On the Trail of Genghis Khan

by Tim Cope

  Later that morning I visited the market for the first time. It was situated in the new center of Bakchisaray—a place with none of the allure I had seen the previous evening. Where the gorge spilled out into a wide dry valley, a hot summer wind blew dust through scattered Soviet apartment blocks and crooked wooden houses. Nineties-era shops were tacked on like afterthoughts, perused by token shoppers on foot. Beat-up Ladas drifted listlessly by.

  At a central intersection, stretching across the road between an apartment block and a drugstore, was a picket line of demonstrators. Beyond them lay the entrance to the market and a makeshift barricade hung with the Tatar flag and an unmistakable banner: “Close the Market That Is Built on Our Bones!” To one side of the drugstore, a carpet had been laid down, and a group of men wearing traditional embroidered velvet skullcaps—known across Central Asia as the tyubeteika—were kneeling in prayer. A hundred or so elderly Tatars manned the picket line, and others gathered around a cauldron that filled the air with the aroma of boiled mutton.

  Meanwhile, lurking in the shade of trees, in cars, and in buses on both sides of the picket line were dozens of heavily equipped berkuts, or riot police, their shields and truncheons at the ready. Another branch of police, special forces known as bars, were roaming about in flak jackets.

  Ismet had informed the mejlis about my journey, and on approaching the protestors I found Akhmet, a high-ranking mejlis representative who had been expecting me. He was busy in negotiation with a local police constable but took the time to explain the crux of the issue. “There are eleven mausoleums here that house the graves of several generations of our khans and spiritual leaders who brought Islam to Crimea,” he said. “They date back at least five hundred years. The market that was built on this holy site by Russians in the early nineties hasn’t been around for more than fifteen years, and we want it removed.”

  Akhmet introduced me to a Tatar historian who took me beyond the picket line to the base of one of the mausoleums, a domed, octagonal monument built from stone. Nearby lay the vacant market, a ramshackle collection of insipid stands. Inside its buckled iron boundary fence stood another mausoleum—this one with a Russian-built pit toilet alongside.

  The mausoleums were thought to be connected to the ancient city of Eski Yurt, which had been founded on the grave of the seventh-century Islamic saint Malik Ashtar—the first to have spread Islam in Crimea. It had subsequently become the cemetery for Tatar khans, and until Soviet times it attracted thousands of pilgrims annually.

  In a provocative move, the market had been built during the death throes of the Soviet Union, and ever since then, Tatars had been lobbying the market’s Russian director, Medvedev, to relocate it. They had put forth a plan for the mausoleums to be protected as part of the Bakchisaray Historical and Cultural Preserve. Medvedev had thus far refused, and only a few months before my arrival he had hired some men to start moving the boundary fence of the market out even further—with the rumored backing of the pro-Russian party Russki Blok and local Mafia.

  It was this situation that had led to the violent confrontation I had seen on Islyam’s footage back in Semfiropol. Medvedev had employed a band of thugs to smash through the protestors and reopen the market by force. Temporarily at least, Medvedev had won the day.

  By the time I left the market the heat of the day had sapped the energy of the demonstrators and the tension had waned. Even the riot police had their helmets off and sat eating ice cream, their shields leaning up against trees.

  I was determined to return to the market, but in the meantime I used the lull to meet with Anya. We spent the rest of the day together exploring the monasteries and ruins in the cliffs above the khan’s palace. I talked a little about the problems at the market. As a Ukrainian accustomed to the imperialistic ways of Russia, she had some degree of sympathy for the Tatars, but on the other hand, like many Ukrainians, she had a poor understanding of the situation and was mostly impartial. I dropped the subject and savored the shady old quarters of the city, where there was little hint of conflict. Sunburned tourists flowed in on excursions from their resorts on the coast, and I was lost in the light, happy feeling of summer and romance. We spent the next two nights together in my tent, and hours in front of a campfire together with some of her student colleagues. In her arms I felt as though I were in a parallel world—a place where we could both have some time out from the palpable ethnic tension in Bakchisaray, and I could rest from my journey.

