Coohkboohk sat on a steel-framed single bed covered in thick woollen blankets and yak skins. Her frame was so frail than she appeared almost weightless.
Her face was the colour of dark leather and so furrowed that she her whole features had with time become frozen in a symphony of emotions ranging from surprise, to extreme tranquillity, to the purest gentleness. Her slanted eyes were tiny and almost disappearing being the heavy curtains of her eyelids, but sparkling like the river rushing alongside her ger. To us Coohkboohk was the mountain itself, so shaped and coloured by her environment as to emanate it within and without. We were in the Valley of the Goddess and Coohkcboohk was the Goddess.
At Coohkboohk’s feet sat her son Volodya, smiling proudly, encouraging us to drink more of his delicious yak milk, and eat yet another bowl of sweet curds.
His niece Kuruz, her long black plait swinging softly past her waist, was filling up bottles of milk for us to take home.
Then Marc took out his flute and began to play. The sound of his music filled the soft, circular interior of the ger. The whole family sat rapt and smiling in respectful silence, Koohkboohk’s eyes luminous in the gloom, fixed on Marc’s flute.
Rain begun to fall outside, drumming lightly on the felt cover and falling in brilliant dust through the round opening at the centre of the roof.
A ger is a little circular house made of felt. It is so robust and warm that no matter how demented the mountain weather outside, inside it the atmosphere was almost womb-like in its calm and warmth. In the middle sat a rusty stove in which our hosts were burning flat cakes of cow-dung. In a circle, along the walls of the ger were two beds and a cooking stove. Saucepans were neatly hooked-up on the wall above it, with next to it large bags of flour and dried curds. Kuruz piled a plate high with the flat golden breads she had just baked for us and more milk was poured into our bowls. We talked of our countries and families, but every times we offered thanks for the extraordinary hospitality we were shown we were only met with slightly surprised looks, as if gratitude was not expected of us in the least. Upon arriving we had offered the family some gifts of rope and horse blankets, also a good stainless steel shackle I had taken from my boat. The rope was Volodya’s favourite. He suspended it to his belt and kept stroking its soft fibres. Bringing rope as a gift, or anything to do with horses was a splendid idea given to us by Tim, an Australian friend who had already spent close to ten years in this part of the world and twice travelled the whole length of Russia and Mongolia, once on a bicycle and once on horseback, a trip which took him from Ulaan Bator to Hungary and which lasted over three years. Tim had spent much time with the Nomads, Kazakh Nomads such as Volodya’s family among others and knew much about their customs.
Volodya’s family owned six hundred and fifty horses and almost the same number of horses and cattle. They owned several winter corals as well as this ger, in which they spent the summer, high in the mountains where the pasture was rich for their herds. Volodya had seven children and was himself one of five. Koohkboohk was the elder and matriarch of the clan, much loved and respected babushka. Koohkboohk spent her days looking over the goats, enveloped in her perennial calm and the aura of her resplendent smile.
When it was time to leave we were accompanied by the two young boys Amoohr and Agailek, who were in charge of escorting us to the safest place to cross the river to get back to the truck and our camp.
Saying goodbye was not easy. Even in two short visits to the ger and such a short time in this miraculous land we had already become so attached to our hosts that the realisation that we had to leave the next day and travel to Tashanta and the Mongolian border left us dreamy and a little sad.
We had journeyed so far to find these people.
We had journeyed so far to gaze into their eyes and learn some of their mysterious ways to live in this world in such a light way.
What we learnt in meeting them we cannot put in words, or film, or pictures.
They left in our heart an indescribable feeling of peace and hope for the future of the world. We live at a time when most scientist and environmental specialist tell us that we are doomed, that human beings are the cancer of the world. Yet upon watching these people live their simple, rich and peaceful life one cannot but feel that it is possible for a human to leave no mark upon the world.
For thirty thousand years men had lived in this valley, yet the valley had remained unchanged, or perhaps unchanged by its inhabitants if not for the general effects of Global Warming which, Volodya explained, had made the permafrost of Mount Talbooash melt to barely a patch of grey ice over the past ten years, something that had never happened before, he explained. Now the river flowed faster and the shape of the valley begun to change. More and more often, spring would come too early and then freeze again, creating a hard layer of ice, which the animals couldn’t break. Every year, Volodya lost hundreds of animals. For some herders of the Altai, the situation sometimes meant that they would loose most if not all their herds in just a few days, leaving them to starve. The effects of these disrupted weather patterns are felt all throughout the world, yet in fragile eco-systems such as the Altai it is quickly becoming disastrous. The Nomads have done nothing to contribute to this deterioration of the world, yet they are some of the most directly affected by it.
Once, walking alone in the mountain I came across the print of a ger in the soft ground. Around the abandoned camp were scattered a few bones and a tiny felt shoe, forgotten behind. These were the only evidence that there ever were people living for months in this place. A soft print in the grass, a few bones, a leather baby shoe that they had stitched and embroded themselves, with you could tell just by looking at it, all the love in the world… these were, with an oval pile of stones which marked the grave of a dead, the only visible testimony that this had been a whole family’s home, just as all the mountains around were their home, since the beginning of time.
There is no electricity in the steppe or the mountain, there is no running water, or TV or phone, yet these people have so much in just the way they are.
As we packed up to leave we saw Agailek and Amoohr playing near the river. They stood on one leg and tried to capsize each other, a simple game which absorbed them completely. The sound of their laughter followed us far along the trail back to civilization, high and pure in the mountain wind.
