Fear, Loathing, and Fermented Horse Milk

If Romulus and Remus grew strong on the teat of a wolf, I grew feral, suckling at the raw, sun-cracked nipple of adventure. Bitter, chalky, and with a tang that put hair on my chest before my head, it was the only nourishment I ever needed.

This craving left unchecked is likely to create what Hunter S. Thompson called, “A high-powered mutant of some kind never even considered for mass production.”

To say I went unchecked would be a colossal understatement. I was a real badger, a category five hurricane, no rules, no brakes, and no end to my reckless chaos in sight. 

Any child raised within these boundaries, or more accurately, without them, is bound to become a freak, a glitch in the system, a bad fit, unwilling to fit, and with a nasty craving for the unknown.

That’s why I’m not surprised to find myself in Central Asia, sitting in a yurt, gambling what little luck I have on a dazzling eagle huntress, hoping she’ll help me find the seven Treasures of Kazakhstan.

She won’t.

Her boyfriend is sitting across from me, and apparently, he’s the national horseback wrestling champion, heavyweight division. His hands look like shot puts with fingers: stubby, thick, and perfect for strangling men who get too close to his girl. He had no good reason to crack open the front of his silk robe and bare his shelf of chest, but he did. Now he’s glaring at me with eyes that say, ‘I’ve killed for less,’ while I’m staring at his lady, praying she’ll make the beating I’m about to receive worth it.

She definitely won’t.

This situation is nothing new for me. I’ve been in at least a half a dozen just like it. And try not to hold it against me. I already told you what kind of milk I was raised on.

How I came to be in a yurt with falconers and world-champion horseback wrestlers is a story I can tell you, but only over a pint. 

Alright, that’s not true. I will tell you now. I just wrote that because I once asked a Brit to tell me his tale and he said, “My dear chap, my dear, dear chap! That’s a story I can only share over a cold pint.” I liked that he said that. It was natural and funny. For me, it’s not so natural or funny, but I liked it, so I wrote it.

Garçon! Two pints of something cold!

I found myself in Kazakhstan because I am grossly overprivileged and severely underemployed.

I have just as much time as you, but unlike you, I can do whatever I want with it, and that’s exactly what I do. This is a privilege. And because I was born in a land where the passports happen to be blue and in a time when big metal birds can eat humans up and spit them out in faraway places, I am grossly overprivileged.

‘Severely underemployed’ doesn’t require much explanation. I stress ‘severely’ only because I haven’t worked a job that would look good on a resume in the last couple years. A couple years isn’t much time if you’re 75, but when you’re 25, it’s a really long time.

So I came to Kazakhstan because I was interested and had the time. The money came from you. Or maybe not you, but people like you: curious souls who for some inexplicable reason, waste their time on my scribbles. Some of those good-hearted folks heard I was hungry for an adventure—and just hungry in general—so they pooled their money and sent me off on a metal bird to Astana, where I would pen a piece on the 5th World Nomad Games.

These Games are like the Olympics, but instead of long jump, discus, and synchronized diving, you get horseback wrestling, falconry, and kok-boru (a rugby-esque match played atop sprinting horses with a goat carcass instead of a ball). 2,500 athletes from 90 countries were supposed to show up and as far as I knew, there weren’t many Western correspondents covering the field.

The donors had thrown in more than I needed (bless their reckless hearts) so I used the excess to double down on the job and I hired a videographer.

His name is Red Bull Charlie.

Red Bull Charlie is 23. His hair is the color between brown and blonde. It’s never brushed, rarely washed, and usually shoved under a red hat. He has the build of a 17th-century Russian serf: slim, somewhat feeble-looking, but deceptively strong. Like most videographers, he’s squirrely and doesn’t believe in alarm clocks that ring before noon. Unlike most videographers, he’s actually fun to grab a beer with. He’s the rare type everyone likes. His smile makes you smile. He doesn’t care too much, but not too little either. Totally sound. Totally cool.

