4.2. Recording Sazgen Sazy musicians; Exotic Americans

musicians from Sazgen Sazy, ethnographic folk orchestra
Guarding the old square
Sandra Powers, rare appearance in front of lens

Post by Eugene Moon; photos by Sandra Powers

Today we will record the musicians who will play a song for us at another hotel, the Intercontinental, subtitled ‘Ankara in Almaty.’ Three of the musicians were in traditional costumes. We set up the video and audio equipment by the back wall of the dining room, which has a maroon color that contrasted with the bright colors of the musicians' costumes, which were very beautiful. The instruments they played were the dombra, kyl kobyz, and Abai dombra, which has a flat body and a more elongated pentagonal shape, with three strings instead of two. We filmed them four times, with Delora (Timur's original host mother in the U.S.) using the slate. I used the boom pole, this time, over my head instead of at mid-level. It was easier to hold this way and less painful than when it was over my head. I managed to keep the mic above my head and not let it get into the shot. That was the hardest six minutes for my arm in my life. At least I was compensated by hearing the wonderful traditional instruments being played while filming. I would like to get a recording of it for casual listening.

After filming, we returned to the old square where the festival was yesterday. Since the square was blocked off until the evening dance festivities, we went to the park behind the square, where there were a lot more people and vendors. Now people started staring at us, but I think mostly at Sandra and Delora. There was a Russian man blatantly taking photos of us and I counter-photoed him. Who's the tourist now? Sandra was the center of attention because of her American looks, with her peach-colored vintage hat which people called her cowboy hat (or cowgirl, to be specific, since she had tied a ribbon on it). I would not be in the center of the circle if it were not for Sandra needing my help. I think I would have blended in with the crowd because my clothes were slightly similar to what the young men were wearing. (I noticed that the younger men all wear the same type of clothes: zipped up jacket, tight designer pants, boot-like shoes, and short hair. The women show more diversity in their fashion choices; some were wearing short skirts even in the snow.) Being encircled by staring strangers felt as if we were a strange attraction in a fair or zoo. It's amusing that tourists who travel to a different country to come see exotic landscapes end up being the exotic ones for the inhabitants.

4.1. Kumys and Shumbat; Koreans in Kazakhstan

Daniel, Delora, Timur
Almaty snow-scape
Timur in repose

Post by Eugene Moon; photos by Sandra Powers

When I returned to the hotel, it was nearly time for brunch. The food they served was mostly traditional Kazakh food, like pilov (the name of the same rice I had yesterday), bishpermak, shumbat and a type of beef and noodle soup served only during Nauryz. The most intriguing food items are kumys and shumbat. They are both milk-based drinks that came from horse and camel. Shumbat has a cheesy taste and some bits of curd. Kumys has more layers of flavor. After drinking the thin liquid, the aftertaste just charged at me. Mild and sour, kumys resembles a liquid version of qurt. The taste of it lingered and then turned slightly alcoholic at the end. In fact, kumys is fermented horse milk with a 2-3% alcohol content. I enjoyed the drink, served in small bowls holding between ½ - 1 cup. After drinking only two cups, I started to feel slightly dizzy. Timur's dad, Viktor, who joined us, cannot drink due to driving safety concerns. Bishpermak, a kind of Kazakh pasta, consists of sheets of folded pasta (like lasagna), onions, and horse meat---really delicious. Even though it was oily, I would have eaten more of it if my stomach were not full. There was so much good food there, especially non-Kazakh food, like sushi, french fries, and chocolate ice cream.

Speaking of sushi, a waitress thought I was Japanese after I said “thank you” to her in a mixture of Kazakh and Russian and she responded in Japanese. She was the first Kazakh who thought I was Japanese, while everyone else knew I was Korean. There are a lot of Koreans in Kazakhstan. They did not choose to live there but were deported in the 1930s when Stalin labeled them as spies for Japan. Many Koreans living within the Russian borders of Manchuria were deported and most seem to have lost any knowledge of the Korean language (Hangul), and speak Russian instead. Here, they are called Koryo Saram, while we Koreans call them Goryuh-In. However, Koreans I’m encountering during my stay here can speak Korean; they were likely visitors rather than inhabitants of Kazakhstan, as I see them in tourist places and hotels.

