Notes in Kyzyl
As a kid I played games such as: pretend you
are dead as you drift around the crabapple tree in the back yard; pretend that
the stone footpath in the front yard is a walkway through outer space; we
‘ordered’ groceries off a 250-year-old stone post that doubled as a TV screen
from the future in our minds. Indoors, we imagined that we were on a boat in a
cave while only on a bed. I wanted to roam the world to find a true flying
carpet.
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| Shelley Marlow |
As a tree worshipper in my art school
‘Religions of the World’ class, I was fascinated to read about Siberian Shamans
who traveled into inter-dimensional space through the roots of trees. Years
later, when invited to a month long writers fellowship in St. Petersburg,
Russia, I thought to continue my travels further east to meet shamans in
Siberia. The idea of traveling on to meet shamans appealed to my desire to go
to the edge of Western civilization and then jump off that edge. I thought of
Russia as strange not only from what I knew about Russian art and history, but
from my own familial Russian ties. I still do not know enough about my Jewish great-great
grandparents’ pony express in Russia that was closed down after one relative
had printed political tracts against the czar.
From what I had read online about meeting Siberian
shamans, I was under the impression that they would require me to sing… to help
them decide if they could trust you or possibly as a way to read about your
life for you. To prepare, I practiced a few songs and wondered what song might
pop into my head at the moment, possibly a Beatles or a PJ Harvey song.
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| Homage to Shepherd |
I contacted someone named Mergen via email at
tuvatravel.com while still in New York. Mergen would host me in Siberia and
told me about one route to get there, with a flight to Novosibirsk, then a twelve-hour
train ride from Novosibirsk to Krasnoyarsk, after which you catch an overnight
bus, then take a 6 hour taxi ride. This route would all together add up to a
three-day journey. An online advertisement suggested there was a non-stop
flight from St. Petersburg to Tuva. However, the airline’s only airplane, a
Yak, was out of commission. My friend Dan had traveled to meet shamans four
years earlier to Kyzyl, the Dr. Seuss-ian named Siberian city in the Republic
of Tuva. He said the shamans helped to heal his serious illness. Dan suggested
that I would find my way there once I was inside the Russian Federation. He
gave me prints of his photographs of the shamans to deliver to them.
I found Siberian Airlines in the last week of
my time in St. Petersburg, with flights over the Ural Mountains to Novosibirsk,
which is half way to Tuva. I tried to get a seat on an overbooked flight on
Tuvaskya Airlines from Novosibirsk to Tuva. I suggested that they ask for a
jump seat, where the stewardess puts her luggage. On my way from their office,
I stopped in front of the St. Petersburg Ethnographic Museum, to talk with a
guy in a coat made of a familiar yet unrecognizable material. He told me it was
salmon skin leather. I dropped by Siberian Airlines a few hours before I was to
take off and they had found a seat for the second leg of my trip. They said
over and over again, “You must transfer to another airport once in Novosibirsk,
to connect with the flight to Kyzyl, Tuva. You must transfer to another
airport. You must transfer.”
Do you know the way to the Republic of Tuva
Every time I closed my eyes on the 11 pm
Siberian Air flight, I drifted back to another late night party with the other
writers in St. Petersburg. Sounds and lights blurred together with my friends’
smiles in close up, then all disappeared as in a dream or on an astral
projected tour. The flight arrived in several new time zones, which brought the
4 hour flight to land at 7 a.m. in Novosibirsk. I collected my luggage along
with 300 other travelers who pushed and shoved. The cab drivers on the street
didn’t understand my broken Russian question about the connecting airport for
the flight to Kyzyl.
I let that go and sat on a bench away from
the crowds and relaxed for a moment and breathed deep. From a distance, I
noticed one person in the crowd that I was certain would know how I can get to
the other airport. I walked up to a black haired woman and asked, “Kyzyl? Do
you know how I can get to the other airport to catch a flight for Kyzyl?” Then
I moved one hand as if it was an airplane that took off from my other hand.
