Mongolian Kazaks, near Semey

6,000 kilometers, 112 samples, 14 days. With our work in Kazakstan completed, and the furthest point on the trip reached and put behind us, we can begin to reflect on the issues we hope to address in our laboratory work back at home.

One of the main goals of EurAsia '98 is to collect samples from regions on the periphery of the area where we collected in 1996. Thus, we have sampled from populations to the west, in Transcaucasia and Iran, as well as to the north, in the Altai region, in order to contextualize the results obtained from our studies of Uzbek and Kyrgyz populations. In early August we will collect samples from groups to the southeast, in Tajikistan, to complete the sampling triangle. How did we choose these areas?

In developing the plan for the trip we were guided, as I've mentioned in a previous post, by linguistic criteria as well as geography. Thus, we are interested in similarities among speakers of closely related languages, as well as among people living in geographically proximate areas. The Northern and Southern Caucasian language families are quite different from the other languages we have encountered on the rest of the trip, and form an interesting subject of study by themselves. There may be distant genetic similarities among the speakers of Basque, Lezgi, and perhaps even Georgian, as predicted by some linguists. This is clearly a central question in the analysis of these samples.

The primary goal of the expedition, however, is to study two large Eurasian migrations, occurring in the same region, approximately 2,000 years apart. The first, of the early Indo-European nomads (especially those speaking so-called Indo-Iranian languages), began in the second millennium B.C. with the movement of these horsemen from the Central Asian steppe into the Iranian plateau and northern India. Part of a widespread culture known as Scythian or Saka, described in the 5th century BC by the Greek historian Herodotus, these nomads formed a continuity between the Middle East and the Altai mountains. Features of the Scythians are still maintained by the modern inhabitants of these regions: peaked caps, felt-covered dwellings (known today as yurts, and described by Herodotus as "trees covered in felt"), and a pastoral, nomadic existence. Part of the interest in studying these people is the relative dearth of archaeological remains they left behind: until the excavation of Scythian burial kurgans in the twentieth century, most of Herodotus' descriptions were assumed to be fictional. With recent archaeological discoveries, however, the extent of their range is now known to have stretched across most of the region through which we have traveled, from the Caucasus, across the southern Russian steppe, into Siberia, east to the Altai mountains, and well to the south, into the Iranian plateau and the foothills of the Pamirs. Do we see the genetic remnants of these people in the current (non-Indo-Iranian) inhabitants of the region?

Scythians, Persepolis

Saka, Almaty historical freize

So, a few days ago we found ourselves a dozen kilometers south of Belukha, the highest peak in the Altai, straddling the border of Kazakstan and Russia. 20 kilometers to the east lay China, another region of great genetic interest, and 50 kilometers beyond that, Mongolia. Known as the Four Corners of Asia, this is the geographic heart of the continent. In a sense, it was also the heart of the sampling - a goal of sorts. Fording rivers, speeding across high-altitude pastures, sampling in remote villages, all the while dodging military checkpoints (foreigners are not particularly welcome this close to the Chinese border), we collected 52 samples from the northeastern part of Kazakstan. These will be compared to samples collected from the southern Kazaks, as well as to Kazaks living in Uzbekistan. Are there significant regional differences in allele frequencies? Does the relatively isolated lifestyle of the people in the north have an effect on their pattern of genetic diversity? In future expeditions we hope to sample more extensively across the border in Siberia - reluctantly dropped from this trip due to difficulties with our collaborator in Krasnoyarsk - and assessing the extent of admixture among groups living in the Altai will be the primary goal. Are the linguistic and cultural differences between the Kazaks and their close neighbors to the north enough to reduce gene flow?

Mark mentions Shambala in his piece below - the mythical region revealed after humanity destroys itself, supposedly somewhere in the neighborhood of Belukha. We may not have found it on this trip, but we did find something in the Altai. We reached the Turkic homeland, the melting pot where the Turkic-speaking peoples originated. Our work now is to determine who they were at the beginning, and who they became as they moved across Asia and mixed with other groups.

Ethical Concerns in Anthropological Genetics
by Nat Pearson

In moving from lab to field, anthropological geneticists bring biological science into more direct interaction with human society at large. Such outreach can, we broadly hope, seed understanding among non-scientists and scientists. But on the flipside, research-associated ethical questions become more urgent and complicated for scientists who venture from their lucite harbors into the open sea of humanity, with its historical depth, cultural waves, storms of conflict and currents of power. Each stage of our research brings decisions with implications -- big or small -- for the lives of individuals we study, for those we collaborate with, and for future relations between locals and outsiders in the places we visit.