It’s been that way since college, where we met. He joined the same fraternity I did. For three years, we knew of each other. In those three years, we didn’t say a single word to each other.

That’s why I was surprised to get a text from him one week before the Nomad Games. It read:

Bro, I would fly out there and film it all.

I didn’t know him. He didn’t know me. But when he saw I was going to Kazakhstan and needed a shooter, he made his move. I didn’t ask to see his portfolio. I didn’t need to.

With that one message, he dropped his cojones on the table, and they were the size of church bells.

Six days later, R.B. Charlie the shooter and I were scouring the World Nomad Games in search of seven so-called treasures.

What were these things, anyway? Gold? Jewels? The meaning of life? We hadn’t the faintest clue. All we had was a used napkin with a few cryptic notes and a number scribbled on the back.

Turns out, the dazzling eagle huntress wasn’t a complete dead end.
But no, it wasn’t her number, it was for a half-abandoned noodle shop downtown.

When I called, an old woman’s voice cracked through:

“Da?”

“Uh, yes. Hello. A friend gave me this number. She said—”

The line went dead.

The woman in the noodle shop was indeed old. Borderline ancient. Her hair was a fiery red, short and neatly trimmed. She sat behind a wooden counter with arms crossed and brows pinched behind thick red reading glasses. A bow and arrow hung on the wall behind her.

Her eyes flicked between us and the lone table of customers in the corner, their slurps the only sound in the otherwise silent room.

“Hello again. I’m looking for…” Instinct kicked in, and I lowered my voice.

“Treasure. Seven of them, actually. I heard you might be able to help?”

Her scrutinizing, wise eyes pierced mine for what felt like minutes, then darted to my filmer. Suddenly, they softened. I turned and saw that R.B. Charlie had switched on his million-ruble smile. We were in.

“Rasul.” She called over her shoulder. “RASULLL!”

There was a rumble in the kitchen, followed by what could only be described as a growl. Slowly, like a bear dragging itself out of hibernation, a man the width of a chest freezer emerged from the kitchen.

He must’ve weighed 300 pounds, most of it sitting in his bowling ball of a gut, that shot straight out and remained only halfway sheathed beneath his broth-stained shirt. His steps were heavy, but I got the feeling he did that on purpose, as if he wanted me to think he was a lot slower than he really was.

“Rasul. Pleasure to meet you. This is Charlie. I’m Fonso.” 

On jobs like this, it’s crucial to use an alias. I don’t know why I use Fonso. All I know is in the late evenings and early mornings (when most of the work gets done), it morphs into Fonso Fitzgerald, the Duke of Montana.

He looked at me, then at R.B. Charlie, like a wolf deciding which lamb to gnaw on first.

I cleared my throat. “So, Rasul, we heard you may know something about seven treasures.”

If he was hearing me, he didn’t show any indication of it. He was studying Charlie with inquisitive, hungry eyes. Another quick glance at my shooter revealed his million-ruble smile had vanished. He looked anxious, borderline sick. I turned to get a better look. Was his skin always that green?

A fist suddenly slammed down on the hostess’s table.

“Those! Ha!” Rasul threw his head back in a roaring laugh, which only unsheathed more of his steel-watermelon of a stomach.

“Da! Da! I know them…”

Good. He knew about the treasure. That’s a relief. But what the dickens was going on with my partner? I took another hard look. His skin was changing from yellow to white, then back to green, all in real time. I couldn’t tell if he was terrified, about to faint, or both. 

Rasul took a step closer. His black hair was short and coarse, and his high Central Asian cheekbones struggled to distinguish themselves from the rest of his face.

“Da, da…” his eyes drifted towards the street and betrayed a hint of nostalgia before they swung back to us. “I will tell you about one of the treasures. But only if you buy some noodles.”

That’s how we ended up sharing a table with two Chinese journalists in the corner. Rasul lumbered back to the kitchen, and R.B. Charlie collapsed into a plastic chair, clutching his stomach and muttering something about bad milk.