The woman said, “I am from Kyzyl.” She was
shocked that I found her among the throngs and gestured to imply: that she waited
for the plane from “Moscow” to arrive with someone expected. She would drive
this person to the next airport for a flight to Kyzyl and I could go, too. At
least that’s what I thought she said.
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| Kenin Lopsan |
From behind me, I heard English spoken. I
turned around to find two conservatively dressed Americans from Utah who said,
“We do not speak Russian but you could borrow our NATO translator.” They pushed
a man in a suit towards me, I read his name tag that included the words ‘NATO
Russian Translator.’ He translated the black haired woman named Olga: “I wait
for my niece. Once she arrives from Moscow, you can join us as we drive to my
apartment, eat breakfast, and take naps. Around 1 pm, we will drive to the
other airport for the plane to Kyzyl. My niece must get on the same flight.”
While we waited for Olga’s niece to arrive, I
talked to a 6’2” white haired NATO guy from the Czech Republic, who had also
arrived on an overnight flight. He complained that he had to give a speech at 9
that morning. I talked to him about how to conserve energy. He appreciated my
advice and as the NATO group gathered to leave, he said to me, “Let’s go. Come
on, now.”
I said, “I’m not in NATO. I’m on my way to
Kyzyl, Tuva to meet shamans.”
He waved his arm insistently and said, “That
doesn’t matter. You are with us now. Let’s go!”
I was at a crossroads: Do I continue on to
meet shamans in Kyzyl or go to a NATO meeting in Novosibirsk? NATO or Shamans.
Shamans or NATO? I chose the Shamans.
At Olga’s place, we had a conversation and
passed her Russian to English dictionary back and forth, and with her kids, who
attended summer school to learn English.
Olga asked, “How do you feel that you are a
woman who travels alone, aren’t you scared?”
I said, “Yes.”
Olga said, “Though, you must be magic. How
else would you find me, the one person from Tuva in the crowd of hundreds at
the airport.”
I explained, “That was only the magic of
observation since you were the only Asian woman in the crowd.” We laughed. Later,
her husband drove us to the other airport for the connection of the Tuvaskaya
Air flight to Kyzyl.
On this flight, I did have a small seat that
the stewardess used for her luggage. I met my internet contact Mergen at the
airport in Kyzyl, Tuva. Mergen was slight at 5’7” with a large dark circle over
the cheekbone below one eye, which I thought was a bruise from a barroom brawl.
With a tape of Abba’s Greatest Hits blasted through small car speakers, Mergen
sped through solitary highways that curved through the Steppes, then over and
along the Yenisey River. Stretched thin from my travels, I inhaled the vastness
of the Steppes.
The Russian government shut off public hot
water during alternate summer weeks, so Mergen offered to drive me to a banya.
I expected to go a bathhouse with hulking sweaty Russian women in towels,
somewhere within the tall buildings of downtown Kyzyl. But instead, we drove to
a nearby village with one-story houses and stopped at a brown house with green
shutters where his large brother-in-law lived. In a shack in the backyard, the
brother-in-law had built a fire under a water barrel, where they left me alone.
My mind wandered back to Olga who said, “Aren’t you afraid to be a woman who
travels alone?” For a moment, I wondered how anyone would know what happened to
me if I was murdered in that little shack in the middle of Siberia. Tired and
sweaty ~ I disrobed. I found pots of cold water to mix with the heated water,
soap, and shampoo. My fear and stress were washed away. Once dressed, my feet
found the mud and grassy back yard. Mergen invited me into the main house for
tea and cookies.
Some things had been lost in translation
online in my dialogue with Mergen. Mergen wrote that the local hotels sucked
and that I could get an apartment with internet and breakfast for $20 a day. Which
turned out to mean that I would stay with him and his family. Their living room
was simple with blank walls, a hand painted table, a couch, and bookshelves.
Mergen’s wife put together huge breakfasts with blinis, fresh fruit, cucumber
salad, and tea. Russian gangster rap blasted out of Mergen’s adolescent
daughter’s room. She came out to watch the grrrrrl superhero Sailor Moon, from
Japan, on TV dubbed in Russian.