Considering these implications on the fly, our team members often have differing takes, emphasizing that, like anything else, doing science can get bogged in murky ambiguity. Here's an example of how cultural differences, societal power dynamics and other factors come together to challenge our consciences:

In a Baku tuberculosis clinic I was taking mouth swabs for Y-chromosome analysis by U.K.-based collaborators. In sampling, we record donor ancestry and life history data -- crucial for population-level genetic analysis. Our blood sample data includes names of donor and parents, partly to ensure that we don't include close relatives in our database, but also for ethical reasons described below. But our mouth swab collaborators omit names (also for ethical reasons below), so in these interviews I wasn't taking them. Ruslan noticed this and, thinking I'd forgotten to get the information, interrupted to ask a donor's name. I intervened to keep the donor anonymous: 'No, we don't need names for cheek swabs.' Dismayed, Ruslan explained that most Azeris found it rude to not even be asked their name while participating in a study in a medical setting. My well-meant concern for anonymity was, to people helping us with trusting generosity, callous and impersonal objectification. From then on I asked names, even without recording them.

Beyond cultural attitudes, approaches to gathering personal data vary themselves, despite international standardization efforts. Procedural debate centers on how best to ensure that 1) potential donors make free and informed choices about study participation and 2) they suffer no repercussions for their decision. Protecting donor identity is considered crucial to the latter, preventing harassment or punishment by those opposed to participation. But as a paper trail of informed consent (and to reduce the likelihood of data falsification), donor's names are often recorded. Such records -- legally accessible only to donor, researcher and ethics investigators -- could of course fall into the wrong hands. Thus researchers are divided on confidentiality versus anonymity of donors as the best approach.

Sample collection

For ethnicity, we try to abide by self-designation, i.e. people's conception of their own group ancestral identity. But this doesn't always yield the ancestral information we want, due to another culture clash: ethnicity translates poorly to Russian (and Farsi). In the Soviet world, nationality was the closest concept, carved hastily from a diverse cultural landscape. Touting yourself as a member of an unrecognized or locally disfavored group could mean trouble with authorities -- a fear that may persist. And while people's first language may offer some insight, during the Tsarist and Soviet eras, Russian swamped linguistic diversity. So we resorted to listing possible ethnicities to residents of cosmopolitan Baku, for example, who might then intuit what we were looking for. This multiple choice approach violates the principle of self-designation, but we deem it a necessary compromise.

Our sampling in the TB clinic raises another ethical issue: how we leverage our research's medical versus anthropological relevance. In most clinics we sample just from healthy staff, for whom a sterile needle prick and 5 ml blood loss mean nearly zero risk. Occasionally, though, we sample patients. We always carefully assess whether sampling presents health risk or scientific data bias, and err on the cautious side. But with patients the question of free and informed consent is complicated: despite the best explanation (which we can't guarantee, as it's often staff who explain in local languages), they may interpret any sampling procedure as clinical, and thus feel wrongly compelled to participate. And in resource-strapped wards, patients may suspect that their continuing bed and care depend on consent. Similarly, staff may worry that their very jobs depend on giving blood to the strange foreigners -- not necessarily an unfounded fear in the highly hierarchical post-Soviet workplace.

And while much of our work's relevance is anthropological, we often find ourselves trumping its less direct medical promise. Dodging traffic fines, booking air and ferry tickets and introducing selves and work to others, we've found magic words in doctor and immunogenetics. Rationalizing this as spin doctoring to save bureaucratic hassle, we may misrepresent our strongest interests. Conversely, many rural Kazaks we met were more interested in anthropological insight into their own history than in medical explanations of our work (which may have raised suspicions of unknown local environmental health risks), leading us to shift approach again. Such chameleon strategy may be inevitable in seeking help from strangers; is it unethical deceit?

Other questions, such as whether to give trinkets (or vodka) to donors, have provided us some lively discussion. But when the collecting's done, the use of our results may present our strongest ethical dilemmas. The general lessons of human genetic diversity research -- that all people are more closely related than they may realize, that there are no 'pure' populations -- are already clear. And our work certainly may contribute to medical progress for all our benefit. But hatemongers may eagerly distort results from this field in order to foment ethnic conflict. How best to actively counter those voices? And what if our results contradict a population's sacred folk history; should we try to shield our conclusions from them in choosing a journal for publishing, or should the marketplace of ideas be as open as possible?

Questions clearly outnumber definitive answers here. Maybe the best reassurance scientists can offer society is that we're thinking about such issues as we conduct our work. We invite your thoughts.

