“Comrade Cowboy” received two awards from the Society of American Travel Writers at the 2012 Lowell Thomas Travel Journalism Awards. The competition, judged by the faculty at UNC-Chapel Hill’s School of Journalism, recognized the top travel stories published between spring 2011 and spring 2012. This year’s winners included The New York Times, National Geographic Traveler, Outside, and for the first time, little old Western Horseman. Here’s what the judges had to say: Continue reading
Nomadic horsemen, boiled marmot, and tyrannosaurus trout in the land of Chinggis Khan.
Story and photography by Ryan T. Bell
Tsogt, the head wrangler for a Fish Mongolia expedition, fords the Uur River with a packhorse.
Custom rules that inside a Mongolian ger (yurt tent), a guest should walk clockwise around the circular interior and take a seat on the floor opposite their host. They’ll serve you a cup of salted milk tea, which tastes like French fries dipped in yogurt – slurp the drink loudly in appreciation. And if it happens to be mealtime, be prepared to eat whatever food is presented you, even if it’s the boiled head of a marmot.
The rodent’s buckteeth stared at me with an expression of horror, like it had been boiled alive. The family of Mongolian nomads watched my next move, but there was no winning. Eat it, and I risked the gag reflex; balk, and I would insult them, or worse, forfeit my one chance at sustenance for the day. I turned the marmot skull broadside, like corn on the cob, and bit into the cheek. My teeth raked against the mandible, shearing a flap of meat loose that I chewed furiously and swallowed, chasing it with a slurp of milk tea to wash down the tangy flavor. This was not the Mongolian experience I’d imagined.
Continue reading
When a horse goes missing from Stevenson Sputnik Ranch, the cowboys’ quest to find it becomes a matter of life-and-death in a way they least expected.
Story and photography by Ryan T. Bell
A rumbling sound came from the direction of Shestakovo. Low at first, it became earsplitting as a MiG-29 jet appeared on the horizon. It flew a high G-force circle so close overhead I could see the serial numbers stenciled on its fuselage. Wayne Walter, my partner for the summer, and I sat our horses and watched the plane make four thunderous passes. Either the ranch was under surveillance, or the rumors were true that a regional MiG squadron would perform an air show at the 2014 Winter Olympic Games. The attempt at tracing Olympic rings in the sky looked like the loop-de-loops you draw on a piece of paper to get a ballpoint pen’s ink to flow. Good thing they had three years to practice. Continue reading
For seven Montana cowboys working in Russia last winter, a one-hour shift during the peak of calving encapsulated everything they struggled with: the language barrier, the cultural clashes, the terrible weather and the challenge of teaching Russians a lifetime of cowboy knowledge in only 60 days.
Story and photography by Ryan T. Bell
Hell broke loose on schedule at Stevenson Sputnik Ranch. We called it the “witching hour,” every night between 6 and 7 p.m., when a dozen expecting cows dropped their calves at once. To deal with the onslaught, Darrell Stevenson, the boss, assigned two cowboys to ride through the cow herd searching for newborns. They would shuttle them to the calving barn where the rest of us, three Montanans and a crew of Russian villagers, bedded them down in warm hay.
This would be hard work under normal circumstances, but on the night of January 23, 2011, a raging blizzard dumped a foot of snow on top of the two-foot deep blanket already covering the Russian steppes. Any calf born that night didn’t stand a chance if we didn’t get to it fast. Continue reading
Montana rancher Darrell Stevenson teams up with two Russian cattlemen to export an entire cow outfit to the Russian steppes. In the first of a three-part series, the author rides along with the Stevenson cowboys to the land of borscht, fallow land and the $75 steak dinner.
By Ryan T. Bell
In the Judith Basin of central Montana nuclear missile silos pockmark the ground like an atomic-age prairie dog town. They were installed in the 1960s, at the height of the Cold War with Russia. Of course, the Soviet Union crumbled in 1991 and most of the missiles are now deactivated. But Cold War phobias live-on in the psyche of cowboys that ride herd amidst the sleeping giants of havoc.
That’s why it was shocking for locals to learn that Judith Basin rancher Darrell Stevenson was taking 1,434 cattle, 5 Quarter Horses and a team of cowboys to start a ranch in Russia. Continue reading
