whether they would help me build a loom in Misha’s workshop. They seemed agreeable but kept putting me off. I didn’t want to be too pushy, so I let it drop, thinking they would eventually get around to it.
While I waited for the loom, I went shopping for yarn. I woke early on a Sunday – my only day off, since Turkmenistan had a six-day work week – and rode an ancient, crank-started bus to the Tolkuchka Bazaar, a sprawling jumble of booths and stands, tin and canvas, on a patch of scrub-desert outside Ashgabat. Everything was for sale there, from jeans and CD players to antique Soviet rubles and ancient pottery, from bicycles to books, from wrenches to frying pans. I crossed the parking lot, which was just a patch of empty sand, and followed the crowd through a maze of fruit and vegetable sellers who were squatting in front of piles of tomatoes, cucumbers, pomegranates, kiwis, and basil, laid out on mats on the ground.
Under the tall brick arch that marked the entrance, a chorus of babushkas called out: “Change money? Change money?” On my right was a pile of brooms as big as a sleeping elephant, on my left, a woman was telling fortunes with a handful of stones. The air smelled like grilled meat, dust, and garbage. I wandered until I found a woman sitting among stacks of gorgeous Turkmen carpets next to a colorful pile of yarn.
Operating from a shopping list Mahym had written for me, I bought skeins of red, orange, black, brown, white, and blue yarn, priced by the kilogram. Back home, I found I’d been cheated. The insides of all the skeins were wet, which made them heavier – and thus, more expensive. For days, I spent my evenings winding the yarn into balls in front of the television while Olya held the skeins between her arms to keep them from tangling.
* * *
I had been living in Turkmenistan for nearly two months but I had seen only Ashgabat, Abadan, and Chuli. I was getting restless and curious. I wanted to explore the country. So Allen and I decided to take a trip to an ancient mosque in Anew, on the other side of the capital. We woke early on a Sunday and rode marshrutkas and buses for an hour and a half to the bazaar in Anew. I bought some water and some potato-filled pastries called piroshki s, and we asked around for directions to the “very, very old mosque.” The answer was always a vague gesture toward the east edge of town.
We set off on foot. Although it was November already, the summer heat had barely faded. The sky was clear and the sun beat down on us. At first we followed a two-lane road lined with box elder, locust and Osage orange trees. After a half-hour, we left the road and started hiking through a field of cotton. The waist-high plants had been picked over and were starting to dry out and lose their leaves. The sounds of town faded and soon all I could hear was the wind, an occasional songbird, and my feet crunching in the crumbly soil. Clouds began to gather and the temperature dropped.
In the fields, we came upon a young couple with two little daughters who were gathering leftover cotton – a few stray puffs of pure white from each bush – into canvas bags that hung around their waists. We asked for directions to the mosque and they said we were headed the right way. We walked on. In the distance, between us and the mountains, there were two dirt mounds as big as baseball stadiums and about 50 feet high. To me, they seemed completely out of place on the flat desert plain.
The Russian General A.V. Komarov, the man placed in charge of the newly conquered Turkmen lands after the battle of Geokdepe, thought the same thing. An amateur archaeologist, he figured they were man-made and thought he might find treasure inside them. In 1886, he had his men carve a trench into one. He didn’t find gold, but he found evidence of an ancient civilization, which he later published. 23 In 1904, an American geologist/ archaeologist arrived to explore the mounds more
While I waited for the loom, I went shopping for yarn. I woke early on a Sunday – my only day off, since Turkmenistan had a six-day work week – and rode an ancient, crank-started bus to the Tolkuchka Bazaar, a sprawling jumble of booths and stands, tin and canvas, on a patch of scrub-desert outside Ashgabat. Everything was for sale there, from jeans and CD players to antique Soviet rubles and ancient pottery, from bicycles to books, from wrenches to frying pans. I crossed the parking lot, which was just a patch of empty sand, and followed the crowd through a maze of fruit and vegetable sellers who were squatting in front of piles of tomatoes, cucumbers, pomegranates, kiwis, and basil, laid out on mats on the ground.
Under the tall brick arch that marked the entrance, a chorus of babushkas called out: “Change money? Change money?” On my right was a pile of brooms as big as a sleeping elephant, on my left, a woman was telling fortunes with a handful of stones. The air smelled like grilled meat, dust, and garbage. I wandered until I found a woman sitting among stacks of gorgeous Turkmen carpets next to a colorful pile of yarn.
Operating from a shopping list Mahym had written for me, I bought skeins of red, orange, black, brown, white, and blue yarn, priced by the kilogram. Back home, I found I’d been cheated. The insides of all the skeins were wet, which made them heavier – and thus, more expensive. For days, I spent my evenings winding the yarn into balls in front of the television while Olya held the skeins between her arms to keep them from tangling.
* * *
I had been living in Turkmenistan for nearly two months but I had seen only Ashgabat, Abadan, and Chuli. I was getting restless and curious. I wanted to explore the country. So Allen and I decided to take a trip to an ancient mosque in Anew, on the other side of the capital. We woke early on a Sunday and rode marshrutkas and buses for an hour and a half to the bazaar in Anew. I bought some water and some potato-filled pastries called piroshki s, and we asked around for directions to the “very, very old mosque.” The answer was always a vague gesture toward the east edge of town.
We set off on foot. Although it was November already, the summer heat had barely faded. The sky was clear and the sun beat down on us. At first we followed a two-lane road lined with box elder, locust and Osage orange trees. After a half-hour, we left the road and started hiking through a field of cotton. The waist-high plants had been picked over and were starting to dry out and lose their leaves. The sounds of town faded and soon all I could hear was the wind, an occasional songbird, and my feet crunching in the crumbly soil. Clouds began to gather and the temperature dropped.
In the fields, we came upon a young couple with two little daughters who were gathering leftover cotton – a few stray puffs of pure white from each bush – into canvas bags that hung around their waists. We asked for directions to the mosque and they said we were headed the right way. We walked on. In the distance, between us and the mountains, there were two dirt mounds as big as baseball stadiums and about 50 feet high. To me, they seemed completely out of place on the flat desert plain.
The Russian General A.V. Komarov, the man placed in charge of the newly conquered Turkmen lands after the battle of Geokdepe, thought the same thing. An amateur archaeologist, he figured they were man-made and thought he might find treasure inside them. In 1886, he had his men carve a trench into one. He didn’t find gold, but he found evidence of an ancient civilization, which he later published. 23 In 1904, an American geologist/ archaeologist arrived to explore the mounds more
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