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On October 26th we boarded a tiny plane at the Friday Harbor Airport and began a 27-hour commute half-way around the world for... the weekend.
Crazy, right? Well one thing I can say about weekend trips to 12-hour-difference-time-zones is that by the time your brain has become really truly confused, you're due to go home anyways.
This is what Ashgabad looked like when we arrived the night of October 27th:
See those clouds? It was a warning to us of what would come.... brrrrrrrr!!!!
The weather in Turkmenistan was cold.
October 27th - 29th, 2011 was the 20th anniversary celebration of Turkmenistan's independence from the Soviet Union, and the opening of the President's newest hippodrome... which we had visited in April when it was still in the works:
During this trip we were guests of the Turkmen Atlary, which is Turkmenistan's national ministry of horses, and our room was on the 10th floor. We had a great view of the city... its many fountains laid out like a wiggling display of geometric art. Some interesting quirks about touristing Ashgabad--taking photos in public is still widely discouraged and in some places strictly forbidden. People rarely eat out, bars as we know them are nearly non-existent, and tipping is illegal. You can, however, buy liquor by the bottle at the local outdoor market... and guests might expect to be served cognac before breakfast, and vodka with lunch.
Here's a view of the main entrance to the Turkmen Atlary:
In attendance was a group of approximately 20 breeders, professors, and association representatives from various countries. It was exciting to see familiar faces and exchange stories from the past six months. We were delighted to see a woman we remembered from the HORFA expo in Shanghai, who is an executive at the China Horse Industry Association... and she recognized us, too! And there were also a few whom we hadn't met before, including a fascinating European geneticist, and the vice president of The Equestrian Federation of Kyrgyzstan, who is a breeder of Akhal-Tekes himself. In contrast to our experience at the conference in April, this smaller crowd was more or less a gathering of minds... with the Akhal-Teke breed at the forefront of every conversation.
(Read more...)
We ate most of our meals at the Turkmen Atlary... here is an example of a usual lunch:
The rice was cooked with carrots and mutton. It usually came with mutton soup, and sometimes sides of sausage or pastries filled with cheese or meat. Being a vegetarian.. I ate a lot of vegetable and fruit dishes like you see on the right. There was always some seasonal salads with cucumber, tomatoes, and platters of fresh herbs. They also served fresh fruit and some of the most succulent melon I have ever tasted. The flesh was the color of very ripe honeydew, but the rind was more like a cantaloupe... and it had a taste that I just couldn't get enough of. The bread was all hand baked and very tasty, too. In the mornings we had rice or wheat porridge, always with lots of coffee and tea.
But on this trip.... no vodka!
On the afternoon of our first day we had an "open program," so Amrita and I took the opportunity to have a walk around Ashgabad. We first went to the Russian bazaar since we had been there before and knew the way. But on the way back, we were stopped by a soldier and came to understand that we were not allowed to continue walking up that street. He pointed in the direction he wanted us to go... so we followed orders and took the scenic route home! Less than a block from the magnificent marble palaces, lushly green parks, and effervescent fountains of the new Ashgabad, was a run-down neighborhood from its recent past.... tucked just out of view from the main avenue.
And on these streets... no soldiers!
And on these streets... no soldiers!
These funny trees were everywhere, spilling their hairy fruit all over the ground. They must have tasted even worse than they looked... because not even the birds were bothering with them!
Peeking over walls was like gazing into another world... not far from the fancy 5-star hotel we stayed at in April was this scrap-yard of poorly animals:
The next day was the grand opening of the new hippodrome. We had a wake-up knock on our door at 5:00... which was amusing as Amrita and I had already been up for over an hour (jet lag... the only occasion when I voluntarily get out of bed before 5AM!). We boarded a bus at 6:00... and since it was too early for breakfast, we left without eating. After an hour and a half on the bus and another two hours of waiting in our seats at the hippodrome... we were starting to get very, very hungry. We were grateful for the granola bars I had packed in my purse, because aside from some meat-filled pastries and soda pop... no food was served until late that afternoon. (Travel tip for vegetarians... skimp on clothing so you can stuff your suitcase with protein bars. If there's nothing for you to eat, at least you won't starve!).
The opening celebrations included the presentation of three Akhal-Tekes (buckskin, palomino, and grey) as gifts to the president by their breeders. We were seated high in the bleachers, behind huge glass windows... so taking photos proved to be a challenging endeavor. I never got a good one of the grey, but to the right & below are the other two...
And then, of course, was the races!
We had fun trying to get good shots of individual horses. There were many different colors and body styles. Even as breeders ourselves, it's only in Turkmenistan that we get to see this many Akhal-Tekes in the same place and time...
The winning jockeys of each race rode their horses to the winners circles so that they could be presented to the crowds...
We felt sorry for the horses, who had to stand in the rain and wind, sweaty from galloping, without coolers or blankets. We were told that only a week before we came it was sunny and in the high 80s!