3.2. Nauryz festival; meeting Mara; qurt

Sandra. Camel.
Mara, Sandra, Timur, Daniel, Eugene
Timur looking for extraterrestrial life in a yurt

Post by Eugene Moon; Photos by Sandra Powers and Daniel Corral

After we went to our hotel to change and rest a little, we went to the Old Square, where they were holding festivities for the Nauryz festival. We arrived at the square and crowds of people were in attendance, listening and dancing to Kazakh pop songs, eating free food from the vendor, and riding horses. We met with Mara, director of the festival---a boisterous and friendly woman. She gave us a tour of the festival and told us the origins of Nauryz. The holiday, Nauryz (different from the Persian Nowruz), was created by Turkic people as a new year event to celebrate the arrival of spring. She showed us the inside of a yurt display, demonstrating what Nomadic life was like. It was a very large yurt, and could have been a nobleman's yurt, and there was a lot of fabric, furniture, and belongings. Although the display was not made of felt, we were out of the cold for a while. We kept on walking and saw a falconer with an eagle perched on his arm. It was wearing a helmet that covered its eyes. The helmet, according to Mara, is worn to protect visitors, because the bird is only comfortable with the owner and if it were to see a stranger, it would attack in self defense. It was fascinating to see it flap and spreads its wings while the falconer walked away blending with the crowd, while the wings were visible until it disappeared, as if from some movie or a dream. As we departed, Timur suggested that we try qurt, a type of cheese that contains a lot of calcium. It tasted sour and tangy. I have to say, it is funkier than the taste of dolmas, and I like the flavor of both. Mara kindly bought each of us the qurt balls.

3.1. Almaty National Park Reserve; elusive rural kumys; bird rescue center

Timur B., Daniel C., Eugene M., imbibing airan

helmeted steppe eagle
high-protein eagle cuisine

Posted by Eugene Moon; photos by Sandra Powers and Daniel Corral

Timur, Sandra, Daniel, and I departed at 11 AM to go to the Almaty Lake and the Observatory Tower in the Almaty National Park Reserve, with our new driver, Ivan, a Russian with a warm disposition who seems to understand a bit of English. Before entering the park, we encountered a fancy looking golden fountain at the center of a roundabout and a large elaborate gate flanked by pillars that looked like something from Caesar's Palace. It was actually the entrance to the First President's Park, built exclusively for the first and current president, Nursultan Nazarbayev. There was a hill in the center of the park with what appeared to be two Acropolis-like buildings, built for the president as a retreat, and a place to write his books and memoirs. There are buildings, restaurants, and cottages lined up along the streets that are built like medieval castles and forts.

After hiking up a small mountain, we decided to go in search of kumys, an alcoholic drink made from fermented mare's milk. The pure kind of kumys is found in rural areas or on ranches, while the factory-made kumys, available in the city, is diluted with water or cow's milk. We headed for a ranch near the entrance of the Reserve. When we got there, we were told that the mares weren’t ready to be milked for kumys for two more weeks. That was disappointing, but they did have airan, a milk drink similar to keffir. It’s not yogurt but it has the texture and taste of sour yogurt.

The ranch also happened to be a bird rescue center, with owls, hawks, falcons, and eagles native to Kazakhstan. The steppe eagles, tethered outside the cages, look amazing and fierce. They make a weird sound similar to a duck. Another striking creature: the Griffin Vulture, a large majestic white vulture. It has a large wingspan and it wasn't happy with its situation, gnawing at its tether. When it tried to fly away, one can see how long its wings are. We were also shown a Bearded Vulture, which looks like an eagle and is known for eating bones and dropping them from high ground. These are the largest birds I have ever seen and their wingspan is 10 ft! Their eyes look menacingly monstrous and frightening, as does their appearance and color. Sandra described them as "hardcore."

The tour guide wanted to show us more animals, and she brought us us to a building that housed rats. She told us they are raised as food for the birds since they have more nutrition than chickens and chicks. Next, she showed us two wolves, who were painted red, and looked like they just killed an animal. I thought they fed them a whole deer before she told us they were painted like that for a film. The last cage held a black wolf, which looked more like a dog than a wolf. In fact, I have heard black wolves are actually part dogs, since pure wolves cannot produce black colored offspring. It must be true, because that wolf really looked and acted like a dog. Daniel and I are grateful for all the work Timur and Sandra have done to bring us to Almaty and to the Reserve and to Almaty, and to give us such a memorable adventure from this unplanned excursion.

2.2. First rehearsal of cantata

Eugene Moon with boom; kil-kobyz
Daniel Corral, Timur Bekbosunov, Maestro Zhamat Temirgaliyev rehearsing the cantata
Sazgen Sazy rehearsing the cantata

Post by Eugene Moon; photos by Sandra Powers

At the rehearsal hall, we were greeted by the sound of the dombra played by a musician rehearsing her part. As we started recording the rehearsal session, the reality of being a boom pole operator began to hit me---with searing pain in the arm. Despite the ache in my arms and heat in the room, it was countered by the euphonious sound of the cantata. It was phenomenally wonderful. Brilliant and beautiful. It is a wonder how a non-Kazakh can compose a cantata so well that she knew how to put the music, instruments, and folk songs together. I have to say, I congratulate you, Anne. Well done! A round of applause to your virtuosity as a composer. I very much want the soundtrack and DVD of the cantata to turn out well, as it is something worth listening to and watching.

