Glimpsing the World of the Nomads

Dr. Vladimir N. Basilov and I have the same trouble when we travel. We miss the hometown newspaper.

“If you ask what I am missing, what I am longing for at home in my country, you would expect me to say my family. Of course, that is true, but the most sharp, immediate longing is for my newspaper.”

I was talking to a new-found friend, a doctor of ethnology from the Academy of Sciences in the Soviet Union. He lives in Moscow and is the head of the group of scientists who have set up the exhibit “Nomads: Masters of the Eurasian Steppe” at the Los Angeles County Museum of Natural History. It is the largest scientific exhibit ever to be sent from the Soviet Union for Americans to share.

Basilov just finished setting up the exhibit after selecting, packing and shepherding the hundreds of items from museums all over the Soviet Union, including the Hermitage. On top of that, he just finished a symposium at USC, where he was the star attraction for scientists from all over the world and where he presented a paper on nomads and their culture, history and civilization. He liked USC: “I felt the university’s warmth from the beginning.”

Right now, he has been pushing himself so hard and is so tired he can’t tell if the exhibit is good or not. It’s good, and I told him so. It’s great, educational, informative, colorful and fascinating.

Basilov’s eyes are hazel like looking at clear water in a copper goblet, and he has a smile that would warm the yurt when the wind blows unchecked across the steppe. The yurt is the Eurasian nomads’ mobile housing, a dwelling made of a framework of curved staves and covered with animal hides. The yurt, like a giant umbrella, can sway with the wind. The yurt at the exhibit is furnished with brightly painted and dyed chests, beds and clothing.

The Eurasian steppe, in case your geography is as shaky as mine, is a vast, unbroken plain that extends 4,000 miles from Europe to China.

Of the nomads, Basilov said, “They were a violent and proud people who swept out of central Asia to threaten the cities of Europe and China.” They raised horsemanship to a superb art, making it part of their culture and their wars. They developed the rigid saddle and designed and made the most beautiful horse tack you can imagine. There is a model of one of their horses on exhibit wearing a bridle, halter, face shield, cinch, all of gold. The horse is stocky and tough for bracing himself against the sweeping winds and his coat is woolly. In stature, he reminds me of the Connemara pony who faces head-on into the cold winds off the Atlantic in the west of Ireland.

There are almost a thousand things to see in the exhibit--gold plates that fronted saddles, cooking utensils, belt buckles, jewelry, tile, weapons, and 20 or so costumed mannequins wearing elaborate costumes.

I have always been fascinated by these wild people and my favorite is Tamerlane, the 14th-Century Mongol conqueror. I was delighted to see a reconstruction of his head, wearing a metal helmet. When he was over 60, he swept into India and took the city of Delhi. When he returned home, he brought 90 elephants and used them to haul great stones to build a mosque in Samarkand.

Tamerlane, Samarkand, Tartars-- just the words sound like the ringing of golden bells.

The Chinese even built the Great Wall to keep the nomads out, but they traveled along the Silk Road for thousands of years.

Basilov’s favorite subject in his rich field is shamanism. A shaman is a kind of priest. Basilov likes it because, “I was able to find something new in my field. Always, I had a feeling to study spiritual culture, religions. The religion teaches that there are many deities and spirits around much more powerful than we, the humble creatures. So we are dependent on them if there is too much rainfall or not enough. We all have different abilities so it is natural that there were people among the nomads who were better mediators than their fellows. Those were the shamans and they interceded in our behalf.”

We talked about the pantheism of the American Indian and Basilov said they were cousins to the nomads, having walked across the land where the Bering Sea now is.

Maybe I have such empathy for these wild people because of their use of animal designs. There is a gold belt buckle set with turquoise that once adorned a goodly Scythian belly. The nomads felt that animals showed the tension and violence they embraced and also the animals in repose showed the regal elegance they admired. It’s a jeweled treasure of an exhibit and I made a new friend where I didn’t have one before.

Basilov is a fresh breeze of a man, deeply interested in his work and internationally recognized. He is one of those twice-blessed people who is in love with the profession he has chosen and that makes every day an exciting adventure.

He told me of the find he and his colleagues made in Siberia, a discovery of musical instruments, weapons, household vessels perfectly preserved for thousands of years in the permafrost, literally frozen in time. The find was “a smile of fortune,” Basilov said.

From here the nomad exhibit will go to Denver on April 16, with its outriders of distinguished Soviet scholars, and then to the Smithsonian Institution in Washington. Basilov will go home from Denver.

I hope he gets to see something of our town. One of the museum staff is planning on taking him on the Universal Studio tour. He wants to see the Getty Museum. It’s hard to plan an itinerary for a man who works a few blocks from the Hermitage. Anyway, I hope he enjoys the Valentine chocolates I gave him. I owe him. He’s one of those people blessed with the ability to make you feel smarter than you are.

Special reservations are required for nomads. For information please call (213) 744-6292. Reservations are available to the public. Also, on Feb. 26, a troupe called Past Times With Good Company will set up a living encampment called “Yurts, Yaks and Yogurt,” on the lawn of the Natural History Museum. They will be costumed as nomads and will display weaving, embroidery, wood carving and horsemanship.