On the Trail of Genghis Khan

by Tim Cope

  It was ironic, then, just how distant Hungary would prove to be in reality. What I could not have foreseen was that in Ukraine my journey would again be waylaid by events. In fact, another summer would come to pass before I could set my eyes on the finish, and this time the setback would be a personal loss far more profound than the journey itself.

  For the time being, though, that was weeks away in the future, and as far as I knew, I was gathering momentum to make the final run. Gazing up at the stars, I felt a breath of cool air breeze through with its nightly relief, then rolled under the sweaty smell of the horse blankets and surrendered to sleep.

  At 3:30 a.m. the alarm clock sprang rudely to life, and as had become the routine, we were off within an hour, moving anonymously through the predawn darkness, the familiar dull ache throbbing up from my feet in the stirrups to my hips and butt.

  When the black of the sky dissolved, it seemed the sun was rising just for us. Golden light spilled over the open steppe until I could check my bearing by the long shadows cast by our caravan. Tigon was off, a black speck bounding through the yellow grass, followed closely by dive-bombing birds. When I dismounted to pee, it triggered the three horses to do the same, and when Tigon homed back in he joined in, too.

  The soft rays of friendly orange and yellow were deceptive. By 7:00 A.M. hot gusts thrashed at the grass and my eyes narrowed to slits. By lunchtime I had retired to the patchy shade of a lonely tree.

  It took another day of riding through dry, hot conditions before we reached the narrow Isthmus of Perekop, which connects Crimea to the mainland. The modern territory of Ukraine that lay beyond was a land blessed with a relatively mild climate and an abundance of fertile soil, rivers, and forests—owing to which it was historically suited to an agrarian style of life.

  Since the ninth century, the steppes of Ukraine had been a Slavic stronghold, and in the eleventh century they formed a key center of Kievan Rus, the most powerful state in Europe at the time. When the Mongols invaded in the thirteenth century, however, the state disintegrated, and for nearly three centuries Ukraine found itself under the rule of the Golden Horde. Ever since the dissolution of the Golden Horde, Ukraine had struggled to rekindle a sense of its greatness, forever in the shadow of Russia, Poland, and the Soviet Empire. Today it was a country ensconced in political chaos as the pro-national party that had been swept to power during the Orange Revolution of 2005 pitted its vision for integration with the European Union and NATO against those of the pro-Russian party that had recently gained control of parliament.

  Kievan Rus and politics aside, what mattered to me at this point in time was that the perilous winters and scorching heat were safely behind us, and I was about to enter a world where I’d surely never have to worry about finding grass, grain, or water again. With Ukraine’s many villages, I also hoped I could carry smaller loads of food and travel longer distances.

  By contrast, I reflected, the prospects for Friar Carpini when he arrived in Ukraine in 1246 were altogether terrifying. Fresh from Europe and only just beginning his journey to Mongolia, it was in Ukraine that Carpini was warned about the treacherous lands ahead and forced to abandon his European horses because “Tartars have neither straw nor hay nor fodder, and they would all die.” From Kiev, Carpini traveled southeast through the steppe of Ukraine and Russia on “the road to the barbarian nations.” From there, he wrote, “we left with many tears, not knowing whether we traveled toward death or life.” Ahead of Carpini stretched a land so vast and hostile that, on reading his account, one gets the impression that he went to painstaking lengths to convince readers he was telling the truth and not a fantasy.

  The culture shock I anticipated, however, was essentially the reverse. Because I had traveled the long haul from Mongolia, Ukraine represented my first real glimpses of cultural Europe.

  Beyond the industrial town of Armyansk I crossed onto the mainland and felt the first whisper of autumn. A cool breeze from the west rustled through the grass like some ghostly messenger and turned my sweat cold. The horses stopped to turn and gaze in its direction, and Tigon lifted his nose. The sun had done its summer’s work and was moving on to new pastures. In its place thick, cottony clouds were filling the sky.