Mergen’s wife showed me a photo album that
included a photograph of his foot where he’d lost two toes from frostbite. The
‘bruise’ on Mergen’s cheekbone that I thought was from a barroom brawl, was also
from frostbite. His wife and kids laughed when they saw the photograph of his
foot. They laughed at each other’s suffering, which unnerved me. The average
winter in Siberia is minus 27 Celsius. Mergen acted as my translator. Whenever
Russian police were nearby, Mergen whispered, “Pretend to be a Russian person
and do not speak English.”
Shamans Nadya and Oolya Ool
I showed Mergen my friend Dan’s photographs
of the shamans. He phoned a few people who led us to find Nadya at the Dos Deers/The
9 Stars Shaman Center that had a few rustic brown wood one story blue trim and
dirt floor buildings, a yurt, and a banya. Nadya had a long narrow nose, broad
cheeks and black hair in the photographs. But her hair had since turned white. The
three of us sat at a table inside of the yurt. Kind and open faced, Nadya told
me that one of my grandmother’s was a shaman, even though she didn’t know it.
She also told me that I am a shaman. She offered to teach me how to make a
shaman’s coat.
I read Nadya’s palms outside, as we sat on a
log. As a palm reader, I get visions over physical reality, then translate
these visions.
Nadya gave me a jaw harp as a gift, which she
didn’t know how to play. I tried and couldn’t make music either, as a rugged
wiry guy with sensitive eyes walked up to us. His head was shaved except for a
long braid in the back. His name was Oolya Ool. Oolya put out his hand and took
the jaw harp, and then played a very fine, clear song. Oolya played a resonant
rhythmic melody that vibrated in his throat, chest and head. Nadya looked deep
into my eyes, then pointed upwards to the sky to one hawk. Then several hawks
joined that hawk and made wide circles above us. The group of hawks floated
close above. Two of the hawks sped into the center of the flock, then gently
smashed into each other in a joyful dance. When Oolya stopped the music, the
hawks flew away.
Kenin Lopsan
The next day, Mergen and I met the Republic
of Tuva’s figurehead shaman: Kenin Lopsang, in his office behind the local
Ethnographic Museum among 3000- year-old moustachio-ed carved stones. I waited
outside of his door for the right moment, since Kenin had a reputation as
temperamental from several journalists that wrote about him online that he yelled
at and chased away. He welcomed me in. I gave him the photographs of himself in
a green robe taken by Dan Asher. He invited me to take more pictures of him and
to choose what he would wear. I picked a purple silk robe and a purple hat
decorated with snakey shapes. He flirted with me and flashed a triumphant
smile, and asked if I would be his young girlfriend.
Kenin stood in front of a bookshelf full the volumes
he wrote on shamanism. Also on the bookshelf was a sculpture of a tiny horse
and a demon; a bottle of vodka; a tape recorder; letters; and other papers and
a calendar. He gathered shaman’s stories and songs in secret while he survived
interrogations by the secret police of Stalin.
Over 700 shamans died in Gulag prisons. Buddhist
Temples in Tuva were destroyed and broken hearted Buddhists fled the city, some
lived in caves.
After 1989, Kenin organized the usual solitary
shamans into a supportive Shaman’s Society. Kenin suggested that I work with a specific
shaman. Mergen called that shaman on the phone to set up a time to meet at the
Shaman Center.
The next morning, we met the shaman, who
turned out to be Oolya Ool, who I’d met a few days before and played the jaw
harp.
(more about Kenin Lopsan: http://www.shamanism.org/fssinfo/livingtreasureKenin-Lopsan.html, and another Shaman site: https://thepowerpath.com/)
Oolya Ool
Oolya spoke of how he first met Kenin Lopsan.
He walked down Lenin Street outside of the Ethnographic Museum, with his son.