Sandra and I went back to the hotel to do some transcription. The transcription I have to do is to write down all the dialogue and speaking from the intro of Sandra's film, "The Nomad's Song," so that it can be translated into Russian for the audience on the day her film is shown. Later, we interviewed a bayan (similar to accordion) player, and the player of the kyl kobyz, a type of violin played like a rebab with a hollowed-out body and made of horse hair that creates a distinctive sound like the morin khuur (Mongolian cello), but an octave lower.

2.1. Museum of National Instruments, Panfilov Park, Zenkov Cathedral

Anne LeBaron at the Museum of National Instruments, Almaty (2008)
Panfilov Guardsmen Park
Zenkov Cathedral

Post written by Eugene Moon; photos by Viktor Bekbosunov and Anne LeBaron

Today we visited the Museum of National Instruments, originally an outpost building for 19th century Russian imperialists. What's inside is incredible: all the Kazakh instruments of various shapes, sizes, and ages, like the dombra, kobyz, adyrna, and zhetygen. The museum also displayed other multicultural instruments like Saz, Sitar, Yue Qin, Gadulka, and the smallest Gayageum I have ever seen.

We then left the museum and walked into Panfilov Guardsmen Park, featuring a memorial for the 28 soldiers who died defending Moscow against German tanks in WWII. With its eternal flame and sculptures of soldiers in defense stance, it’s a good depiction of the social realism style. Zenkov Cathedral, a Russian Orthodox church, rises like a fantasy fairy-tale structure near the memorial. It had survived the wars, and was converted into a concert hall during communist rule, before being restored to the control of the Russian Church after the collapse of the USSR.

We kept on walking and got to the old square where they are setting up for Nauryz. (Nauryz is one of the oldest holidays on earth, and is celebrated as the first day of renewed life that comes with spring.) It was quite an interesting sight to watch a woman screaming a slew of directions in Russian from the center stage, over a microphone, to dancers wearing their traditional garb in the freezing wind. I wonder how fast they can learn in such low temperatures.

1.1. Introduction to this series; Arrival in Almaty

Daniel and Eugene
Timur the young Octoberist

The following posts, for the week leading up to March 25, are being written by Eugene Moon (CalArts, BFA 3, School of Art). Sandra Powers (CalArts alum, Film / Video) took the photographs. They're part of the U.S. delegation to oversee, document, and participate in the March 25 Almaty premiere of my new work, "The Silent Steppe Cantata," along with Timur Bekbosunov, tenor, producer, and administrator, and Daniel Corral, assistant to the composer. Sandra, our filmmaker, is creating an art / documentary, "The Normad's Song," and Eugene Moon serves as production coordinator. They arrived in Kazakhstan yesterday, after their looooonnng flight from Los Angeles.

We were greeted in the morning with a nice breakfast from the Rixos Hotel's restaurant/buffet. The food did not literally greet us but it is one way to put it since we can eat breakfast for free because the sponsor paid for it. They have Western food, like waffles, scrambled eggs, croissants, etc. The best is boiled horse meat. Very delicious! Really good texture. It tastes like Turkey ham but better. After we ate, we all walked to the copy store, which is a few blocks from the hotel. The air was cold and it burned our faces, freezing our noses and ears. It is spring at this time of year around the world but here it seemed to be just past the middle of winter. Snow is still present everywhere. One can see icicles hanging off from roofs. After business at the store, we went to a currency exchange to replace our dollars with Tenge. One dollar is about 146 T.

Our first foray into Kazakhstan was to the Tien Shan (Heaven) mountain range. To see the powdery snow glitter and glisten in the sun was beautiful. The sky was bright and blue, a strong contrast to the sky in Almaty, which was foggy and gray. We went to Medeo first, a skating rink, where we recorded families skating with the children while Kazakh and American pop music blared and music videos were playing on the large mega screen. We left Medeo and headed on up to the peak of the mountain. Because it was foggy in the city, the horizon where the city of Almaty should be was blocked by gray haze and we could hardly see the city at all.

We drove down back to the city, which got brighter and a little warmer. We stopped by to take a look at a conservatory once called Palace of Pioneers, an art and entertainment hall for Soviet youths. (Timur attended as a young Octoberist, a level younger than Pioneer.) We drove on to the circus. The city is filled with many advertisements with local products as well as Western merchandise. So much of the architecture looks simple and Soviet-like while new buildings, like skyscrapers, stand out. The whole environment and mood of the city is simple and humble but at the same time, quite high tech and advanced.