Hold your noses, Eurasia '98 hasn't had a shower for two weeks. There have been some furtive early morning plunges in icy mountain streams, and the odd soak in a radon bath - there's nothing better for getting that deep down cleanliness than simmering in radiation. And this is why I am here: having traveled through 7 countries, we have made a break from the convenience of the urban clinics and are getting into some country-style science. The first act is for Ruslan to locate the village Felcher (and every village has one - the local medical officer in charge of the town's health) and explain to them the nature of our visit. Nat has pointed out the ethical struggles of conducting this sort of sortie, but from a photographic point of view the images that I can collect here are unique; after the local people have become accustomed to my nosy presence, I can get some truly intimate portraits.

To get to these small Kazak villagers we first had to negotiate some pretty hairy terrain. This is after all why Land Rover gave us the Discovery. But before we could attack the dirt track, which crosses three mountain ranges and traverses the river 7 times, not always offering the courtesy of a bridge, we had to persuade our collaborators from Katon-Karagay that the beast was primed for the challenge. Four of them stood around the "best 4 x 4 x far" kicking tires, sucking teeth, shaking heads and pouring doom on the crazy attempt. Fortunately we decided to ignore them and although the way was slow it was also stunning in the sinking evening sun. There were some demanding river crossings, the worst of which we drove gingerly drove through following a Kazak woodsman on his horse, but the destination, Lake Markakol - a clear mountain lake at 1450m (4700ft) - was a worthy goal.

We have reached the Altai, the furthest eastern point on the expedition. We had intended to take the northern route through Siberia, but this was canceled due to last minute collaboratory troubles. Initially this was a great disappointment but when the Altai opened up in front of us beyond prairies of pink, yellow and blue wild flowers all was forgiven.

Our first Altai home was in Rakhmanov Springs, a Soviet spa town within 40 km of Russia, Mongolia and China. On the drive in we stopped at the breathtaking site of Mt. Belukha (4506m), which sits astride the Russian/Kazak border. We were led there from Katon-Karagay via a demanding mountain road to avoid the border post on the main road. You are not allowed to swan around picking flowers, let alone drawing blood, that close to China without special permission. On arrival we found out that the Minister of the Interior was arriving the next day and security had been heightened. So we pitched our tent out of town beside a beautiful lake and lit a fire ready for our noodles. Just as I was about to heavily sigh and remark on the perfection of all of this I felt a bite on my leg, looked down to see the Olympic Mosquito team chowing down. These critters should be steroid tested because they were huge. Fortunately the 100% DEET kept them at bay, but only three inches away from the target and from there they could wink at you knowing the DEET wouldn't last forever.

Settling down to broccoli and leek pasta mixed with beef rice, the silence was broken by a screaming police siren, certain that we had been rumbled visa-less, possibly breaking some Fire in the Wilderness law, or perhaps just having a dirty car (a violation we had already been stopped for 8 times), I rummaged in my pocket for some dosh to bribe with. The door of the police car opened and out stepped two policemen bearing vodka, giggling girls and friendly grins. We toasted the end of the cold war, sitting snugly around the fire whilst the girls, who had squeezed into their micro shorts slapped their mossi-bitten thighs, producing something akin to a third grade physics wave experiment. Before long I found myself sitting in the cop-car, wearing the friendly policeman's hat and having my picture taken. Spencer, like all good Texans, was trying to persuade the other policeman to let him shoot his gun, when behind him suddenly four other men appeared. Ruslan later reliably informed us that they were "Mafiosi". They offered us some kumys (fermented mares milk). On hearing that Spencer wanted to fire the gun, they laughed and said (Crocodile Dundee-style) "that's not a gun," and pulled out a Kalashnikov rifle. So we drank more, shot at beer cans 100m away, all missed, and I realized my earlier worries had been as far off the mark as my shooting.

The next day I had a tough climb up one of the peaks surrounding Rakhmanov Springs and looked over the locally named region of Shambala. With Mt. Belukha at its centre locals believe that Shambala is an area of heightened awareness and energy, and that one day when humanity destroys itself its paradisical realm will be revealed. Whilst standing alone at the summit of a nasty climb, through the storm clouds I could see Mt. Belukha rising in front of me with Russia on its left, Mongolia on its right and over my shoulder China, and I thought that if humanity does destroy itself Shambala wouldn't be a bad place to stay.

It Could Have Been Washington
by Spencer Wells

A fine, sunny late summer day. The sun is getting lower in the sky, and soon winter will be here, blowing in from the Siberian taiga just a few hundred kilometers to the north. The city seems fresh and new, after a long summer spent baking in the northern Kazak heat. Perhaps you go for an early morning walk, play with your children, watch the buildings being erected around Lenin Square - a new theater, statues, a hint of promise. Late morning, lunchtime preparations, and a chance to reflect. Sunday, stripped of its religious significance, is still a day of rest.