Earlier in the day, I’d seen him buying a plastic jug of kumis (fermented mare’s milk) from a kid in a truck. The coolers didn’t look up to standard, but I assumed he was just buying it for the same reason people buy lemonade from neighborhood stands. You never actually drink the stuff. You just hand over some money to support the kid and move on!

I waved to the hostess, signaling for drinks, and she pointed toward the fridge with her nose. I came back to the table with two beers and a bottle of vodka.

One of the Chinese journalists was a commie with a greasy ponytail and the kind of smug, nasally voice that could ruin a meal, and he couldn’t go five minutes without launching into a breathless monologue about the glorious CCP dream of a perfectly cashless utopia, complete with mandatory social credit scores, face-scanning vending machines, and food deliveries that know where you are before you do. I wrote that sentence in a long, annoying way to imitate how he spoke.

The other guy’s name was Bo. Bo was steady. The only thing he tried selling us on was Chinese cigarettes.

“I don’t like this city,” he said, exhaling the blue smoke into the steam of his noodles. “It feels more like a concept than a place.”

He was onto something. Like all planned cities, Astana felt more uncomfortable and sterile than an operating room. Hosting the Nomad Games here seemed like a poor attempt to convince everyone otherwise. It was as if the city knew it was hollow and was desperately grasping at makeshift yurts and paid actors draped in wolf pelts to cover up the ugly void of nothingness.

For this reason, combined with the fact that I parked next to a CCP propaganda chatterbox, my thirst for vodka grew, and along with it, my craving for cheap Chinese cigarettes. Bo matched my pace and seemed to find us Americans amusing. R.B. Charlie was coming around and gradually taking bigger swigs of everything. By the time the behemoth cook came back with dinner, our table of half-baked journalists was starting to look more like a sailor’s tavern.

Rasul stood there looking at us with two bowls of noodles in hand. Because of my position sitting down, my eyes were level with his belly button. I was equally terrified as I was curious. It looked dark and deep. No hair, but also not completely barren. I began to wonder what would happen if I jammed my smoldering cigarette into it...

“Boys!” Rasul bellowed. “You eat my noodles, and I’ll tell you about treasure. But first, we drink!"

With this, he set the bowls down and walked to the fridge, retrieving a plastic bottle full of homemade brandy.

Him and Bo hit it off. Within a couple of shots, Rasul was toasting to Bo’s father, his father’s father, and his father’s father’s father. R.B. Charlie was fully awake now, cheeks flushed, with a cigarette tucked behind his ear. He didn’t smoke, but didn’t want to feel left out. The fiery-haired hostess eventually left, taking her secrets with her, and leaving us degenerates to make toasts to our families, favorite poets, and past loves.

This went on for hours. The commie was the first to tap out. His head drooped into the crook of his arm, and a chunk of his ponytail soaked in a bowl of cold broth. Our cook seemed to completely forget about his promise. Every time I tried to ask him about the treasure, he’d look sad and nod, then take another swig of whatever wasn’t empty. I pleaded with him.

“Rasul, we have to go soon. Tell us what you know of these treasures.”

“Da, da… Treasures. I know treasures…”

He was starting to slump, his chin nodding toward his chest. The night would be a complete waste if we left with nothing.

“Yes? Don’t stop, Rasul! What do you know?”

I was getting desperate. His eyes stared blankly in my direction, but there was no life behind them. They were beginning to gloss over. We were losing him.

I looked at Charlie for help, but he was turning green again. Blueish, even. This was our first day off the plane, and the kid had half a dozen alien substances swirling around his skeletal frame.

“Bo, help me out. We need to get Rasul some fresh air.”

“Ya, right, Fonso.” He leaned back and grinned. “You haven’t seen a bigger man in Central Asia than this fellow right here.”

Once again, Bo was onto something. This giant was likely a direct descendant of Genghis Khan himself, and right now, he was teetering on the brink of oblivion.

“Rasul! RASUL!” This time, it was my fist slamming down on the table.

“What do you know about the treasures!?”

The sound of my fist hitting the wood snapped him out of his daze. He looked at me with a mix of shock and amusement.

