My Meeting with Chaar Suluu. Mystery or Coincidence?
Chaar Suluu brought me to him.
Back in 2000, when I was at university, a student at the faculty of Finance and Loans with the aim to be a bank clerk, I had a dream. In the dream, my grandfather brought me two horses, a black one and a spotted one, and said: 'Munarbek, they are for you, one for work, and the other for entertainment and racing.' The dream ended then, and I did not give it much importance.
Many years later, when Conor and I began preparing for the filming of the ‘True Appaloosa’ documentary. Before the arrival of the film crew, I explored all of the shooting locations myself to organize the logistics ahead of time. Everything was calculated, the details were discussed with our partners: which horses we would shoot, on which days, at what time. I planned everything to the smallest detail, down to the last minute. However, interestingly, Chaar Suluu was not in my plans: I didn’t know anything about him at all. Absolutely nothing.
We started shooting. The main material had already been filmed and after a short rest, our next location was going to be Son Kul Lake (3200m). There, we would take samples from spotted mares and take pictures of the landscapes and a lake. We left the town of Naryn and headed towards Son Kul through the pass Moldo Bel.
My car was in excellent condition and well equipped. Conor and Van (the cameraman) were shooting landscapes along the way, and everyone was in a great mood.
Our problems began when we started to climb the pass. For some reason, the car began to stall, and soon it stopped completely. We tried to understand what the problem was, but we couldn't and wasted several hours.The sun was setting down, which meant that we had to change our plans and set up camp to spend the night there, because even a person who knows the area can easily get lost in Song Kul at night.
But in the hope that the car would start, I pressed the starter for the last time... the car started and the engine ran as if there had been no problems at all.
We decided to continue our journey, although we had little time and darkness was steadily advancing. Raising clouds of dust and leaving a trail, we rushed in order to find the turn we needed before it was completely dark. It was already late at night when we came to a fork in the road, which I mistakenly took for the turn we needed.
We turned, and after driving for some time we realized that we were lost. The situation was getting tense, Scott was a little scared and the team was tired.
Suddenly, a light flashed nearby, and we heard the voices of people. We headed towards the light and were very glad to see a lonely yurt. A shepherd came
out of the yurt, we got to know each other, I told him what we were doing there and that we had got lost. The shepherd invited us to stay overnight and rest with him, and the next day he promised to take us to the place where we had originally planned to go. As it turns out, I had turned off the road a little earlier than I should have.
The yurt's hostess, despite the cold and dark night, quickly prepared kuurdak (fried lamb with onions and potatoes) for dinner by the light of a kerosene lantern.
During dinner we talked and I told them our story, and that we were making a movie about a spotted horse. Then the shepherd said, 'let me show you my stallion, he is young and only this year I have introduced him into the herd. He has spots and you might like him.'
After talking a little more, we decided that in the morning he would show us his stallion. After that, we quickly helped the hostess to tide up the yurt and went to rest in our sleeping bags.
Early in the morning I was awakened by a noise, the hooves clatter of
an approaching herd. I woke Conor up and couldn't find Scott. We left the yurt and... there we met Scott who, with tears of joy in her eyes, looked at a beautiful
spotted stallion, which in the light of the rising sun looked even more graceful, and with a proudly raised head was prancing around his herd. The mares looked at him with humility, knowing that, with him, them and the foals would be safe.
While Scott and I were admiring this spotted beauty, Conor quickly returned
to the yurt, woke Van and Mark up, and they immediately began their work.
Then, I approached the spotted stallion, we looked into each other's eyes and he allowed me to touch him.
Right then, someone told me: let's give him a name. Scott suggested giving him an Indian name, but I automatically, without even thinking, called him Chaar Suluu (spotted beauty) and whispered to him: 'I'll come back to you.'
In the deep layers of the history of mankind and our nature, there are many unsolved mysteries that we have not yet learned to fully reveal. It is essential to learn to unravel and study these secrets and signals that come to us, to look thoughtfully into the origins - a lot of information is stored there. And these mysteries are interesting from both sides.
The spotted horse is mentioned many times in Kyrgyz folklore, often as a
sacred animal. The ancestors of the Kyrgyz, those who were still nomads, believed that if a member of the family fell ill, the appearance of such a horse could help. It was said that it takes away the evil forces and leaves only the ones made of light. Today, it is in our hands to preserve the Chaar horse, increase its number and give it value. To love this horse not because of its spots, but because it is sacred, and it is connected with our roots.
To find out how the story ends, watch the True Appaloosa documentary below:
Produced and Directed by Conor Woodman.
The film tells the story of a 69-year-old Californian horsewoman, now living in New Zealand who sets off on an extraordinary journey to find the truth about the origins of the rare Appaloosa spotted horse. Back in the saddle for the first time in 12 years, she crosses one of the world's highest mountain ranges in search of a lost valley, where she hopes to discover whether the experts have been wrong all along and that the true source of the North American Appaloosa horse is Asia and not Europe, as the history books would have us believe.
World press review on film