Semipalatinsk, Kazakstan, 29 August 1949. What happens next is one of the most significant acts of the soon-to-be-named Cold War. It starts with a rush of hot wind. Is that a late-season heat wave blowing in from the desert to the southwest? But this wind seems odd - sudden, and there are no clouds. Then you hear it. Or rather, feel it, because it shakes the windows from your house, rattles the china, perhaps breaks a vase or a picture on the nightstand. A loud, long BOOM. An earthquake? No - more like an explosion. But the Great Patriotic War ended 4 years ago...what was it?

As the citizens of Semipalatinsk (now Semey) learned over the next 20 years, the noise they heard that Sunday morning was the first nuclear test at the "Polygon." An area of approximately 15,000 square kilometers, a little over 100 km to the southwest of the city, the Polygon was the Soviet government's answer to Nevada and Los Alamos. Beaten to the punch by Enola Gay & Co. in Hiroshima and Nagasaki, and determined to catch up with the West as soon as possible, the Polygon was the perfect playground for Kurchatov and his buddies to develop and test The Soviet Bomb. Starting with that favorite activity of early nuclear scientists, the above-ground explosion, the tests at Semipalatinsk soon moved from a few kilotons to the megaton level. Along the way, radioactive fallout showered down on the residents of nearby Semipalatinsk and the rest of northeastern Kazakstan.

Strontium-90 behaves chemically in much the same way as calcium, and is rapidly incorporated into growing bone...children's bones, for example. One of the legacies of the testing at Semipalatinsk is the high level of birth defects in the population exposed to the direct effects of the blast. Deafness, brain damage, and high neonatal mortality rates are constant reminders of 40 years' worth of Sunday rumblings. Leukemia is common here, as is an immune-deficiency syndrome similar to AIDS. The testing officially ended in October 1989, but the fallout (both literal and metaphorical) will take much longer to sort out.

As a child of the Cold War, born at the end of the decade that saw the Cuban Missile Crisis and Kruschev's ominous threat to "bury you," I had to visit the Polygon. I remember reading Jonathan Schell's Fate of the Earth as a middle school student, and being viscerally affected by the descriptions of nuclear explosions and the subsequent damage to their human targets. I remember the feeling of helplessness as I watched tens of billions of dollars being poured into ever more sophisticated "protection" for America - our elected actor selling Star Wars to his audience - at the expense of dialogue and detente. The college students I talk to today simply can't understand this threat - the real, personal threat of nuclear war - since it no longer exists on the scale that it did only 15 years ago. This, at least, is progress.

Our trip to the Polygon took the better part of a day. Our guide was the former medical director at Kurchatov (the control center for Semipalatinsk, better known locally as "The End"). He showed us his map of the site, with the major explosions and their dates written in by hand. The size of the circle indicated the strength of the blast, and the arrows showed the direction of the prevailing winds on that day. Some poor village was always unlucky enough to be in the direct path of the fallout. Congratulations! It's Sunday morning, and you win a tenfold higher risk of leukemia! Your neighbor is the lucky recipient of a lifetime of thyroid problems! I find that imagining tragedies of this magnitude in comic terms often helps me to cope with the awful truth. When our guide told us about the testing on cattle tethered at various distances from the blast - or cars (American?), or buses, or bridges - in an effort to assess the effects of the explosion, I imagined a roomful of Russian Beavis and Buttheads sniggering and shouting "heh, heh...cool...press the button again...."

Our primary destination was the Atomic Lake, a water-filled crater situated near the confluence of two rivers, at a site called Balapan. Geiger counter in hand, checking for residual radiation, we walked across a dam built in the early '80's to control the flow of water to the agricultural areas surrounding the polygon. Yes, agriculture. During the construction of the dam, one of the workmen apparently got tired of pressing the accelerator on his bulldozer for hours on end - the steppe is a big place - and rigged up a quick cruise control system with a stone he found at the site. His lower leg was removed a few months later after radiation from the stone had destroyed the tissue. Background radiation levels outside the Polygon had been 30 milliroentgens - normal is 20-30. At the lake the Geiger counter was reading between 700 and 1000. Nothing too serious - something like an X-ray. But this one is full-body, and lasts as long as you stay in the area. Ruslan wanted a swim, but I reminded him that he hadn't drunk any vodka - the Russian prophylactic measure against radiation (and stomach bugs, and cold weather, and hangovers...). According to our guide, most of the control center at the Polygon were completely tanked on the day of an explosion. "Beavis, pass the Stoli..."

