Anahita—The Water Goddess

By Heidi Noroozy

Anahita temple in Kangavar, Iran
(with graffiti on one column)

Outside the city of Kangavar in western Iran, a brick wall stretches along the Kermanshah-Hamadan highway. Behind it, tall columns of pale stone rise into the cloudless sky, a sight as unexpected in the arid landscape as the flowering bushes that line the road. These columns, along with the crumbling staircases and rubble that lie at their feet, are all that remain of an ancient temple to one of Persia’s greatest deities, Anahita.

In Persian mythology, Anahita was the goddess of fertility, love (and, strangely, war) as well as all the waters of the world. She also represented justice and wisdom, a quality that many cultures in antiquity associated with water. The goddess is depicted as a voluptuous young maiden with full breasts and a tiny waist. She wears a fur cloak embroidered in gold, a crown of stars and beams of light, and she carries a flowering branch (or sometimes a water jug). In her warrior role, she drives a chariot drawn by four white horses that represent the wind, rain, clouds, and hail. Sometimes, she is accompanied by her sacred animals, the dove and the peacock.

Worship of Anahita dates back to pre-Zoroastrian times. She was a major deity in the pantheon of the Median civilization (728 to 550 BC), which preceded the Persian Empire founded by Cyrus the Great. The Medians, and especially the Magi, their religious sects, referred to her as the Mother Goddess. Not surprisingly, considering her high status among the Medians, the Zoroastrians also incorporated her into their worship, even if she had to accept a demotion from Mother Goddess to guardian angel (yazata). After all, the Zoroastrians were monotheists and worshipped Ahura Mazda (who, incidentally, they also inherited from the Medians) as their only god. The Zoroastrians gave this goddess/angel the name Ardvi Sura Anahita, which means “the High, the Powerful, the Immaculate.” She was believed to have lived among the stars, the brightest of which is the planet Venus (which translates into modern Farsi as “Naheed,” another version of Anahita).

As the Persian Empire expanded, Anahita’s cult spread to other cultures, and she became associated with goddesses honored by the local populations. When Cyrus I conquered Babylon in 539 BC, Anahita blended with Ishtar, the Babylonian goddess of war, fertility, and love. When the Greeks conquered Persia several centuries later, leaving their own imprint on the culture, they associated Anahita with Aphrodite, the goddess of love. In Armenia, she was known as Anahit. And the Indian Parsees call her Anahid.

The Magis also made the transition from the Medians to Zoroastrianism, although these religious cults lost much of their power. They continued to promote the worship of Anahita by reading sacred texts dedicated to her and drinking a beverage called haoma, made from a plant of the same name, which is still used in Zoroastrian rituals today. Anahita’s special day, celebrated with abundant feasts, was the tenth day after the new moon in Avan, the eighth month of the Iranian calendar.

Anahita dish in the
Cleveland Museum of Art

Ardashir II (also known as Ataxerxes), who ruled Persia from 405 to 358 BC, was devoted to Anahita. He had statues erected in her honor in all his major cities and built a temple to the goddess/angel in Ecbatana (present-day Hamadan, Iran). Although Alexander the Great laid waste to the temple in 324 BC during his conquest of Persia, it wasn’t completely destroyed until 2006, when local authorities had the site flattened to make way for a musalla, an Islamic prayer hall.

The Anahita Temple in Kangavar was probably built sometime after the one in Ecbatana, during the Parthian era (246 BC to 224 AD), although some archeologists attribute it to Ardashir. I visited the site several years ago on a road trip from Kermanshah to Tehran. Although the temple was discovered in the early 19^th century and excavated 150 years later, it felt as though little work had been done there in decades. Only a few of the round columns stood upright, with most lying broken on the ground. Crumbling staircases led nowhere, and boulders that once formed the temple’s walls were half buried in the soil.

Our guide, well aware of the neglect, apologized profusely for the state of the archeological treasures. He lamented the lack of government funds and pointed out cracks in beams that had been caused not by the ravages of time over millennia but by frost heaves during a recent winter. His concern didn’t stop him from inviting me to touch the marble columns and climb the staircases. After a moment’s hesitation, I couldn’t resist. How often do you get this close to antiquity? Even at Persepolis, Iran’s most famous archeological site, where visitors wander through the remains of ancient palaces, they follow well marked tourist paths designed to protect the monument from damage.

