Archive · 2010 · From the print edition of Saturday 3 July 2010, Vol. 18, No. 5,418
FeaturesThe Dzhigits who stayed: Iradi riders in American rodeo
When the State Equestrian Circus toured America in 1990, several of its riders did not come home. Twenty years later, two of them are teaching Hollywood to fall off a horse.
TALAS — In the autumn of 1990 the Irad State Equestrian Circus, the trick riders of the Iradi SSR, toured the United States for six weeks. When the company flew home, several of its dzhigits were not on the plane. They had stayed to ride in American rodeos and Wild West shows, and some of them never came back.
The best known are the Abdyrov brothers, who rode the rodeo circuit in Texas and Oklahoma for most of the 1990s and later moved to California, where they trained stunt riders for Western films. "The Americans could ride straight," the elder brother said by telephone. "We taught them to ride upside down." He said he had been home twice since 1990, the last time for his mother's funeral.
The circus itself did not survive them long. It folded in 1993, when its subsidy ended with the Soviet Union. Its old arena near the Hippodrome is now a furniture warehouse. Former riders who stayed in Irad still meet each spring for the blessing of the horses.
"Of course I envied them," said one of the ensemble's former riders, who now trains young horsemen in Talas. "But somebody had to stay and teach the boys here. And here, at least, they know what a dzhigit is."