A horse is a first course, of course, of course
By C. J. Chivers The New York Times
SUNDAY, DECEMBER 25, 2005

ILYINKA, Kazakhstan The six Kazakh villagers circled the stallion with movements so nimble and practiced that they disguised the difficulty of the dawn's first task. The animal before them, weighing roughly 250 kilograms, was to be rolled onto its back.

Aslakhan Mukanov, 13, pulled the stallion with a rope as it whinnied and bucked. Seimurad Maitai, 27, dodged the hooves, swinging a rope until he snared the kicking forelegs together.

Maitai pressed closer, whipping the rope's other end, seeking a hind leg. Soon he entangled it as well. The two pulled their lines taut and lunged. The horse fell, landing hard on the snow. The men scrambled atop it, lashed its legs tightly and placed a metal trough under its neck.

Out came the knife. Jumat Makhanov, 29, turned his palms skyward and thanked the pinned stallion for what it would provide. The prayer came last. "Bismillah, Allahu akbar," he said. In the name of God, God is great.

Maitai swept the blade across the stallion's muscular neck.

For longer than the once nomadic Kazakhs can remember, the horses of Central Asia's steppe have been near the center of life.

The people who lived in what is now Kazakhstan hunted wild horses in prehistory, and some archaeologists believe that they may have been the first to domesticate the animals, binding the two species together for the ensuing millennia. In an unforgiving climate and a seemingly endless land, horses provided transport and labor. They also provided leather, tools, milk and meat. In time they became staples of commerce and instruments of war.

Today, generations after the Kazakhs were conquered by the Bolsheviks and subjected to the collectivization, terror and dreary servitude of the Soviet state, the horse's place in Kazakh culture is secure.

Riding remains a symbol of Kazakh skill. Horse meat, horse fat, horse entrails and mare's milk are principal ingredients in the national cuisine, and post-Soviet small businesses trade in horses and horse products with a vigor not seen in much of the Kazakh economy.

The season of horses is now. Every December and January, as sunlight drops away and winter hardens and darkens the steppe, Kazakhs harvest their animals. Horses are killed in yards throughout the country, for hanging in sheds, for sale to bazaars and for the meat that gives festivals their feasts of a communal besbarmak - a dish of boiled horsemeat and dough, often still eaten by hand.

In the arc of a year is the arc of a horse's life. In Ilyinka, the stallion slaughtered in the snow had been released on the steppe in the spring, to roam and feed in a free-ranging herd. It was captured in the fall, and then, following Kazakh custom, tethered beside a feed bucket and fattened with hay and grain.

On Sunday morning, plumper and more tender, it was taken to the yard behind the house of Kaldybek Mukanov, 39, a butcher and meat vendor who had bought it from a horse trader in late September.

The animal exuded anxiety. To deceive it, the men led out an older horse first, a big cinnamon-colored specimen with a golden tail. The act persuaded the younger horse to follow. Then the older horse was rushed back to the feeding stable, unaware that its own death was planned for later in the week.

The younger stallion realized that it was alone and surrounded by men. It was not yet 2 years old. Its chestnut-brown brow was striped white; its flanks and its black tail were matted with manure. It was on the verge of the change from life to meat. Its snorts frosted the air.

It complained for an instant before the men were upon it. After it died, its blood filling the trough while the neighborhood's dogs padded nearby, the men Mukanov had summoned to help him proceeded with the work.

First they cut through joints and snapped off the lower legs. Then they began skinning the animal, exposing a sheen of white fat over thick red musculature. The hide slid off like a wet jacket. Steam rose from the opened carcass as it met the cold.

A steel frame was produced, and the carcass was raised to waist height and disemboweled. Clouds of steam surged from the body cavity. The guts were placed on a plastic mat.

While others cut away the rib cage and separated the hind legs from the forelegs, Makhanov squeezed dung from the intestines. Cut into half-meter-long, or 20-inch-long, sections, these intestines would be stuffed with fat and meat to make kazy and shuzhyk, two kinds of garlic-laced sausage enjoyed as delicacies.

The butchering proceeded swiftly as Mukanov watched. He had paid 120,000 Kazakh tengi, about $895, for the horse three months before. Working in a bazaar in nearby Astana, the Kazakh capital, he expected to sell most of the meat, organs and sausage for about $1,050.

After deducting the costs of horse feed and paying his butchers, he said, he would clear at least $40 in profit, a significant amount in a country where many families live on several hundred dollars a month. He would also keep meat for his wife, three children and his mother, who lives with the family in a house beside the stable. "I have to feed my family like anyone else," he said.

Kazakh villages are not alone in having menus dominated by horse. In Astana as well, the markets are stacked with the meat, and horse dishes are found throughout the city's restaurants.

There is creamy sorpa - horse bullion spiced with dried fermented mare's milk and cheese - and there is kespe - unthickened bouillon laced with noodles, onions and thinly sliced meat. Minced horse stomach is boiled and served, with peppers and herbs, as karta. Pieces of meat, lung, liver, heart and kidney are chopped and mixed with potatoes to make stew-like kuyrdak.

The meat is also served at the most important moments in many Kazakh families' lives.

The day before the stallion was killed in Mukanov's yard, Ayup Smailov, a mechanic, had turned up at a small private farm in the village of Vozdvizhenka. His father, 84, had died the night before. The bereaved man sought a horse for the funeral, to be served as besbarmak with tea.

After selecting a mare weighing about 320 kilograms, or 700 pounds, he stood in the cold and watched three of the farm's employees convert it to meat. Nothing was wasted, excepting the dung and undigested grain drained from the stomach. A tub of blood was saved for the dogs, which had gathered round.

Back in Ilyinka, Mukanov was contending with a growing pack of dogs, too. He stood beneath the climbing sun, used to it all.

"Kazakhs occupy the second place in the number of horses killed," he said. "First are the wolves, and then the Kazakhs."

Easier to ship them to Beltex !!!

Good story. Thanks.

Very interesting story, and btw most countries eat horse meat. Our native Americans ate a lot of horse/Mule meat out of necessity, just like we would if we had no other choice..I have eaten horse, Zebra, and burro, and I am not particularly fond of it by comparison, but its better than no meat at all...