  My own transition into autumn was not so subtle. On my first day on the mainland in Kherson Oblast a horse and cart spooked the horses into a wild bolt and I was forced to run 10 km to catch them. Ogonyok cut his leg badly on a broken glass bottle and was very nearly hit by traffic while crossing a bridge. Taskonir managed to run off with a full grain bag in his teeth and spread its entire contents on the ground.

  Beyond the vast waters of the Dnieper River we were caught in an extraordinary deluge, and in the city of Mykolaiv my horses were confiscated by customs and veterinary officials, who said my permits were inadequate. After another round of vaccinations, being issued with Ukrainian animal passports, and a gift of a bottle of vodka to the head of veterinary control, the horses were released. It would be a month, however, before I got back in the saddle. Unexpectedly I had been selected as the Australian Geographic Adventurer of the Year, and as part of the award they were flying me to Sydney for the ceremony. The opportunity to see my family after two and a half years was too much to pass up despite the delays it would cause.

  Leaving the horses at an equestrian center in Mykolaiv, I spent some days with Anya in Kiev, then, still dressed in my tattered riding boots and single change of shirt and trousers, found myself in front of a packed audience at the Maritime Museum in Sydney. A week passed in a whirlwind of media interviews, visits to sponsors, and two days at home, culminating with a luxurious dinner at the Australia Club in Sydney with Mum, Dad, and my great-uncle John Kearney. Although Dad in particular had felt uneasy about me throwing over my law studies at nineteen to pursue adventure, he had always supported me, and over oysters and champagne we celebrated the award as if it were ours together. He gave a short speech about what I had done, and in his swelling pride and approval I realized he had begun to see me as a man.

  After staying together in a hotel on Sydney’s Darling Harbor, I hugged Mum and Dad goodbye, then watched their taxi drive off until it was lost in the busy traffic of the city. It was the last time I would ever see my father.

  By the time I had returned to Mykolaiv the air was crisp, the autumn leaves were alight with yellows and reds, and the horses had begun to grow their wooly winter coats. For the third year in a row I fitted my wide Mongolian stirrups, donned my winter boots, and prepared to set off with no one but winter expecting me beyond the horizon.

  Anya had traveled down to Mykolaiv to see me off, and when the day came to leave, she walked alongside my caravan to a small forest on the outskirts, where we kissed goodbye. Both of us knew that we might never see each other again, and by the time we parted, both our faces were wet with salty tears.

  From Mykolaiv I aimed to traverse southwest Ukraine before crossing the Carpathians and descending into Hungary. For the first few days I charged across cultivated flats. The horses bristled with energy, and I sat high in the saddle watching Taskonir’s wild mane thrash about and feeling his powerful chest absorb the shudders of pounding hooves.

  We departed from all signs of main roads, and the flats grew into raised plains, dissected by deep, shadowy gullies and streams. Unlike on the Kuban in Russia, much of the land here that had been cultivated in Soviet times was overgrown and neglected, and those fields still in use had been deserted for winter. Sometimes I made my way cross-country using a compass, while other times I followed muddy lanes and tracks. Apart from the odd buckled Lada and horse and cart, only thin trails of smoke rising from villages in the valleys suggested signs of life.

  The villages I did pass through presented a bleak picture of post-Soviet decline. Many of the houses had been hastily built in the 1930s and 1940s with tree branches, mud, and reeds and were now sinking unevenly into the ground. A great number of villages had only a handful of residents remaining, and some had been abandoned al
together. The majority of people who still lived in these hamlets were old babushkas and elderly men who looked as bent over and obsolete as the thatched-roof homes they stepped out of. Usually I would drift in during the morning or in the evening before camp in search of a well. As I rode through avenues of empty homes, it was clear the communities were receding as fast as the occupants were dying.

  Beyond the village of Ulyanovye, where the only movement on the muddy street was a medieval-looking wooden cart, I rode through heavy mist and long grass until the land gave way to a valley. As the mist began to rise I looked down to a small huddle of homes chugging out smoke. The only person visible was a man walking behind a herd of cattle. He had not seen me.

