By Shamil Zhumatov

“Don’t run! Slow down! Just don’t run!” I repeated this non-stop to myself like an incantation. Indeed, it is hard even to pace quickly – let alone run — when you have to breathe in the rarefied air and wear a supplied protective helmet and brand-new rigid boots with steel toes.

I also had to look out for giant trucks the size of three-story houses chugging around. It was difficult to keep my emotions under control during the few hours on this tight assignment. I was at an altitude of over 4,000 meters above sea level near the Chinese border, inside a huge open-pit gold mine at Kumtor, Kyrgyzstan’s largest gold asset, operated by Toronto-based Centerra Gold. Gigantic trucks and excavators worked non-stop in the snow-clad pit, looking like characters from a fantasy movie. As if playing a computer game, an excavator operator elegantly manipulated small joysticks – just five scoops full of ore, and almost 200 tones were loaded into a truck in about one minute.

In line with Centerra Gold’s tough requirements, I passed two medical checks before I started working at these giddy heights. A day before, we had to stay for the night at a guest house located at about 1,700 meters above sea level to get accustomed to high altitudes before ascending to Kumtor. The gold mine is the world’s second highest-altitude gold deposit after Peru’s Yanacocha mine. Some vehicles never even stop their engines in these ferocious conditions of Arctic tundra and permafrost.

Finally, the work of hundreds of workers, dozens of huge machines and the state-of-art gold-extracting mill reached its logical conclusion accomplished by just two workers. Moving like extra-terrestrials in their silvery heatproof overalls and helmets, they slowly poured dazzling, bright orange molten gold from a crucible into molds.

Minutes later, four bars containing around 80 percent pure gold and worth $2.6 million were ready for polishing. A worker wearing a mask closed the curtain of his glass booth to polish a 20 kg bar inside.

I saw gold dust shine in the light of bright lamps illuminating the booth. After being photographed as though they were prestigious models on a catwalk, the four shiny bars were then stamped and sealed in massive vaults. I have seen batches of banknotes worth more than $2.6 million, but beyond all doubt, gold bars look much more attractive!

When I left the hot melting shop, I saw a crystal clear sky over the Kumtor mine outside. As our team prepared for the 400 km (248 mile) ride back to the Kyrgyz capital Bishkek, I raised my camera to shoot a final general view of the plateau. In the bright sunlight, a few tiny specks of gold dust were still glittering on my lens and camera.

Ahead of International Women’s Day, Reuters decided to prepare a feature story about an unusual woman. We filmed Makpal Abdrazakova, apparently the only female golden eagle hunter in Kazakhstan. I’ve known Makpal for many years through a variety of hunting competitions. I called her home in the village of Aksu-Ayuly, central Kazakhstan, and we quickly agreed to a photo shoot within the next few days, as she had to leave to participate in a regional festival in the south of the country.

A heavy snowstorm blanketed our path. Kazakh authorities often shut down inter-city roads during harsh weather, as on this occasion. Our time frame was shrinking. As soon as the travel ban was lifted, we hit the road. After a quick night drive across Almaty, we turned north. The GPS kindly announced: “Keep driving for the next 500 kilometers (311 miles).” This made us laugh. We had to drive a total of 870 kilometers (540 miles) and were hoping to make it in about 10 hours. We finally did.

Our visit to Makpal’s house was an example of the ancient tradition of Kazakh nomadic hospitality. You will never be asked about your business before a warm dinner, usually late in the evening. Our attempts to spend the night in the village hotel were immediately rejected.

We decided to document Makpal at home on the first day and training a bird outside Aksu-Ayuly on the second day. During a short interview, Makpal told us how she became a berkutchi, the Kazakh word for a hunter who works with an eagle.