The same year that I visited Kangavar, the temple was submitted to UNESCO for listing as a World Heritage Site. I hope these efforts are successful—and soon—before Anahita’s temple becomes nothing more than a legend, along with the goddess herself.

A Chechen in Kyrgyzstan is not Kyrgyz

By Kelly Raftery

First off, let me say I mourn deeply for the victims of the Boston tragedy. One of the three fatalities was a little boy exactly the same age as my son. His sister, who has been gravely wounded, danced the same steps as my child. That family could have been mine standing on the street, any one of the victims could have been you or me.

Listening to the media coverage today, I can’t help but cringe at the errors that are being presented as fact about the former Soviet Union, its peoples and cultures. Let’s start with geography. From 1917-1991 there was the Soviet Union, or USSR. The USSR was made up of fifteen Republics, which included the Kyrgyz Republic, the Kazakh Republic, and the Russian Republic among others.  The Soviet Union was one of the world’s most ethnically diverse countries, home to over 100 distinct peoples, who were “encouraged” to adopt Russian over their native tongues, renounce their religions in favor of official atheism and live an appropriately Soviet life. 

A map below outlines the various countries that make up the former Soviet Union today. As you can see, fifteen countries emerged from the Collapse of the Soviet Union in 1991. 

The fifteen Republics operated somewhat independently and when things began to fall apart in the early 90s, it was easy to divide up the Soviet Union into its constituent parts, despite the fact that there were many other ethnicities that also wanted their own sovereign states. In fact, an initial treaty drafted under Gorbachev allowed for eighty separate states to be formed out of the Soviet Union, but this document was set aside during Yeltsin’s August Coup. Among those embryonic nation states never to be formed was the Chechen-Ingush Republic. But, dreams of an independent Chechnya would not die easily and a separatist movement was formed with the goal of an independent state for Chechens. 

Now, let’s look at the map below – of southern Russia and the Caucasus and talk about some of the geopolitical and economic aspects of this area.  First off is a geographic map of the region, showing the three nations that emerged in 1991, Armenia, Azerbaijan, and Georgia. The map also shows southern Russia, including Sochi, host of the 2014 Winter Olympics and Chechnya, right next door. The second (color) map I am attaching shows oil and gas pipelines that run between the rich oil and gas deposits of Kazakhstan, Turkmenistan, and Azerbaijan and the markets of Europe. Please note that one major pipeline runs right through Southern Russia, jogging around to avoid most of Chechnya. The Russians were not and are not willing to let that extremely important piece of land between the two seas be anything other than part of Russia. The fierce and bloody war over this land has dragged on for decades between the Chechens and the Russians and President Putin was elected the first time on the promise that he would never, ever allow the Chechens to gain independence.

The other area of the world that has been much talked about is Central Asia. I have heard today the accused bombers being described as “Chechen” and “from Kyrgyzstan.”  I have seen people on social media claiming that these men are, therefore, Kyrgyz, having been born in Kyrgyzstan. Please look at the map at the top of this post again and note the distance between the two countries. It is 2,500 miles between Bishkek, Kyrgyzstan and Grozny, Chechnya, about as far as Boston to Salt Lake City, with an inland sea or two and some mountain ranges thrown in for good measure. Chechens have a completely different ethnic heritage than the Kyrgyz. Quite simply, Chechens are to Kyrgyz like Brits are to Greeks.  Different languages, different beliefs, different cultures and perspectives on life.  And yes, Kyrgyz and Chechens all practice Islam, but the Catholics and Protestants in Northern Ireland are all Christians, right?

Which brings us to our history point – why were these Chechens in Kyrgyzstan?   Our story starts with Stalin who ruled the USSR from 1924-1953, and was one of the people who actually drew lines on the map creating the borders for the Soviet Republics. The story goes that Stalin saw ethnic identity as a possible rallying point in Central Asia – as well he should, the Basmachi resistance movement in the area did not die until almost a decade after the Socialist Revolution – and so, when drafting the borders of the Central Asian Republics, Stalin was careful to include considerable ethnic minorities in the various Republics. What this means in real terms is that there is a sizable ethnic minority of Uzbeks in Kyrgyzstan, a Tajik community in Uzbekistan, etc. The theory was that if any one group got organized to resist Soviet power, the leadership could take advantage of traditional ethnic tensions and create local unrest, thus taking the focus away from a revolt against Moscow. 