“Ha! So the American boy really does want to know about the treasures.” He leaned over the table as much as his gut permitted.

“All I will say is this… In the winter of 1982, I lost one of the seven treasures.”

With that, he burped and fell asleep in his chair.

The week staggered on to the same beat of fury and confusion. 

Half of the time, my shooter was sick to his stomach; the other half, he was sick of me. He’d signed on thinking I had some grand vision for a documentary. I didn’t. There was no narrative. Sure, we were surrounded by bizarre sports and the best athletes you’ve never heard of, but I had no interest in recapping the week. Any twat with a phone could do that.

I wanted to create something that would make people back home stop and wonder. Wonder about what? I didn’t know. But it had to be something—anything—because that small, flickering spark of wonder in most Americans was getting stomped out before they even realized why it was worth protecting.

We were all becoming cogs in an insatiable machine that feeds on youth, spontaneity, and beauty. The worst part? No one was forcing us into it. That’s what Orwell, Huxley, and all the other dystopian writers got wrong. They thought we’d be whipped into a sterile, squared lifestyle by some corrupt, omnipotent government. They never imagined we’d fall into line ourselves, smiling as we marched like little soldiers toward our own cliff.

The other reason I knew we were in for trouble was that it turns out I hate being in front of the camera. Like, really hate it. To act natural is to realize you aren’t being natural at all, and now you have to pretend to be the person you usually are when there isn’t a camera shoved up your schnoz. Getting everyone else to do the same—especially in post-Soviet countries—is a recipe for disaster.

So on the first morning when I overheard two boys whispering about the Seven Treasures of Kazakhstan, I clung on for dear life. If we could find all seven, amidst the arrows and golden eagles soaring around, then we’d have our golden thread.

The problem was, no one could give us a straight answer. One waiter swore one of the treasures was a cooking pot. A driver said, no, it wasn’t a cooking pot, but a hunting dog we were after.

The eagle huntress said they were hidden in plain sight. I said she sounded like a fortune cookie. She didn’t know what that was, so I let it go.

Treasures hidden in plain sight…

By the end of the week, I was a shell of a man. I’d managed to track down the treasures, but I didn’t think any of the footage would be worth watching. On top of that, I felt like I was letting Charlie down. He’d come for an adventure, and he’d gotten one, but it definitely wasn’t the one he’d imagined.

The next day we flew to Tbilisi to hunker down to review all 60 hours of footage. Most of it was unusable. Some of it was usable, but bad. The rest had potential, but only with a tight script and a maestro editor who could bring the story to life.

Could we accomplish that? Ya, maybe.  

Would we? God knows.

A friend asked me if I’ve thought about how this documentary will be received. I told him no, and to my surprise, it was the truth. I really don’t care. 

My goal is to deliver the best thank-you I can to the people who supported my vision before there was one. I still don’t know why they did that. There are real writers and travelers out there, people who create art. I’m not one of them.

I also want R.B. Charlie to get his next gig from this. A real gig. The kid’s better than local commercials and wedding shoots. He needs a job that gives him creative autonomy, and pays him more than I did—a lot more. Just keep him away from the kumis and he should be alright.

And lastly, I hope this bitter, tangy milk nourishes the adventurous wonder of one person. One person who doesn’t really fit in, or doesn’t care to fit in, and has a deep yearning to set their own course for the unknown. To that person, I sum up my entire story with one word:

Go. 

This story was for them, for the people who bet on me, and for Charlie.

Thanks, for it all.

—Fonso Fitzgerald (The Duke of Montana)

P.S. Did you really think I’d do all the hard work of uncovering the Seven Treasures of Kazakhstan, only for you to ‘discover’ them neatly listed out somewhere in this essay? My dear chap. My dear, dear chap! If I did that, I’d rob you of your very own treasure hunt!

But since you made it this far, let me leave you with one clue: all seven treasures were listed in this essay. If you didn’t see them, that’s because they are hidden.

Hidden in plain sight.