For the second time in one year... I was interviewed on Turkmenistan National TV. The reporter asked me to talk about where I was from and what I thought about the new hippodrome. I never had the chance to watch it air on TV, but some of the other guests said they saw it in the official broadcast of the event.
Inside the main building was an art exhibition:
We took lots of pictures of the paintings...
This was one of my favorites.... I love how the people are so tall and narrow looking:
This horse has a blue eye:
When the races were over... it was finally time to eat. We were soooo hungry. And much to our surprise... the kitchen was outside! The cooks prepared the food using traditional clay ovens and a brick fire pit. Buried in the hot ashes there was meat roasting and bread baking. The bread is shaped like a very large pizza crust, but much thicker and very dense. They poked holes in the dough with a big skewer so that it baked evenly. 
Lunch at the hippodrome was 3 meals combined into one... the dishes just kept coming and coming... soon everybody was stuffed but couldn't stop eating. Afterwards we wandered around the grounds for an hour or so before returning to the Turkmen Atlary. In a bus full of exhausted travelers... myself and the driver were the only ones awake on the drive back to Ashgabad. And by 6:30 pm Amrita and I were already asleep in our beds!
The next morning a group of us took taxis outside the city to a big open-air market. We divided ourselves into three groups... making sure our Russian-speaking friends were dispersed equally! In Turkmenistan, anybody with a vehicle can act as your taxi if they chose to do so. So all we had to do was stand on the side of the street in the direction we needed to go, and wait for someone to pick us up. It's like hitch-hiking... only it's not free. And the driver can charge you whatever he chooses! Luckily, the exchange rate for USD is very good, so even with an inflated price... it was still far cheaper than you could ever hope to pay for a taxi in the States.
Everywhere you go near Ashgabad... you can expect to see fountains:
And statues...
Believe it or not... this was our 3rd and final day in Turkmenistan! We arrived back from the market just in time for lunch, after which we were taken for another visit to the hippodrome to see some Akhal-Tekes. To the right is what the main stadium (where we watched the races) looks like from the side.
The hippodrome is near the mountains, and that afternoon the rain was turning to snow...
We were not expecting it to be this cold and unfortunately did not bring appropriate clothing!
Had I known it was going to be colder than at home in Washington, I would have brought an entire arsenal of winter woolies. We shivered in the bleachers of an indoor jumping arena while they brought in a series of horses. Amrita and I packed light for this trip, which meant no fancy cameras. My little camera didn't like dim indoor lighting... so I was only able to get a few good shots:
Afterwards we took a walk through the grounds. It was very interesting to see all the work they had completed in the short six months since our first visit. We were eager to take take a look inside the horse barns... but it was only after we had been shown literally everything but the actual horses in their stalls did our hosts allow us to (briefly) enter one of them. Inside were half a dozen horses, and empty stalls for at least ten more. These were different horses than the ones they'd just shown us, and all were very high-quality... but with an alarming percentage of injuries. We we were happy to see they wore stable sheets, since the weather was so unusually cold and none of them had winter coats. The barn had vaulted ceilings, spacious box stalls, and thick bedding. The horses were fed on a diet of oats and alfalfa... and interestingly, free-choice water was not provided in the stalls but rather rationed out like feed. Buckets of water sat outside each stall door, which (I assume) were poured into built-in troughs at intervals. 
Outside the barn was this 6-horse Mercedes camper van... on a whim I snapped a shot of it as we were ushered from the stables:
Before long we were departing from the hippodrome for the last time (on this journey, anyways!).
We took one more photo of a statue in the desert...
And soon we were on our way home!
Our flight left Ashgabad at 3:15 AM on October 31st.
Twenty-seven hours of traveling and a twelve-hour time difference later, Amrita and I touched down safely in Friday Harbor just in time for Halloween.
~~~
To read about our other adventures in Turkmenistan, please visit the following posts:
The International Akhal-Teke Horse Breeding Association
The President Rides & An Akhal-Teke Beauty Contest
The Races
A Bigger-Than-God-Himself Hippodrome-In-The-Works
The Circus
The Stud Farms
The Russian Bazaar
4 COMMENTS:
I am almost salivating over the art. I had never seen Akhal Teke art until I read your blog. Beautiful! The odd fruit tree looks like an Osage Orange or Hedge Apple. The fruit is a good insect repellant.
Thanks for the feedback Mindy!
Great info on the fruit... I have never seen an Osage Orange before!
One thing I would like to add - my friend told me that in Spain the water is also rationed. Horses are provided water twice per day. How strange!
The 6 horse van you showed is also typical of the high end rigs here in Germany. Where do rich horse owners sleep if they bring horses in such a rig? Probably in a hotel - I have never seen a living quarters trailer in Europe.
Love the art and the food has my mouth watering!
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