  On our second morning together I accompanied Anya to the station for the train to Kiev and kissed her goodbye. Our time together had been brief, but nonetheless, when the train pulled out of sight it left me feeling alone. We promised to remain in contact, and to meet up if possible. Anya had a dream of joining me somewhere, although realistically we weren’t sure if that was possible: she was in the middle of working toward her master’s degree.

  In a somber mood I trundled away from the station. When I arrived at the market, however, I was promptly pulled out of my funk. The scene there was very different from how I had left it two days earlier. Now the picket line was choked with protestors, and the group of men camped outside the drugstore with their prayer mats had grown into such a crowd that there was only sitting room. The riot police, in turn, stretched across the road between the picket line and the market and were facing off against the swelling crowd, brandishing their shields.

  I became acutely aware of glares from both the riot police and the Tatars. It was a delicate balance, being a foreigner seen to have an allegiance with one culture or the other—something that my time with Anya, a Slav, had only accentuated. Underneath I had felt a little traitorous abandoning the cause of the market to be with her, and Tatars, including Volodya, had been noticeably silent upon learning about our romance. On this day, however, I was relieved when a man from the crowd in front of the drugstore stood up and waved me over excitedly.

  It was Islyam, the director of Tatar TV. He was looking sweaty and frazzled. Apparently the prime minister of Ukraine had flown to Crimea, and the mejlis was negotiating the final order for the market to be removed. Overnight, Tatars had rallied from across Crimea and were bracing for a showdown. “We are waiting for a decision,” Islyam told me, “but, signature from the prime minister or no, we are going to smash the market down today, by ourselves if necessary!”

  Just as he said it, there came a high-pitched whistling from the picket line, and around me the whole crowd of men, Islyam included, leaped to their feet and rushed forward. Apparently someone had attacked the picketers. I dashed after the rushing crowd but fell behind in the thrusting mass of people. Suddenly I was yanked backward and fell flat on my back—someone had nabbed me from behind and pulled me to the ground.

  “Hey! Go back! Move out, Russian!” screamed the man who had grabbed me, drawing back his fist above my face. A section of the crowd stopped and circled, but just as they closed in there came a woman’s voice. “No, no! Leave him! He is one of ours. He is the Australian traveler!” The men helped me up and invited me to join them, but I decided to hang back.

  Watching from a distance, I saw that it wasn’t a thug who had attacked the picket line but a Russian pensioner. She was wielding her fists and screaming, “Let me through! God! This is my home! Let me through to my home!” According to Tatars, confrontations like these were part of a campaign by Medvedev, who paid local Russians to act as provocateurs.

  Over the next few hours I stuck close to Islyam as more provocations unfolded and tensions rose. Tatar numbers were expanding. Rumor had it Medvedev had hired a legion of thugs from Sevastopol, and that a group of Cossacks—bent on fulfilling their historic role as protectors of Russia—were coming from as far as Russia. Using wire, wood, and whatever they could find, Tatars began to fortify their picket line in preparation for a tense night.

  I was invited to camp out with Islyam, but I had to decline, as I had been invited to the khan’s palace. The director of the Bakchisaray Historical and Cultural Preserve had ar
ranged a special concert and dinner.

  In the cool of evening on a lawn at the back of the khan’s palace courtyard, four musicians began to play. As I approached, wandering sounds from a traditional flute, a long-necked lute, and a cimbalon mingled with the energetic notes of a conventional violin. The resulting harmony filtered up through the shady trees above. I came to rest on the grass and felt my sweat chill.

  I gazed at the four men, each with their black olive-shaped eyes and wearing a golden embroidered tyubeteika. At the end of each song, they bowed their heads, bending elegantly at their waists, which were tightly wrapped in red cummerbunds.

  The oldest of the men explained they had studied music in their youth at the conservatory in Tashkent and now played for the Crimean Philharmonic Orchestra. Since their return to Crimea, they had set about resurrecting traditional Tatar music and during a visit to archives in Istanbul discovered pieces dating back to the sixteenth century. It was these tunes they now brought to life.