Her face was the colour of dark leather and so furrowed that she her whole features had with time become frozen in a symphony of emotions ranging from surprise, to extreme tranquillity, to the purest gentleness. Her slanted eyes were tiny and almost disappearing being the heavy curtains of her eyelids, but sparkling like the river rushing alongside her ger. To us Coohkboohk was the mountain itself, so shaped and coloured by her environment as to emanate it within and without. We were in the Valley of the Goddess and Coohkcboohk was the Goddess.
At Coohkboohk’s feet sat her son Volodya, smiling proudly, encouraging us to drink more of his delicious yak milk, and eat yet another bowl of sweet curds.
His niece Kuruz, her long black plait swinging softly past her waist, was filling up bottles of milk for us to take home.
Then Marc took out his flute and began to play. The sound of his music filled the soft, circular interior of the ger. The whole family sat rapt and smiling in respectful silence, Koohkboohk’s eyes luminous in the gloom, fixed on Marc’s flute.
Rain begun to fall outside, drumming lightly on the felt cover and falling in brilliant dust through the round opening at the centre of the roof.
A ger is a little circular house made of felt. It is so robust and warm that no matter how demented the mountain weather outside, inside it the atmosphere was almost womb-like in its calm and warmth. In the middle sat a rusty stove in which our hosts were burning flat cakes of cow-dung. In a circle, along the walls of the ger were two beds and a cooking stove. Saucepans were neatly hooked-up on the wall above it, with next to it large bags of flour and dried curds. Kuruz piled a plate high with the flat golden breads she had just baked for us and more milk was poured into our bowls. We talked of our countries and families, but every times we offered thanks for the extraordinary hospitality we were shown we were only met with slightly surprised looks, as if gratitude was not expected of us in the least. Upon arriving we had offered the family some gifts of rope and horse blankets, also a good stainless steel shackle I had taken from my boat. The rope was Volodya’s favourite. He suspended it to his belt and kept stroking its soft fibres. Bringing rope as a gift, or anything to do with horses was a splendid idea given to us by Tim, an Australian friend who had already spent close to ten years in this part of the world and twice travelled the whole length of Russia and Mongolia, once on a bicycle and once on horseback, a trip which took him from Ulaan Bator to Hungary and which lasted over three years. Tim had spent much time with the Nomads, Kazakh Nomads such as Volodya’s family among others and knew much about their customs.
Volodya’s family owned six hundred and fifty horses and almost the same number of horses and cattle. They owned several winter corals as well as this ger, in which they spent the summer, high in the mountains where the pasture was rich for their herds. Volodya had seven children and was himself one of five. Koohkboohk was the elder and matriarch of the clan, much loved and respected babushka. Koohkboohk spent her days looking over the goats, enveloped in her perennial calm and the aura of her resplendent smile.
When it was time to leave we were accompanied by the two young boys Amoohr and Agailek, who were in charge of escorting us to the safest place to cross the river to get back to the truck and our camp.
Saying goodbye was not easy. Even in two short visits to the ger and such a short time in this miraculous land we had already become so attached to our hosts that the realisation that we had to leave the next day and travel to Tashanta and the Mongolian border left us dreamy and a little sad.
We had journeyed so far to find these people.
We had journeyed so far to gaze into their eyes and learn some of their mysterious ways to live in this world in such a light way.
What we learnt in meeting them we cannot put in words, or film, or pictures.
They left in our heart an indescribable feeling of peace and hope for the future of the world. We live at a time when most scientist and environmental specialist tell us that we are doomed, that human beings are the cancer of the world. Yet upon watching these people live their simple, rich and peaceful life one cannot but feel that it is possible for a human to leave no mark upon the world.
For thirty thousand years men had lived in this valley, yet the valley had remained unchanged, or perhaps unchanged by its inhabitants if not for the general effects of Global Warming which, Volodya explained, had made the permafrost of Mount Talbooash melt to barely a patch of grey ice over the past ten years, something that had never happened before, he explained. Now the river flowed faster and the shape of the valley begun to change. More and more often, spring would come too early and then freeze again, creating a hard layer of ice, which the animals couldn’t break. Every year, Volodya lost hundreds of animals. For some herders of the Altai, the situation sometimes meant that they would loose most if not all their herds in just a few days, leaving them to starve. The effects of these disrupted weather patterns are felt all throughout the world, yet in fragile eco-systems such as the Altai it is quickly becoming disastrous. The Nomads have done nothing to contribute to this deterioration of the world, yet they are some of the most directly affected by it.
Once, walking alone in the mountain I came across the print of a ger in the soft ground. Around the abandoned camp were scattered a few bones and a tiny felt shoe, forgotten behind. These were the only evidence that there ever were people living for months in this place. A soft print in the grass, a few bones, a leather baby shoe that they had stitched and embroded themselves, with you could tell just by looking at it, all the love in the world… these were, with an oval pile of stones which marked the grave of a dead, the only visible testimony that this had been a whole family’s home, just as all the mountains around were their home, since the beginning of time.
There is no electricity in the steppe or the mountain, there is no running water, or TV or phone, yet these people have so much in just the way they are.
As we packed up to leave we saw Agailek and Amoohr playing near the river. They stood on one leg and tried to capsize each other, a simple game which absorbed them completely. The sound of their laughter followed us far along the trail back to civilization, high and pure in the mountain wind.
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