After snapping a few pictures, and assessing the likelihood of our film being fogged by the radiation, we headed back to the Land Rover parked out in the steppe. The Polygon, secret for all those years, has no convenient scenic byways, and the blast sites can only be reached by off-roading it over the stubby Kazak grassland. Across the dam were 5 men, milling around and looking at us intently. Imagining the worst, we prepared to explain to the military police what a UK-registered vehicle, an American, a Brit and an Uzbek were doing in a nuclear testing zone with five cameras and a Geiger counter. We walked across to the other side, with Ruslan telling us to remain silent while he did the talking. Maybe we could pass for innocent Russian tourists who just happened to end up there by mistake. The largest of the five walked out to meet us, squinting and looking at our Tevas. "Who are you?" Ruslan stepped forward and explained that we were official visitors, there on an important expedition, that we had come from far away, that our interest in the Polygon was purely touristic, etc. "Ahh, then you must meet Professor Abelov! We are here on an expedition too, from Kurchatov. We're studying the effects of the radiation on insects living in the area. We think that we've just discovered a new species of Chironomus!"

After the next ten minutes of handshakes, business card exchanges, and chatting about our work, we felt like friends meeting at a conference. They invited us to come to Kurchatov when we were next in the area, and to collaborate on a study of the genetic effects of the radioactive fallout. We invited them to come to America, to visit Nevada and New Mexico, in order to complete the Atomic triptych. With slaps on the back and jokes about prophylactic vodka drinking, we wished them luck on their expedition, and they wished us a good journey to the Altai.

Back in the car, I pushed a black market tape of Sting's Greatest Hits into the cassette player, and forwarded to "Russians." As we drove out of the Polygon, the words hit a chord: I hope the Russians love their children too. Well, they do. And the Cold War is over. Hopefully the next generation will remember Semipalatinsk for another reason.

Panfilov Memorial, Almaty

Interior, Zenkov Cathedral

Zenkov Cathedral, Almaty

Plov is a many-splendored thing. Uzbekistan's national dish -- hearty, oily cousin to Indian pilav and Iranian polo -- is absolutely central to life here. When getting circumcised or married, attending a man's 63rd birthday party (a big deal in Islam) or his wake, or just dining with close friends, expect Plov. Ash, the quasi-religious dawn gathering for revered old men, is called Plov for short. And it's the meal of choice when you get home from prison, made with fresh-sacrificed lamb. As the Uzbeks say, 'no Plov, no event.'

There are over a hundred recognized regional varieties of the stuff, and self-proclaimed Plovmeisters (i.e. everyone) from Andizhan to Zerevshan will readily argue water content at the slightest hint of foreign curiosity. Ingredients vary by event too; raisins always sweeten wedding Plov, while the backyard version often comes with flies. Folks agree on the basics -- rice, mutton, carrot, onion and fat -- as year-round staples for healthy living, and point out that a mess of Plov is an efficient way to feed big gatherings. Serve with salad and green or black tea -- not alcohol, reportedly -- and you got yourself a satisfying meal. So satisfying, Ruslan thinks it might just go over big in the States...he's on the phone with Wolfgang Puck right now.

Ruslan's Plov (feeds 600)

100 kg rice, medium grain (preferably from western Uzbekistan)
70 kg carrot, julienned
50 kg mutton on bone (about 1 sheep)
50 kg beef on bone (about 1/6 cow)
50 kg onion, chopped
20 liters cottonseed oil
100 tbsp. salt
100 tsp. cumin seeds

I. Prepare rice:

Rinse rice well, remove any debris.
In pan, cover rice with scalding water to depth of 3 cm. Add salt, soak 30 min.
Drain water, rinse rice 3x with fresh scalding water.

II. Prepare Zirbak (meat, vegetable and oil mixture):

In kazan (big metal pot), bring oil to boil over high heat.
Stir in meat, cook until browned.
Stir in onion, cook until grey.
Stir in carrots, cook until soft.
Stir in cumin seeds and 10 liters water.
Cover, cook over low heat about 10 min.

III. Plov, Uzbek Style

Cover zirbak with rice.
Add water to 3 cm depth over rice, bring to boil over high heat.
Cook until water disappears, about 6 min.
Build rice into mound, poke 5 evenly-spaced deep holes (2 cm wide) in mound.
Cover, cook over low heat 20 min.
Fold rice over (leaving zirbak at bottom), make new mound, poke 1 deep hole (2 cm wide) in center.
Cover, cook over low heat 20 min.
Remove from heat, transfer rice to serving plate, set meat aside.
Cover rice with carrot and onion.
Chop meat into bite size pieces, put on top.
Serve hot.