Brazen Babushkas & The Soviet Steppes
Part 2: Many marvels of Kazakhstan and traveling horseback through history
Hey there—read Part 1 if you haven’t yet: Arriving In Strange Places
I was beyond excited to visit Kazakhstan—my first time traveling overseas since before Covid—and finally see my dear old friend and his charming family after so long.
But confessedly also in some large part because of the Dan Carlin series on the horse-nomadic steppe peoples of yore (i.e. Mongols, khans, etc). I’d heard so much about the region and its founding history…envisioned those high rolling landscapes supporting massive herds of horses and their tenders born in the saddle, horseback archers who inspired the western myth of the centaur.
Which meant yes, I was also really excited to try horsemeat. I’m a devout follower of the When In Rome doctrine of gustatory travel. Apologies for any squirm that causes…
But it was goddamn delicious.
Don’t worry, there’s plenty to love about Kazakh food aside from the horsemeat. Even a devout vegan could get along nicely, though you might be tempting the babushka spirit to descend upon you with a full-length jabber about the omnivore imperative.
But Almaty is a bustling cosmopolitan city, with just about anything you could hope for. Except interestingly enough, no McDonald’s. Putin’s war in Ukraine caused some weirdness with the corporate supply line of beef here, so they instead found it locally—and the places that were once McDonald’s are now:
Too many playgrounds?
I know this doesn’t seem plausible…but listen: there are so many playgrounds in Almaty that on a 5-block stroll with the younguns you actually have to negotiate terms for skipping some, in favor of better ones later.
Perks of socialism roots? Or do Kazakhs just love their children more as an administrative body than we Americans do?
One hazard you’d never expect is the omnipresent babushka of the block. An older lady self-appointed who patrols her playground at primetime, in a zipped-up jacket and handknit hat no matter the weather. Gnarled hands clasped behind her back, hunched a little and menacing yet somehow statuesque and noble.
But god forbid your kid shuck their jacket or socks at some point—the babushka will spot it immediately and swoop in on you with a stern lecture about cold feet and sickness. Patiently repeating herself into your Google Translate app and waiting with a generational frown while the machine struggles with the meaning and metaphor of this rhapsody of angsty expression rolling out on the screen leaving you no less confused than before.
Nodding spasibo with a smile and ushering your kid onward to the next playground. Dosvidaniya!
Babushkas are everywhere in Almaty, in the streets, on the benches, aboard buses…where they’ll notice a transgression—like your shoe touching the base of the bus’s handrail—and switch on like some steampowered klaxon gone rusty, laying a proxy war on your senses for all the soviet bullshit she’s endured in her day…while the two local youths in the seat behind try to quiet her rant in quick Russian, and laughing in English tell us, “Don’t listen to what she says.”
All just part of the aural scenery here. Where you can see both the benefits and the downfalls of leftover soviet expression, in stark relief in the streets and sculpture and faces of the people.
Horseback in the steppes: dreams come true
We fled the grey concrete city for a bit to see some nature, hiring a tour-agency driver for an overnight excursion into the nearby steppe land. He spoke little English and we were just fine with that.
Among other incredible sights, the tour included a short horse ride up a steppe mountain pass to a lake, with a guide on foot alongside. Basically one peg above a carnival pony ride in a fenced corral—but if you squint just right, you’re still horseback in the steppes of Central Asia. You’re basically Genghis Khan. Or at least one of his captains on the march.
I learned a new word recently: hyperfantasia.
It’s why yours truly sat rocking confidently in that saddle gripping the reins like I was actually controlling my horse—scanning up and down those steep, scree-strewn hillsides and suddenly saw arrows darting out of nowhere, heard chaos and shrill whinnying, smelled blood and tasted fear and felt the cool breeze stirring those scanty little trees alongside offering no cover, leaning low behind my horse’s neck returning fire uphill lefthanded…
Trapped!
But then the guide walking alongside clucked and whistled and swatted at my horse which jolted to a slow trot, freeing me from my reverie to concentrate on not bucking my innards and outtards to bruised and jellied ruin with the rough jouncing trot rhythm—trying to remember what I’d once learned about posting in the stirrups. High, low, always in control…
Thankfully it was a short ride across the little creek to the paddock where we dismounted and sauntered cowboy-like back to the van and onward to our next destination.
Our phones that day showed lots of extra steps, incidentally; recording the horse’s double footfalls as our own. Not that you’d ever dream of cheating a little on your goals or anything…but now you know.
Later as evening fell, we pulled up at our guesthouse in a rustic valley village and settled in for dinner and a full-blown political philosophy conversation with our Kazakh driver, through the miracle of GoogleTranslate.
More on that in Part 3: Formalism, Fascism, and the Federation of Planets