  The concert came to an end when Evegeniy Petrovich, the tall, charismatic Russian director of the Bakchisaray Historical and Cultural Preserve, arrived to take us to dinner. It was he who would be charged with the responsibility of looking after the site of the mausoleums—Eski Yurt—should the market be removed. In his presence, the musicians lost their happy glow.

  “Evegeniy, why do the Russian tour guides purposely avoid us with their tourists? Today we earned almost nothing!” said the elder of the group.

  Evegeniy smiled, rocking drunkenly on his feet, and ushered us out of the palace grounds. His distinguished silver hair and charming smile had no doubt reassured many disgruntled souls in his time.

  In the nearby cheburekery (chebureks being the ubiquitous Uzbek meat pastry found right across the old Soviet Union), Evegeniy had assembled a large group of visiting historians, Tatar palace staffers, and other employees of the Bakchisaray Historical and Cultural Preserve. With everyone settled for dinner, he stood at the head of the table and shakily raised a glass of wine.

  “It’s my great, great honor to introduce you to a very unique person.” The guests hushed. “A modern-day Marco Polo, speaker of fifteen languages, employee of the Royal Geographic Society, traveler on Mongolian horses, he carries half a sheep in his pocket. I welcome here tonight … Kimofi Pope!”

  With that he threw open the toast, and I sat down trying to avoid the looks of adoration that now turned on me. Not knowing what to say, I took a large sip of wine.

  The most senior historian at the table—who was already looking at the world through the prism of his wineglass—stood up to tell a tale of a different nature. “They found Hitler in the Amazon and brought him to court in Paris this year,” he began. “The English decided that death by firing squad should be punishment. The French, the guillotine. The Americans, a hanging. Yet when they couldn’t decide, they turned to the representative of Israel. He coolly told them: ‘I don’t know what the argument is about. The solution is simple—marry him off to a Crimean Tatar!’” With that he erupted in a deep, croaky laugh and downed a shot of vodka.

  The far end of the table where the musicians sat was deathly silent.

  A vodka glass slipped and fell, and alcohol was quickly poured anew for everyone.

  When dinner was over we loaded into a bus and went to a disco to continue celebrating. Evegeniy drank endlessly, and in his euphoric stupor demanded the musicians bring out their instruments and play. As they played, their music drowned out by Russian pop, fluorescent disco lights lit up their surly looks in fragments of purple, green, and nauseating white.

  It was some time before I realized the disco we were in was located at the intersection directly opposite the Tatars’ picket line. Somewhere out there Islyam and his crew were battening down for another night in the open. Meanwhile, the man who would be responsible for the site of the mausoleums should the market be removed sat before me clapping his hands and rolling with laughter.

  At midnight, when the musicians refused to play on, he wobbled over to me with a crazed look. “Tim, do you have your own separate room where you are staying? I mean, if you need a girl, twenty years old, it’s no problem … Or how would you like having fifteen or twenty girls in one room? They just come to you to sniff you and touch you.”

  He had by this stage leaned right over close to my ear and was whispering, but then slumped back in a drunken silence.

  Not only were the worlds that I passed between in Bakchisaray all surreally parallel, but they seemed to be simultaneously reaching climactic crescendos.

  Back at the seventh micro-region that night, I passed a friend of Volodya’s, Eldar, who was stumbling off with his bicycle and clutching his jaw. Inside his hut, Volodya lay as if in a coma on the divan, speckles of blood down his shirt, a cigarette butt floating in the vodka glass next to his head. His freckled ten-year-old son rushed to me in excitement. “Dad’s head flew off! First Eldar went down, then Papa, but they didn’t share with us the reason for the fight!”

  When Volodya rose, battered and bruised, he was still desperately drunk. With his remaining weekly salary, which he had received the day before, he went to buy beer and credit for his prepaid mobile phone. He then began calling strangers and speaking nonsense until the credit dried up.

  If the signs were ominous at Volodya’s home, then it was nothing compared to the situation at the market.

  I headed off hoping to meet Islyam, but a kilometre from the picket line, it was obvious I wouldn’t be able to get through. The roads and shops had been shut down, and hundreds of police and soldiers were being bused in.