Kenin ambled towards them with his head down, until he stopped right in front
of Oolya. Then Kenin popped his head up with a startled expression in
recognition and surprised Oolya, too. They hugged. Kenin invited him into the
Shaman’s Society to get shaman assignments.
Oolya Oon told of how as a nine-year-old, he
had climbed up an invisible ladder. He climbed in mid air in front of other
children, who were frightened and ran home.
Soon after, he fell ill and was untreatable
by medical doctors. Oolya described a busty shaman with deep-set eyes, dark
thick eyebrows and a prominent nose, who took him home to heal. She returned
him fully recovered to his parents after three days. She told them if he
practiced shamanism as a young man, then he’d have a short life. She predicted
that he would be safe only if he waited until he turned 36. He said could read
auras at 24 but didn’t fully become a shaman until he turned 36, which
coincided with Perestroika.
In 1620’s, the Russian government fought over
territory near the border of Mongolia. Miles long tea caravans and herders
dominated the then dirt roads that connected Mongolia with Siberia. After
Perestroika, former herders picked up where their ancestors left off, to herd
horses, yak, cattle, and reindeer. Soviet’s claim on Tuva melted away, Tuva’s
newer officials chose to stay part of Russia. Around 2005, the Russian
government defunded Tuva’s local television news and tourist board without
explanation.
Oolya Ool read my future with stones. He arranged
stones into sets of twos and threes and then into rows in a square. He invited
me to go with him on a road trip to take care of a recently deceased shaman’s
tree. But I had to pass since this trip would start the day after my rare
flight home. Instead we set a date before my departure to have a ritual so that
I could learn how to read the stones.
Goncherov
I had one more photograph to deliver to a
gray haired shaman with delicate eyes and hands named Goncherov. Goncherov had
a reputation as a great storyteller and said he would tell me some of these
tales on my next trip to Tuva. We were invited inside of his scrappy house,
where he constructed shaman’s drums that were sold in Sweden. We drove
Goncherov for a ritual to a sacred site called Beaver Springs. Tough bulky men
exited as we arrived. Goncherov put on his shaman’s coat made of animal skins, strung
with bells, ribbons, a bear claw, multi-colored woven strands, and a dark blue
wool panel in the back dotted with stars. A felt and feather headdress was on
his head. He laughed loudly on that summer day about how hot it was inside of
his shaman’s coat and boots. A Russian family’s disapproving gaze let us know that
they considered us a freak show(that I was happy to be a part of). A healthy
and cheerful elderly man bowed with obvious immense reverence for Goncherov.
Goncherov built a fire and offered cheese and
flour to the spirits. The flames danced into shapes of spirits. We hiked up a hill
to a tree at the source of Beaver Spring. We tossed milk in the four
directions, just like some Pagan and Native American rituals. I tied a prayer
silk on a tree branch and meditated on my father who’d died a few years before.
Back by the fire, I removed my glasses and Goncherov relayed messages from
spirits with helpful information such as that I should wear a little bit of red
daily to put off aggressive people. After I placed my glasses on again, colors
and the landscape appeared to be more vibrant and clear.
Nadya
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| Nadya |
I rested in the passenger front seat as
Mergen drove us up to the Shaman Center door. Nadya met our car and with a
sliver moon smile, reached in the car window and gave my arm a squeeze and
pressed her fingertips on my heart center right after I thought about how much
I liked her. Nadya had other work to do before our visit and introduced me to
another shaman who was from ‘Tiger Mountain’. While other Tuvans share eight of
nine kinds of DNA with Navaho. The people of Tiger Mountain have DNA completely
in common with Navaho.
Nadya was ready, I followed Nadya inside of
the yurt for my lesson in how to make a shaman’s coat. Nadya had a wand that
she gently slapped against all of her joints counted 13. She told me these
points are also open chakras that are connected to the heavens, too, not just
the crown center(on the top of your head). She also said that 13 is a great
number.