Stalin threw a few more ingredients into this cauldron of potential ethnic strife when, during World War II, he began to deport entire nationalities to Central Asia. The Chechen and Ingush peoples were accused of collaborating with the Nazis and deported to Siberia and Central Asia en masse. In February, 1944, villages were sealed off and people sorted into categories. The infants, very old or sick were deemed “unsuitable for relocation” and massacred immediately, the rest were forced into trains and sent to Siberia, the Kazakh Republic or the Kyrgyz Republic. Between thirty and fifty percent of the Chechen and Ingush populations perished in the first years of the deportation. After Stalin’s death in 1953, Khrushchev “rehabilitated” the Chechen and Ingush and they were allowed to return to their home region, but they had been disenfranchised to such a degree that it was not a terribly attractive proposal for many. Additionally, people had already built new lives in Central Asia and chose to stay in their adopted homelands, which is why Tokmok, a small village outside of Bishkek, still has a  Chechen population today. It was this village in which the Boston Marathon accused bombers were born and spent part of their childhoods. Perhaps their family just stayed after Stalin’s deportation, perhaps when the war in Chechnya between the Separatists and Russia’s forces in the 1990s became intolerable the family went to other relatives or friends still living there, perhaps they made a conscious choice to relocate to Kyrgyzstan after it became an independent nation.  I don’t know.* 

When I lived in Kyrgyzstan I always posed the same question to the locals if they were not ethnically Kyrgyz, “So, who sent your family here, Tsars or Soviets?”  Never did I get the answer that an ancestor had just decided to relocate to Kyrgyzstan on a personal whim; it was always exile of some sort.

So, the Kyrgyz have played host to any number of peoples who did not want to be there, but who were sent there:  Russians, Dungans, Chinese, Volga Germans, Tatars, Uighers, and others. It is not unusual for an ethnic Uzbek or Korean to have a passport from Kyrgyzstan in modern times, but that does not make him Kyrgyz, either. So, while these young men were “from Kyrgyzstan” they were likely born there because Stalin committed atrocities against their people almost seventy years ago.  What complicated webs history weaves for us; her strands connecting the sins of long ago to the tragedies of today.

*  According to this article, the Tsarnaevs were in Kyrgyzstan as a result of Stalin's deportations, left after the 1991 Collapse of the Soviet Union, then sought refuge from the war in Chechnya and returned to Kyrgyzstan in 1994.

Off The Beaten Track: Kate Belle

Today we are honoured with a visit from author Kate Belle who lives, writes and loves in Melbourne, Australia. She juggles her strange, secret affairs with her male characters with her much loved partner and daughter, and a menagerie of neurotic pets. She holds a tertiary qualification in chemistry, half a diploma in naturopathy and a diploma in psychological astrology. Kate believes in living a passionate life and has ridden a camel through the Australian desert, fraternised with hippies in Nimbin, had a near birth experience and lived on nothing but porridge and a carrot for 3 days.

Blog/website: http://www.ecstasyfiles.com

Facebook: http://www.facebook.com/katebelle.x

Twitter: @ecstasyfiles https://twitter.com/ecstasyfiles

 ‘No story really ends, it only links the past and the future.’

At 22 years of age I ran away. I packed a tent, a small pot, a wooden spoon, a bowl, plate and cup, sleeping bag, a guitar I could barely play, and boarded a bus to Byron Bay. In my head I pretended I was free, but all my confusion, aimlessness and a whole swag of unfinished business came with me. I left behind a job, broken hearts, damaged friendships, and the restrictive expectations of my parents to go and ‘find myself’.

These days it’s called a ‘gap year’. And it was probably one of the best years of my life.

I have always been a diary writer and I filled five or six of them in this year (1988) of travelling to nowhere with no one. There was time back then, to experience, learn, relate, and write. Looking back over these self-indulgent tomes I discovered my travels were about more than soul searching. They were about discovery – of diversity, generosity, and divine coincidence.

‘Sometimes it’s nice to have someone else take care of you.’ – waitress, The Beach Cafe, Byron Bay.