  From my vantage point in the saddle I was overcome by the vulnerability of the village. I felt I could have just pressed my heels into Taskonir’s side and galloped down before anyone knew what or who was coming. The late autumn chill had lifted my energy significantly. The horses, too, had been raising their heads a little higher and were striding out with renewed alertness. Meanwhile, the settled world was withdrawing for a season of atrophy in the comfort of their homes. It occurred to me this natural trend had been exploited by nomads for thousands of years and perfected with cruel precision by the Mongols. It was, after all, in the winter of 1237, after the villagers had retreated from the fields and the Mongol horses were at their peak strength, that thousands of Mongol horseman emerged from the steppe to so infamously devastate the cities of Ryazan and later Vladimir. Entire towns were wiped off the map in those cold months when unsuspecting villagers retired for relative hibernation. In the city of Vladimir it is still remembered by Russians today that terrified townsfolk who had sheltered in the city’s churches were burned alive.

  For Ukrainians, the greatest moment of tragedy also fell in the wintry month of December. It was in 1240, as the frost settled, that the Mongols surrounded Kiev and within a matter of days laid waste to what had been the most powerful princedom of Russia and the capital of Kievan Rus. A measure of the devastation was recorded by Carpini some six years later, when he noted that the city was still littered with “countless human skulls and bones from the dead.” “In fact,” he wrote, “there are hardly two hundred houses there now.”

  It is true that this state of ruin was only part of the Mongol legacy. Conquest of Russia was backed up by 240 years of Genghisid rule, under which a sophisticated bureaucracy was introduced and commerce flourished. The Russian Orthodox Church, for instance, grew in material wealth during the Golden Horde period, and the fur trade was rerouted along north-south lines, allowing cities such as Moscow to enjoy unprecedented prosperity.1 Nonetheless, the many benefits that Mongol rule would bring would have been cold comfort for those who endured the initial wrath.

  After the crushing of Kiev, the Mongol army had continued across what is now Ukraine, setting up a summer camp just east of the Carpathian Mountains, lying in wait for the next winter of raiding and warfare to come.

  The mist rolled back in, the village disappeared from view, and I rode on, unnoticed except by a couple of dogs that let out halfhearted barks. Winter might once have been synonymous with the appearance of nomad hordes, but it seemed as though that chapter of history had long been forgotten here.

  For another couple of days we continued on with energy and confidence, but unlike the Mongols and their army, I was alone and my feeling of empowerment waned. In the week since leaving Mykolaiv the horses hadn’t had a rest and I had only been invited into a home once, and even then just for a cup of tea. When I asked the whereabouts of wells in villages, many would narrow their eyes and claim they didn’t know. When I enquired whether anyone was willing to put me up for the night, the typical response was, “Sorry, I can’t help you because I do not have space to shelter three horses.”

  One evening in a remote field I stopped by a broken-down truck. From under the hood, a hulking man emerged into the evening light. I noticed his powerful hands first, with their grease-stained, callused fingers—each as thick as a bratwurst. The way he fidgeted with a screwdriver as if it were as light and fragile as a toothpick suggested he had the potential for violence. Then came his face, bulging out of a long-necked woolen sweater, wide and round as a dinner plate. Set into the folds of his grimy skin were two small hazel eyes that now locked on to me.

  He shook my hand absentmindedly as his cheeks, brows, and mouth began to bunch up in a way that didn’t feel friendly. I started asking directions, but he cut me off.

  “Give me at least one of your horses!”

  “No,” I replied. “These horses are going with me to Hungary!”

  His eyes grew hard, and his face took on a righteous look. “Sure!” he grunted. “I know that you have stolen these horses, and so I will take them from you!”

  There was a stand-off for a few moments, until he moved toward Ogonyok, behind me. Before he could reach the horse, I pulled on Ogonyok’s lead rope, kicked my boots into Taskonir’s side, and pulled away. I didn’t turn around until the man and his broken-down truck had been swallowed up by the land.