Nadya drew the details of a shaman’s coat and
explained that the 9 metal stars correspond with the planets in our solar
system and that Tuvans have been aware of astrology and astronomy for
centuries. There were eyes on the coat as well as on a shaman’s hat. She told
me about various skins, fur and feathers. Braided fabrics and ribbons represented
pathways to the spirit-world, as well as water, fire, air and earth. I
remembered a bundle of ribbons in thousands of colors used for divination by a
witch that I met years ago.
Nadya had invited Dan, my photographer
friend, to stay year round, but he didn’t want to experience the intense
Siberian winters. He mentioned that a patient of Nadya’s hunted and brought to
her a bear in the middle of one winter. When I tried to confirm, there was a
communication breakdown between Nadya and Mergen, and her answer implied that
she did not do anything out of the ordinary, or illegal.
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| Oolya Ool |
My last days in Tuva
Oolya Ool requested that I go out to a remote
area of the Yenisey River to find 41 stones to read. Instead, Mergen wanted to
go to the big park in the center of town. We wrestled with words for a while, exasperated,
until I figured out that he wanted more money for gas to get to the remote
area, which totally made sense, and I agreed.
On a gorgeous day, I collected smooth black
stones along a remote area of the Yenisey River. After, Mergen led us up to the
top of a nearby mountain with sage plants that grew next to miniature gold bark
birch trees straight out of the Arabian Nights. We could see horses that grazed
on the summer greens and nomads with a herd of sheep on the foothills miles
away by the Yenisey River.
On my last day, Oolya Ool taught me how to
read the stones. We performed rituals in four locations, north, south, west and
east. Before we left Kyzyl, we shopped in a large indoor and out door market
for thin Buddhist scarves to tie on branches of a sacred tree, small bundles of
dry cedar.
Mergen drove to us out of town to a nine-foot
round boulder that marked the center point of Asia. Oolya found sparkled sugar
cookies shaped like like Russian dolls from a nearby tea stand. We prayed and
then tossed milk on these doll cookies on the boulder.
Oolya said to think of my immediate circle of
family and friends and to say a prayer for them. I prayed for everyone that I
knew. Oolya told me to increase the circle, saying a prayer for my
neighborhood, which I did, and felt my heart expand. We drove in the opposite
direction, and performed a ritual at Beaver Springs. The final location was in
a delicate grove of trees where horses and a colt grazed quietly. I was asked
to include everyone in my city and my country. And then similar to a Sufi
meditation, to extend prayers to this galaxy and to whole the universe. I tied
a yellow scarf on a tree branch next to other’s slips of cloth, some with
prints of horses or flowers, and some, rags with prayers handwritten in pen.
Oolya suggested that energy and spirits
inhabit the stones. He said the spirits approved and that I could learn to read
them. We took into consideration the shapes of the stones, which stones sat
together, and what these relationships mean. Mergen and I took fast notes and
then Oolya performed other rituals so that people would believe me when I
returned home.
As we drove on a bridge, Oolya Ool thanked
the river below. None of the shamans had asked me to sing, as I had expected.
But the windows were open and I sang into the wind and looked up from the car
window. Again, several hawks circled closely above us, then crashed softly and
easily into each other in an elegant dance. The hawks followed the car for a
long time.
This piece originally appeared in the St Petersburg
Review, issue 3, 2009.
All photos by Shelley Marlow except the portrait of Shelley Marlow by Alice O'Malley.
All photos by Shelley Marlow except the portrait of Shelley Marlow by Alice O'Malley.
© Shelley Marlow
Shelley
Marlow is the author of Two Augusts In a Row In a Row (Publication Studio, Portland) 2015. Marlow's writing and visual art is found
in several publications including LTTR (Lesbians To The Rescue), alLuPiNiT, an
environmental magazine, Drunken Boat, saint-lucy.com, and the St. Petersburg
Review. Marlow’s paintings were recently exhibited at Artmarket Provincetown and
Valentine Gallery, NY. Marlow wrote the lyrics to the musical, UnKnot Turandot, La Mama Theater, NY;
and presented an interactive project, International
Witch Stories in the Italian Pavilion for the 48th Venice Biennial.
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