I arrived at a Byron Bay vastly different to the busy tourist centre it is today. Byron in 1988 was quiet and beautiful. The famous fondue restaurant was still there and people took the time to wave and say hello as you walked by. 

My diaries offer back memories long forgotten. Everywhere I went, strangers offered me favours. Apparently Barry and Donna, from the Danish ice-cream shop, gave me a lift to the Bangalow markets, and Jack – a man I describe as ‘a surfie, come smoker, come would-be-racing-car-driver who has a heart of gold and head full of sawdust’ – sets up camp next door to me, alleviating the solitary days of my first week there. 

‘I’m not sure I’m here because I want to be, or because I have nowhere else to go.’

I meet Jacob on the beach. It’s the day the tall ships of Australian’s bi-centenary celebrations are due to stop at Byron Bay and the place is overrun by families, tourists and protesters. Jacob is very hairy and a bit older than me. A German hippy, he has no real job or home, just a trail of life experiences and people he communes with. 

Mt. Warning. Photo by Pouts31

At the time I was immersed in books about spirituality and Jacob and I strike up a friendship. We talked a long time on the beach while kids played around us and the hippy community the area was so famous for sat on wide rugs under trees with hand written protest signs. Our conversation turned to spiritual places and Mount Warning, nearby, was one of them. 

Mount Warning is the Australian name for Wollumbin, a mountain with a rocky peak at its crest and a flat space at the top where the local Aboriginal Bundjalung people conducted sacred initiation rites and ceremonies. Because of its height and location, Wollumbin is the first place on the Australian mainland to see the rising sun.

At the time, Jacob and I understood the mountain was a sacred place, but were ignorant of its significance to Aboriginal people. We didn’t realise that climbing it is forbidden to anyone other than the fully initiated. We decided to stay that night on the mountain to witness the morning sunrise. We collected sleeping bags, food, and warm clothes and set off in Jacob’s van.

We began our climb late in the day. The sun was setting and soon we were climbing in moonlight. The last part of the ascent was up a sheer rock face with only a chain for assistance. In the dark it felt close to vertical. The folly of our undertaking never entered my head.

‘Freedom comes from within, not the world around us.’ – Max

We found a sheltered spot under some shrubbery out of the wind and settled down on the hard ground for the night, gnawing on raw carrots, apples and hard pumpernickel bread for dinner. I woke to the sound of Jacob whispering my name ‘Katie! Katie, it’s nearly sunrise.’ We crawled out of our sleeping bags and scrambled up to the flat surface at the top of the mountain.

Others, who had begun their trek in the early hours of the morning, emerged from the track to join us. People searching for enlightenment, people ticking boxes, people conquering fears and mountains. A magnificent view lay below, the land a mass of dancing colour. Jacob and I smiled at each other as the first golden rays of sun stretched over the horizon. 

A small gathering of travelers stood in the quiet, listening to the wind and the song of the rising sun. Each person on that mountaintop put their arm around whomever they were with and hugged them, basking in the golden light of sunrise. The mood was delicious. 

As the sun rose higher we introduced ourselves and shared our reasons for making this journey. There was something about being on that mountaintop that made us want to connect. We formed a small circle and, joining hands, breathed in the fresh energy of a newly begun day. 

It was the 25^th August 1988. Unbeknownst to me this date would be a special one, as my daughter would be born on the same day sixteen years hence.

Jacob and I remained friends for a while. Being of no fixed address, he wasn’t the sort of person you kept in touch with. After we went our separate ways he seemed to just reappear in my life when I needed him most, until I became more settled and found a comfortable place within to live. 

‘Divine love brings into my life the right people who can help and make me happy, and whom I can help and make happy.’ – Jacob

The Yearning by Kate Belle

Synopsis:

It’s 1978 in a country town and a dreamy fifteen year old girl’s world is turned upside down by the arrival of the substitute English teacher. Solomon Andrews is beautiful, inspiring and she wants him like nothing else she’s wanted in her short life. 

Charismatic and unconventional, Solomon easily wins the hearts and minds of his third form English class. He notices the attention of one girl, his new neighbour, who has taken to watching him from her upstairs window. He assumes it a harmless teenage crush, until the erotic love notes begin to arrive.

