Again. In Turkmenistan, every day is the best day.
We load the horses and go to Ashgabat, this time to the desert and the mountains.
The plan is a seven-hour ride along the route of a 60-kilometre endurance race with a detour into the mountains on the border with Iran.
Life is so comfortable in Ashgabat! It’s a really nice city. White, green and gold. Visually beautiful. Only white cars on the roads. And the roads are beautiful, new, wide and almost empty. Cars older than 2003 are banned from entering the city, and even then they can only be white or light metallic. I’ve heard something about restricting entry to Ashgabat plates only, but I’ve forgotten that.
A teenager telling stories while waiting for the stable boys. How he caused a car accident in the capital and wrecked his dad’s car for a few balls. And he called his dad the night before his birthday, “Dad, I crashed,” and his dad was like, “Well, you’re kidding. If you’re kidding, I’m gonna kick your ass. Who caused it?” And the teenager: “Me. I missed the turn.” Well, in Ashgabat they say there’s no such thing as car insurance, so big bad. So now the poor kid’s paying off his dad’s new car and the guy he hit.
One day forty people came from Afghanistan, all businessmen, Afghan Turkmen. Normally they wouldn’t get visas because Turkmenistan is a neutral country. But it was the Olympics, and they applied for a visa just for the Olympics. And they were giving those to everybody, so they gave them those visas, with the understanding that they could only go from the hotel to the Olympics and from the Olympics to the hotel.
And so a bunch of Afghan businessmen honestly saw every day of the Olympics (which of course they had no interest in) from start to finish. They were not allowed to miss a single hour.
“Do you know there are jigs every Sunday at the circus in Ashgabat?” asks the teenager’s dad.
“No shit, really? Every Sunday? What day is today? I’ve seen them on the internet, they’re awesome!” I blurt out excitedly.
“And where did you see them, on YouTube?” Dad asks.
“Yeah, on YouTube.” I confirm.
“Well, YouTube doesn’t work here, so we have to go watch them live on Sundays. What can we do.” Such damage! I have to say, the Turkmen have a really great sense of humor.
And then we’re off. Through the desert, through the steppes, over hills, sand dunes, through green water channels irrigating the bushes in the desert. The boys play a game called “catch the lizard”, which is that when they see a lizard in the distance, they run after it until it hides in one of the burrows. The lizard zigzags, the rider zigzags. The lizard always wins. We do anthropological research on the dead sheep (read: the guys make an insta-video of it), smoke cigarettes in the desert (smoking cigarettes and tobacco in public is forbidden, so it’s either at home or out of civilization), make stupid videos of each other, and wave at the bucking stallions. It’s such a nice teenage fun, almost like with the girls on the Farm in Cetkovice when I was about 14. Seven hours goes by in no time.
“Maliska zavana krasiva zavana…”
The radio is playing horse vans and the horse boys are sleeping in the cargo area, their heads thrown back. The horses in the back are limping. At every turn, the doors come loose and fall back with a loud slam. And I know this is my place, where I belong, where I’m supposed to be, and where I’m always right no matter what. Slowly, the transporter rolls towards the stable, and sitting among the sleeping, tired stable hands, tears as big as lochadia tears fall between my crumpled bridle and the dusty mess on the ground. It’s a good thing nobody sees. The most beautiful day of my life is about to end, and I’ll have to wait an eternity to experience it again.