“Eagle hunting in my family began with my father, Murat, who learned the traditions from elders in Almaty region,” said Makpal, who became involved at the age of 13. “At that time, only my father handled the bird. I began to feed her, but I didn’t get too close. When I grew used to her, my father got the approval and blessing of elders for my berkutchi career. Since then, I have been handling my Akzhelke. She is 10 now.”
The Kazakh eagle is one of the world’s fiercest, with a wingspan of 6.6 feet, razor-sharp talons and the ability to dive at the speed of an express train — up to 190 miles per hour).

“The bird can be difficult, but if she gets used to her master, who tames her, she learns,” said Makpal. “She begins to understand human language, and further training is easy. If the bird has a good relationship with someone, she begins to see the person within her master. People often ask me if it is difficult to be the only female among men hunters. I’ve grown accustomed to this. Elders and respected hunters blessed me some time ago and I’m still getting their support. They teach me things and now welcome me for competitions. We hope that in future the number of women berkutchi will grow. It will be good for the sport.”

Makpal, 25, recently completed her lawyer education in Karaganda. Asked how she plans to combine office work with bird handling, she said “I don’t need to give up being a berkutchi. I will do both things at once.”

We had all seen the bare shelves in the shops. We knew that many constituent republics had declared their independence. But this was still my almighty Soviet Union, the only country this 20-year-old photojournalist from Kazakhstan had ever known.

So why had 10 national leaders rushed to my capital city, Alma-Ata, on December 21, 1991? Who were these hordes of journalists and photographers jostling for position and shouting questions?

It was one of my first assignments for the Kazakh Telegraph Agency. The night before, I sat in the agency’s darkroom splicing 300-metre rolls of film and inserting it with great care into cartridges, 36 shots at a time.

We didn’t work with factory-made rolls of film; this was the Soviet Union. Painstaking preparation was part of the job, especially before any major event.

And this was certainly major. Even my seasoned colleagues had had few opportunities to photograph national leaders. Party congresses, military parades, even New Year celebrations: these happened in Moscow, events we watched on television.

Less than two weeks earlier, the leaders of Russia, Ukraine and Belarus — the Slavic core of the Soviet Union — had signed the agreement that dissolved the country and created the Commonwealth of Independent States (CIS).

Although the alliance wasn’t closed to other republics, when we in Central Asia heard of it, we felt cast off and betrayed. Shouldn’t we also have a say in the fate of our country? The excitement and freedom of independence would come later; right now, we were frightened children clinging to the coat-tails of our parent.

WHAT IF?

Nursultan Nazarbayev, the president of newly independent Kazakhstan, mobilized quickly to ensure our country and a host of other newly independent republics were brought into the fold.

He met one leader after another at the snowbound airport as they arrived to sign the declaration that would bring the number of countries into the grouping to 11.

It seemed everyone who arrived was in a rush. Even now, when I edit my pictures, I can see the worry etched on the faces of the Kazakh statesmen of the time. What if someone were suddenly to change their mind, snatching away the security Moscow had always provided?

Two lonely protesters stood in the snow outside the hall where the signing would take place, holding posters decrying the end of the Soviet Union. “Shame on the Destroyers of the USSR!” said one. “Down with the CIS!”

Our shared Soviet heritage was all that bound us together. Even the name of the new alliance sounded strange. We could appreciate the idea of “independent states”. But a “commonwealth”? Between a set of ethnically divergent countries, two of which — Armenia and Azerbaijan — were already engaged in a brutal conflict over Nagorno-Karabakh?

Inside, the grandiose ceremony had begun. Never before had I seen so many KGB officers gathered in one place. Its 9th Department, which was responsible for guarding dignitaries, had a lot of people to look out for.

And so many journalists! Some photographers had brought ladders to climb above the crowds — a device I would use countless times over the next years, but something I’d never seen before that day.

Russian President Boris Yeltsin was the most charismatic of all the leaders present. His words — and he spoke a lot — were accompanied by animated hand gestures. People shouted questions at him on the move. For a photographer, he was a great subject.

Yeltsin’s individual style contrasted sharply with that of the ranked officials around him. Even the Trilby he wore was at odds with the thick fur hats of other leaders.