  At an outer police line, muscle-bound Russians emerged cut and bloodied, boasting about the Tatars they had bashed. Beyond the police, Russian men of all ages paced about wielding sticks and planks of wood and a crowd of Russian women chanted abuse. The Russian version of Rambo, a bare-chested hulking brute of a man, flexed his sunburned pectorals and screamed, “I am ready! I am mad! And I am ready to face death to fight you Tatars in the Russian way!” There was even a band of Cossacks in army fatigues. The Tatars, meanwhile, vastly outnumbered, were surrounded by hundreds of riot police, upturned cars, and wire.

  I rang Islyam, who explained that three hundred “fighters” had stormed the picket line. When pushed back by police, they had begun hurling concrete, steel, and rocks. One Tatar had been hit on the head and had nearly bled to death in the crowd before being retrieved. Many cars, including Islyam’s, had been smashed, and their tires slit. For the time being there was a relative lull, but there were no signs of a resolution yet.

  “It’s too dangerous for you now. I can’t get you in,” Islyam told.

  I decided that it was safer to walk home to the relative sanctuary of Volodya’s home. On the way, buses and cars full of Tatar men rocketed past into town. The word was out, and vehicles were roaming Tatar enclaves to recruit volunteer fighters.

  By the time I arrived at Volodya’s, smoke had begun to rise from the market, accompanied by occasional gunfire. Volodya’s wife was in hysterics, tears streaming down her sunburned cheeks. The seventh micro-region was eerily quiet—children were locked indoors and houses deserted of men. Later, reports suggested that around fifteen hundred Tatars moved in to encircle the Russians.

  I sat down and watched the Russian news. Crimea was in the headlines, as usual. The journalist commented, to pictures of a beautiful coastline, “These people are coming back here to Crimea because they like it here and because they lived here before 1944.” Then they showed footage of a Tatar man hurling a rock at riot police.

  As I withdrew to my bed it seemed inevitable that Bakchisaray was on the verge of war. The market had become an opportunity for Russians to settle old scores, and for the time being there was no end in sight.

  In the morning I woke early and gathered my things. I craved being back on the steppe.

  Before leaving, I rang Islyam. Overnight the army had moved in and cleared out both the Russians and the Tatars. Islyam was recoveri
ng at home. He was jubilant. “The prime minister signed! The market will be abolished!”

  Ukraine

  21

  CROSSROADS

  From Bakchisaray I headed north through the arid steppe interior of Crimea and settled into a rhythm of riding by night, making camp by midday, and sleeping in the open under horse blankets. By following a canal that carried water from the Dnieper to the cities of Crimea, I was able to avoid towns and villages and make quick progress. As I rode, the tension and stress of the conflict began to dissipate.

  Little more than a week took me to the far north of Crimea, where I woke late one night, half asleep, and gazed up at the dim profile of the horses. Taskonir stood over me, his ears bent forward, back leg cocked, and Kok’s head resting on his wither. Tigon was curled up, breathing heavily, his bony spine hard up against my thigh. Time passed unmarked until a fart broke through camp. Ogonyok, who had evidently woken himself up with the noise, put his head down to munch on the sun-dried grass, followed by a quick shake of the mane and a stamp of the hoof. Tigon let out muffled barks in his sleep, and Taskonir’s bottom lip quivered for some time until once again all was still.

  It occurred to me that without the horses I would have lost my sanity on this journey long ago. Only from the solitude of the steppe, reconnected with them, did I feel ready to make sense of what had passed and make room for new horizons.

  This night it was sinking in that after three intense months in Crimea, I would soon leave the peninsula for the mainland. Simultaneously, my third and final summer on the steppe was coming to a close. These milestones cemented the feeling that the vast bulk of the Eurasian steppe, which bulges out at its core in the oceanic spaces of Russia, Kazakhstan, and Mongolia, was now firmly behind, and all I had in front of me were the western fringes that taper off into a narrow prong in Hungary. With the softer climate of Ukraine nearly in my sights and the border of Hungary a mere 934 km away as the crow flies, it promised to be a piece of cake compared to what I’d been through. In fact, for the first time on my journey I was tempted by thoughts of the end. If all went smoothly, I could bank on crossing the Carpathians and reaching the Danube by early spring.