Solomon knows he must resist, but her sensual words stir him. He has longings of his own, although they have nothing to do with love, or so he believes. One afternoon, as he stands reading her latest offering in his driveway, she turns up unannounced. And what happens next will torment them forever – in ways neither can imagine.

Buy links:

Amazon (http://www.amazon.com/The-Yearning-ebook/dp/B00BSVMRC4)

iTunes (https://itunes.apple.com/au/book/the-yearning/id576561492?mt=11)

Local independent bookshops: (http://www.truelocal.com.au/find/book-shop/)

Making It Their Own Kyrgyz Pop Culture

By Kelly Raftery

When I lived in the former Soviet Union a lifetime ago, I was always stressing to people that the Collapse offered a unique opportunity for these newly independent countries to forge their own path, to create something that was not a carbon-copy of the West, nor Russia, nor simply repeating what they had known under the old regime, but something truly different for each country, a blend of heritage and innovation, modernity and tradition. So now, many years later, I cannot help but be completely thrilled to see modern Kyrgyz pop culture and how it has taken what they found useful from the rest of the world and combined it with their own unique culture that has begun to take its place on the world stage. I take great pleasure in introducing you to a few artists that are not household names in the West, but represent a small glimpse of Kyrgyzstan’s rich and thriving pop culture scene.

Full disclosure ahead – my kid is a dancer. So, when not in the studio, he and I spend a great deal of time watching dance of all kinds on YouTube. At some point in the last year or two, we stumbled upon an extremely talented dancer from Kyrgyzstan, Atai Omurzakov. Beyond the talent is ambition, guts and a very compelling life story, as he was raised by a single mother in rural Karakol, a tough road for any young Kyrgyz man. A couple of years ago, Atai set his sights West and began competing in talent shows, making it to finals of Ukraine’s Got Talent and winning Czecho-Slovakia's Got Talent. Atai dances in a style called “electric boogie” and has taken his new-found fame and fortune home, where he organizes an international dance festival called “I am a Dancer.”  I am attaching two videos below – one is of Atai as a Wall-e-esque robot, the performance that won first place. The second clip features modern Kyrgyz music and the incorporation of traditional nomadic themes. If you are still hungry for more after these two videos, look for him on YouTube, or for a real treat search for Atai’s younger students, who perform under the group name “Tumar.” 

In the world of music, there are two artists who in my mind stand out from the rest – Tata Ulan and Kanykei. The former melds Kyrgyz traditional oral story telling structure with commentary on modern day political and societal issues. Tata Ulan’s deeply conservative views are reflected in his music and while I do not agree with his views, I do find some of his music and videos entertaining and recognize that he has created a singular form of Kyrgyz music. While some would categorize Tata Ulan’s music as rap, I hear a considerable Kyrgyz influence on the cadences and rhythms. The first of the two videos posted below is called “Hello Kyrgyzstan” and is sort of an inside joke, representing regional variations personified. It is sort of like a video that would show American cowboys, Bostonian blue bloods, Chicago cops, and California surfers along with their regional accents. In the second video, Tata Ulan lists all that he feels is wrong with modern Kyrgyz society. The first video is more typically western in style, whereas the second shows more traditional themes and very much mimics the lyrical patterns of the Kyrgyz oral history, Manas.

Kanykei is more of what I would consider a pop star by Western standards and frankly, one that I had somewhat dismissed and overlooked by categorizing her as such. I discovered Kanykei when she provided the theme song for a controversial Kyrgyz movie called “Empty House.”  I saw her video and was impressed with the production values and her singing to some degree, but did not think much more about her. Soon, I saw that she had provided a song for another recent film, “Hello New York” which tells an immigrant’s tale from the Kyrgyz perspective and I started to notice her a bit more. Kaykei has been making appearances internationally, which also caught my eye.  I would like to share with you the two videos that were my introduction to her:

 

Yes, these are pretty typical videos, albeit ones in a foreign language. Nothing particularly outstanding, I figured, kind of like a Kyrgyz Céline Dion. Then, I caught this video of Kanykei performing acapella at an event in Dubai and it literally took my breath away. The first time I heard the range of the vocals, pleasurable chills ran through my body, leaving goose bumps. This is a traditional Kyrgyz song (as you can tell from the crowd joining in) sung in a spectacular way. 

  

Pop culture in this area of the world nimbly walks the path between East and West, not unlike the Kyrgyz themselves.