After the signing ceremony, the leaders stood for a group photograph. One journalist shouted to Yeltsin: “How are you feeling?”

He grinned and gave the thumbs-up. With a single click of my mechanical Nikon F2, I realized that a new time was upon us. I was recording history.

STRANGE FILM

Before writing this article, I was scanning my old black-and-white negatives in a photo store in Almaty, as Alma-Ata is now called. The other customers were printing out pictures taken on their mobile phones.

“What a strange film! I can’t even see any picture numbers along the perforations,” said the curious sales assistant, too young to recall the 300-metre rolls with which I once worked.

At 40, I have now spent half of my life in the Soviet Union and half in independent Kazakhstan. The second two decades have brought changes unimaginable during the first.

The Soviet Union gave me much for which to be thankful: an education which could not be bettered today, and the well-built apartment blocks that my parents still call home.

But gone are the fear and uncertainty — my own and Kazakhstan’s — I remember from that day in December 1991. They have been replaced by a maturity and an independence that comes from facing and overcoming your challenges.

We have both grown up.

(Writing by Robin Paxton; Editing by Sonya Hepinstall)

Every visit I am overcome with mixed feelings. On one hand, even 50 years after the first manned space flight, space remains a sphere of high technology and garners special attention. But the storm of the Soviet Union’s collapse left its indelible mark on the map of the spaceport. Abandoned and rusting construction, giant structures and mechanisms are silent witnesses of the space complex’s era of glory. Nostalgia resonates in every story about the history of Baikonur. Space exploration has never been a simple technological development. Everyone who served personally conquered space and the service is overgrown with tradition cherished to this day. There is no policy or ideology in it. It is rather a particular style of the Soviet, now Russian, cosmonautics. Simple and quick solutions were chosen in the race for supremacy in space. Sometimes it seems to me that there is no nanotechnology that can force these cherished orthodox methods to be abandoned.

Only here is the giant rocket assembly hangar with precious technology cleaned with the help of a simple handmade swab; exciting a creative impulse in approaching photographers.

A story at a museum about a lead pencil that Soviet cosmonauts used in space, against the complicated orbital pens invented for zero gravity in the United States, elicits special pride. At Baikonur, industrial technology is closely intertwined with romance, nostalgia and even superstition.

On October 24, 1960, an accident with missile R-16 claimed many specialist’s lives. On October 24, 1963 another accident occurred this time with rocket P-9. Now October 24 is a day off at Baikonur.

Since the days of chief designer Korolev, rockets are always rolled out to a launch pad at 0700 regardless of the weather and the season.

The crew always watch the movie “White Sun of the Desert” one day before the launch. On the launch day, the crew depart from the hotel for a final 6 hour pre-launch preparation with an accompaniment of the same song.

Nevertheless, time goes on, even if sometimes it feels like that it has stopped over at the spaceport. Life brings new traditions. Now, an Orthodox priest blesses the Soyuz spacecraft set up on its launch pad. This was hard to imagine during the Soviet period. Recently, the ceremony has become quite a public and widely covered by the press.

Another quite modern tradition began when the Roscosmos (Russian Space Agency) announced a children’s competition to draw the mission patch. The contest winner gets a trip to a crew launch as a prize. I imagine the winning child will grow up with a space dream.

After covering many launches at Baikonur, I have a dream as well. I want to watch the launch! I find a camera exposure is a perfect filter for emotions. Also, editing pictures at night in the desert requires a lot of attention. I’ve photographed many space ships and provided a glimpse to our readers. But I have not experienced the delight of my first start. I have only heard a rocket’s voice and it is incredibly fascinating. My colleague, his first time seeing how the Soyuz pierces the sky with three humans on board, burst with emotion and shouted: “This is ……..!“ Well, Russian language is rich with informal expressions. His cry of joy spread across the world… by the live broadcast camera standing next to him.

The Soyuz TMA-02M launch at the Baikonur cosmodrome, June 8, 2011. from Shamil Zhumatov on Vimeo.