  That night I made camp in a hidden gully where I felt safe. In the coming days, however, I couldn’t escape the feeling that while I might have shaken off this stranger, the land was imbued with the same sinister intentions as he was.

  The following evening when I descended to the village of Vasylivka I was desperate. I had run out of grain and food, and the horses were exhausted. Some Uzbeks offered the horses a drink on the outskirts, but still no one was willing to put me up. Dark crowded in, sleet fell, my feet were numb in the stirrups, and I was told to go into the hills to the abandoned settlement of Mala Dvoryanka. “There is one man who still lives up there, and he can point you in the direction of water and grass,” an old man told me.

  The green beneath us turned to black, and after another hour’s ride we were drawn to the lonely glow of a house. On our approach the sound of the door swinging open filled me with relief, but then two snarling dogs leaped out. Tigon launched into attack, a blinding flashlight flicked on, and above the raucous barking and snarling came swearing. I could just make out the silhouette of a man, then the pointy end of a rifle.

  “Calm down, please! I came for advice on where to graze my horses and somewhere to camp!” I said angrily.

  “Turn around, thief ! Get out of here! I will shoot your dog just like that!” he screamed in a mix of Russian and Ukrainian.

  I replied in Russian, “Okay! Okay! I’m leaving!”

  I rode away and felt my way up a gully until safely hidden, and then I made camp.

  My anger subsided only as the last of my pasta settled into my stomach. People here might have suspected me to be a thief or a Gypsy, but it gave me some sense of satisfaction that perhaps deep down in the Slavic psyche there was still recognition that horsemen from the east meant trouble.

  In the morning the sun revealed thick, unruly pasture. Beneath the frozen yellow tops, the grass was still green near the roots. There was also a well in the old village of Mala Dvoryanka, and despite the risk of meeting the old man, I watered my horses there and decided to stay put for the day.

  While the horses grazed I had just enough battery power to start my computer and connect the satellite phone to post an update to Australia. Before I could manage it, however, an email arrived in my inbox. It was from my father and addressed to me, my two brothers, Jonathan and Cameron, and my sister, Natalie. The subject line was “Sandy Point Van Sold,” and it was written in a reflective tone I had rarely heard from him. In it he expressed his feelings about his early retirement. As you know, he said, I took a step into the unknown last year … In retrospect the resignation probably wasn’t a good idea financially … I struggle each day to try and determine what I should be attempting to reach forward for … and it is a major readjustment not having as a goal the care and maintenance of our children.

  For most of his career Dad had worked in outdoor education, first as a field leader, then as a lectur
er, and eventually as founder of a degree program in sport and outdoor recreation at Monash University, Australia.2 As children we were lucky to be taken out with university students on skiing, bushwalking, and sea-kayaking trips. But in the past ten or fifteen years the job had taken Dad into progressively more administrative roles, in which he had struggled with the internal politics of the workplace and a recent decision by management to relocate the program. These stresses were what had conspired to force him to consider early retirement.

  The main subject of the email was the sale of his holiday cabin at Sandy Point—another point of sorrow for Dad. Sandy Point, a summer village on the Victorian coastline where his family was heavily involved in the local surf lifesaving club and owned a block of land, had been his stomping ground for most of his childhood and adult life. In 1999, however, his mother had pledged the block of land to one of Dad’s brothers as a dying wish. This had caused a serious fracture between Dad’s siblings and their father, who felt beholden to her promise. In the interceding years since then, Dad had, in part, resolved his feelings of dispossession by buying a simple cabin in Sandy Point caravan park—a permanently anchored caravan with built-on annex. But now he was writing to tell us he was forced to sell it for financial reasons.

  Dad went on to press us to spend time with our grandfather while he was still clear of mind, and to learn from the schism between him, his siblings, and their parents. He wrote: I can assure you that I do not want to be as isolated (distanced) from my children as mine have been as our family grew up … You are all in the prime of your life with many years of energetic activity to go, but once partnered and with children it would be fun to be near you. The email finished, I wish you well and look forward to sharing your ambitions, joys and sorrows and the sound of your voices in our house. Love, Andrew.