elusiveworld

A century later this form of shamanism is still practiced deep in the taiga on the borders of Russia/Mongolia. There is a very real element of mysticism in the lives of the families who dwell in these lands. Call it animist sorcery if you will, it is easy to cast cynicism from the other side of a screen in a culture far removed from essential survival practices in a hardy environment. In such places, sorcery and spells replace movies and fiction. Shamans and ghosts replace GP s and antibiotics. It is simply another method of human interaction with the cosmos. Perhaps more direct than the thick layered soup of culture which clogs the minds of us in the west   –         P.S. Deerskin  ’On Antiquated Cultures’.

Two days ride from Orosvoi’s cabin we reach the foothills of yellow mountain. This is on the border of Russia and Mongolia. The men are collecting precious stones and stop for a discussion about the Almas.  Up here in the mountains they say the Almas is landlord of all.

Orosvois’ shack is square in shape. A log cabin on the edge of the forest. The floor, when studies after a shot or two of vodka, is most uneven.  Divided into a carpeted section at the back and a wood panel floor at the front, the carpet is like the relief of the rough steppe. After all, that is where we are.  After the second bottle of vodka is cracked, a heated discussion ensues.

Not far from here there is a stone formation, which changes all the time. From day to day the stones move. No one knows who moves them, it is a mystery. They believe that a supernatural force is at work here. That maybe it is the chotgor.

They say chotgor and yeti are the same. Yeti flies like a bird in the night making strange screaming sounds. In the year of 1982, the year Orosvoi married his wife, they were near Tengis tourist camp theye heard it.

As Orosvoi repacks his root-hewn pipe, the men talk of the stones as having divining powers. If you see colourful stones the future is good, if you see none. Then nothing.  He is hunched under a deel with a small torch studying a precious stone. Rising from the deel he coughs up a lungful of phlegm and necks another shot.

Orosvoi is trading in precious stones. a kind of transparent rock called khash which the Chinese use to make jewellery with medicinal properties. tomorrow we ride for he Russian border in search of these rocks. Spirits are high. There will be six of us .   Orosvoi and his son, Ghandii, Batmunkh, tuc and myself.

Tareg is served. It is a delicious natural yoghurt made from curd. Orosvoi’s speech sounds close to a song. He is drunk on vodka and happy.

A day’s ride from Tsaganuur brings us to the Lkhagvaa family winter camp.The path to this hidden spot winds through forests for three miles. They are in a copse above the river. The location provides shelter during the harsh winter months when the summer pasture is too exposed on the open steppe.

Inside the ger we are greeted in the traditional Mongolian fashion – salt tea and biscuits around the fire and a discussion about our journey.  The wife and son are happy to see us and go about their chores with beaming smiles while we settle in. It is warm in here. The circular walls are lined with functional essentials – two cots. an alter containing family items, kitchen, central hearth etc. All this can be packed in a day and moved to new pasture.

Outside the ger goats are housed in a circular paddock and beyond the goats horses graze freely on the range.   I bring out a bottle of vodka from our baggage and it is happily received.  We rest here tonight.

As the sun drops below the trees and the family settles in the ger, Ghandii arrives.  He is a traveller of the north, aquainted with many locals and on his way to collect stones from the mountains near Russia. His riding boots are so patched that he looks like a ragbag, and is hard as nails. In the morning he kills a sheep for our meat supply on the journey.

That night talk turned to myths.  When Ghandii was young, he and six friends heard the voice of the chotgor bird. It was a malicious, frightening and loud sound which surrounded them in the forest. Then as quickly as it arrived it was gone 10km down the valley.

But a more convincing story occurred on November 5th 2003 near Burkh Eeleg Lake in the Western Taiga. Ghandii and Ghost (the original shaman) were walking across the frozen lake to find a fishing spot. When they looked behind them their footprints were red. The icy footprints in the lake looked like they were soaked in blood above 50 inches of ice and 10cm of snow.  Ghost performed a ritual for their protection, but an explanation was never found for this phenomena.

