products are expensive. A car in Kazakhstan costs the equivalent of a car in Holland, and houses are not cheap either.

  With loans to pay off every month, people can’t spend money on maintaining their houses; in many cases, what is broken will stay broken. The local government and landlords don’t spend a lot of money on maintaining properties, or on green areas around the apartments or houses. Luckily, in some areas very old houses do remain, though not always in the best shape. In the past century some great architects must have lived here, and we can only hope the owners realize this before destroying architectural jewels!

  Something there’s plenty of here though is meat. This spoiled Dutch girl doesn’t like to eat anything that looks like the animal it came from, so it was a shock to see the heads of sheep and cows lying under the counter at the butcher. On the upside, when the heads were in stock I didn’t have to “moo” anymore to get a piece of beef, as it lay next to the cow’s head. I could see the tongue, and I think the heart and some other unknown parts. I knew one thing: I would not bring my children to this store. I was afraid they would never eat meat again.

  At the Nauryz celebration, the holiday that celebrates the first day of spring, Muslim Kazakhs kill a cow or sheep and share the meat with the poor people around them. One morning, I was in the gym on the third floor of our building, looking into the garden of the mosque. It was crowded and I saw a lot of animals fastened to the gate. I had no idea why the animals were standing there – until I looked harder and saw a group sitting around an animal, praying and then taking out a knife to slit its throat. Supermarket meat in Holland doesn’t look like an animal anymore and it is forbidden to kill an animal without narcosis. That’s not necessarily how it should be, but it is what I am used to. Of course, I wanted to save the animal, but it also occurred to me that perhaps the Kazakhs live closer to nature.

  When I got home I saw the workers from our compound unloading a sheep. Until my mosque experience that morning I would have thought they were going to start a children’s farm in our compound! Later, we were invited by the landlord and the compound staff to celebrate Nauryz with them in the two big yurts that had been set up in front of the compound. I didn’t tell my children that the cute sheep they had seen earlier was now their dinner. We danced and ate and enjoyed our first experiences
sitting in a yurt and drinking camel’s milk… Mostly, we enjoyed being a part of their tradition.

  The new generation of Kazakhs might not hold on to their architectural heritage, but they do retain their traditions and share these with others – even with a silly Dutch girl who never learned to speak their language. I may have felt lonely when I came to this country, but I will not feel lonely when I leave. Thank you for giving me this experience Kazakhstan.

  Sunset on the Caspian Sea

  by Machteld Vrieze

  Years after I had gotten married, a young girl from a remote village in Kazakhstan gave me a deeper understanding of what is one of the greatest passages in life… Marriage appears to be a journey in two directions: you move away from home to start a new life, but at the same time you return home, to the comforting traditions and unspoken beliefs of your own family, your place of upbringing, and your culture. I do not recall having had many thoughts on the true origin of my wish to marry a particular man, in a certain tradition. Love was my reason, but now that I, her expat employer, have been invited to this Kazakh girl’s wedding, I have been confronted with my own prejudices and beliefs.

  By Kazakh standards, Nurgul, a lively 20-year-old, is ready for marriage. She is fluent in both Kazakh and Russian and she has strong opinions and witty answers. I can tell this from the vivid conversations with the other nannies at the weekly playgroup.

  Although it is uncommon amongst Kazakh women to discuss boyfriends, I asked Nurgul occasionally about her fisherman from a Caspian Sea village. I tried to listen openly, but reluctantly admit I had to suppress my cultural beliefs that a woman should wait longer for marriage, to prepare for an independent future and maturity to ensure a better decision. But really, what colors my perspective? That an early marriage is a waste of a smart and lively woman because she comes to live a less public life? Why should a couple in love consider the fact that, statistically, marriages between people in their mid-twenties have a better chance than earlier marriages? For what is a better start of a marriage: a statistically proven improved chance at life-long marriage, or the gut feeling that you are so lucky to have found your partner?