Central Asia III: Eagle Hunting in the Chon Kemin Valley

October 10, 2021 reminded me of why I adore traveling.  After a drive along the ancient Silk Road, we spent the afternoon and evening at Kemin Guest House in the Chon Kemin Valley near the Tien Shan mountains.  The owners were friendly and charming, and they entertained us with a cooking lesson, demonstrations of Kyrgi felt-making and embroidery, and an eagle-hunt.  They constructed a yurt on their front lawn, and then disassembled it, purely for our benefit.  And then, for one last treat, a prize-winner from the national Manas recitation contest provided a dramatic presentation of a portion of that epic.
 

We stopped at Burana, which used to be a major stop on the Silk Road.  It was the place where the camel trains from the west shifted their goods to trains of donkeys to ascend the steep and rocky mountain pass through the Tien Shan Mountains into China.  Fahrod explained that the camels’ leathery feet would be torn up by the rocks on the trail through the mountains.  Donkeys with hoofs were needed.  A tall brick tower was the only building left from those Silk Road years.  It seemed huge, but it was only half as tall as it had been in Silk Road times.

We also wandered through the small Burana museum, with its antique Chinese coins with holes in the middle and bits of pottery, and we took pictures of the “bals”, or stone tombstones with carved faces, in the nearby field.  Those predated the Arab invasion of the 670s, during which statues and paintings depicting human beings were destroyed.

We paused, during our ride, next to a Russian jet, turned into a monument.  Apparently, a military base  was nearby.  During Soviet Union times, the wide open Central Asia spaces were used for nuclear tests, space exploration, and other military and scientific ventures.  Russian lift-offs for the International Space Station still occur in nearby Kazakistan.

As we finished lunch, workers assembled by Aziz, the guest house owner, began putting up a yurt in the front yard of the guest house. They first laid the bright red stakes around the sides, in a circle about 20 feet in diameter.  They then wrapped matting of reeds around the sides of the yurt, followed by felt, as insulation.  And then they constructed the top of the yurt, with stakes that bent towards the center hole in the top, which was left open to the sky. We gathered inside, when the yurt was done, to admire its artistry.  “Now we’ll take it down,” Aziz said.

Felt rugs and scarves are a fine art in Kyrgyzstan.  An elderly relative of Aziz demonstrated her skill in inserting rolls of felt into silk scarves, and in creating felt rugs with intricate patterns.

She also showed us how she made intricate appliqued fabrics, traditionally used to cover the front doors of yurts.

Friends and relatives of Aziz gathered at the guest house on this Sunday afternoon.  One of the guests wore her elechek headdress.

Several young girls were dressed in Kyrgi finery.  When we asked what the special event was, Aziz told us, "They just like dressing up."

We drove to a field where eagle hunters and archers were gathered to show us their skills.  We were introduced to the two eagles, who had been removed from their nests as chicks and trained by their trainer.  “It’s like a father and daughter relationship,” the young male trainer said of his nine-year-old female eagle.  The eagles were huge and hooded, to keep them calm and focused.  Young men took the two eagles to the top of a hill and then set them loose to soar back to a rodent skin being waved by the trainer.  The eagles were returned to the top of the hill and were then sent soaring again towards us.  This time, the trainer set loose a furry rabbit.  “Sometimes the rabbit gets away,”  Fahrod told us, but this time it did not.  Just as the rabbit realized its danger and leapt into the air, the eagle sliced it with its talons in mid-jump, and the rabbit was dead and bloody within seconds.  The trainer let his eagle eat some of the rabbit, but kept the rest to serve to it later.  The trainer explained that he kept the eagle a little bit hungry so it would always be a good hunter.

We watched, in the kitchen, as the cooks made small, square scones that are cut from dough and then fried.  They are served at nearly every Kyrgis meal.  We noticed a pile of homemade noodles and a pot of simmering meat and vegetable soup which were mixed together and served to us for dinner as “Lachman.”  As we eat each meal, I am planning, in my own mind, the menu for my Kyrgis meal.

Dinner began with salad and fruit, and then continued on to the scones and "langman" (noodle soup).

After dinner, we watched as a “Manas-chi” did a recitation from the Kyrgis national epic.  He was a young fellow and spoke with enormous passion and many hand movements. Reciting the Manas epic is an art form in Kyrgystan, and the young reciter had just won a prize at the national festival for his recitations.