With talk of legends and a bottle of vodka drunk i pass out in the corner of the ger. During the night I dreamt of unearthly gibbon-like creatures passing in the forest. Their heads were covered in fur and they were gentle looking with big ears like those of a bear. They walked upright with a grace that suggested extra terrestrial intelligence.    Not far from this gibbon-like bunch I paid homage to a group of human/wolverine creatures who lived on the fringes of humanity. I could not tell if this odd smooth-hair covered bunch were clad in anmal hides or if the hair itself was growing from their skin. The shapes of their faces were not human, but some strange hybrid of smooth-furred animal and man.   My imagination was running wild…

The cat, of which there are two in the ger, brought in a mouse last night. With a pair of tongs, the famiy friend removed the rodent from the home. Two cats are employed here for rodent control.

Our guide arrives leading two horses behind his stead. He stops at the log house and ties his horses. In his fifties, with a sturdy gait, a slash below one eye, ragged deel (the traditional mongolian overcoat) and orange sash. He walks into the canteen.

The police have cuffed the artist to a post in the town square by his wrists. He is wild and screaming with rage,on his knees, raising his hands to the sky. His wife ashamedly takes the order from the guide in the canteen.  The guide carries two heavy duty leather satchels, a carpet and extra deel for sleeping rough in the mountains.

In the canteen a Tsataan elder sips tea from a goblet.

It is no word of a lie that Tsaganuur is a bad town. The very title of this district – Darkhad Depression – is enough to drive a man to drink and onward quickly to his grave. Few survive long out here. Those who hack it through the winter do so only by the bottle – vodka is vital currency here.   We carry five litres. One for each of our hosts along the way. Invariably these are consumed within the first couple of hours of meeting when we sit at the hearth of our hosts. And a shot is beyond western measures, averaging 500ml.  A couple of those helps stave of the cold, but brings a fire to the mind of the locals.

Tsaganuur is a violent town, with remote hospitality.  It took twelve hours to get here by jeep from Moron and before that a further 24 hours by cramped russian minibus from the capital. From here there is only horseback to carry one further into the wild and the realms of the reindeer herders.

In this outpost, there is nothing more than a sinking feeling as the piercingly harsh beauty of the landscape overwhelms you. At an altitude of 1500 metres and sunk below the surrounding mountains, the very energy of the place is low and deadening. Fighting for breathe in the dry air the people here choke on the first sip of vodka to touch their lips.

From this town we begin our expedition into almas country to find what tales we can of creatures that go bump in the night, folklore to keep the kids from straying too far from the camp.

Rancid with ten days of sweat on our backs, we cross the river by ferry at the head of the lake. The ferry man is licked on Russia’s finest and extorts a 2500 tug toll for the passage. The ferry operators are a hardened outfit who take payment of livestock from locals who cannot afford the toll. As the cold river swirls below the wooden ferry, we hold our horses steady by the bits. A man fires up his motorcycle engine and lurches off the ferry onto the track and winds his way up towards Tsaganuur. Our guide tells tales of the fear conjured by the Tsataan nomads. Tales of theft and murder. in the hardest of winters when it drops  50 below zero and they are shivering in their teepees with no flour or meat to eat, desperate Tsataan have been known to leave the forest and raid homesteads on the steppe often stealing herds of cattle from Mongolians.  One such story goes that an outfit of reindeer herders came in from Russia bearing rifles and knocked out a whole family beofre marshalling their herd back north to the taiga (forest).

The reason our guide, a gentle man with an easy smile and hardened hands ( he rode ten days with a fresh bone deep knife wound to his finger) is friends with the Tsataan families is because he fears them. When they come down to the steppe during hard times and beg for flour, he obliges them. He is a kind hearted fellow. In turn they greet him on their land and this is why we were able to access the most remote reindeer families in the forest.

Tales turn to the recent news of a dead Scandinavian fisherman found in the river near here. He had strayed from the tourist settlement and allegedly slipped and drowned. One time two Mongolian geologists went missing in the taiga. Their skeletons were found two years later. they had been shot. It is clear that mineral perspectors are not welcome here.  Another point - Russian border patrol have the right to shoot anybody who crosses the border illegally. We were camped 2km from their and our company were moving secretly through the hills seeking out precious stones for the Chinese market.

Such myths as the Almas add to the mystique of this land, but the daily stories of death become something akin to drinking a cup of salt tea. This is a dangerous and wild land. I’d like to stay longer.