November 20, 2024 • 41 mins
Ryan meets the team of misfits that will accompany him on the journey to rebuild Zaqistan. He gets schooled in Zaqistani history and applies for citizenship, as part of his ultimate quest to Become Zaqistani.
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Speaker 1 (00:03):
In the summer of twenty twenty three, Zach Landsberg got
an email from someone he'd never met, a woman named Alisha.
Speaker 2 (00:10):
Hey, Zach, I'm sure you're curious to know the state
of Zakistan. I definitely have a lot to tell you.
I at least want to get the photos to you.
Speaker 1 (00:18):
Alicia followed up a week later.
Speaker 2 (00:21):
Zakistan was in sad shape. The door on the customs
booth had fallen off. What I think is the victory
arch had become warped. People are idiots and have shot
the dissennial monument. The rest of the robots are kind
of strewn about. You can tell that people have tried
to gather them or put them somewhere more safe, like
(00:41):
the robot that was put on top of the mysterious
wide object. The visitor's log has been severely damaged by water.
A lot of the pages aren't readable anymore. The majority
of entries were people happy to have finally found Zakistan,
with a few talking about the amazing sex they had
in the customs booth.
Speaker 3 (01:00):
Zach replied, Hey, Alicia, thanks so much for the photos
and the info. This is enormously helpful. I'm planning on
heading out to Zakistan in September. Thanks again for all
your help.
Speaker 1 (01:13):
Zach, Zakistan was in sad shape back before microcon the
Convention of micro Nationalists, and now I'm on my way
to the desert to help fix it up, to find
out what it means to become a Zakistani citizen, and
to understand the question what exactly is a nation? Anyway?
Speaker 4 (01:38):
This is escape from Zakistan.
Speaker 5 (01:44):
I don't know.
Speaker 6 (01:44):
Frankly, I think the US should just basically have to
fall apart first, because no country willingly gives up their territory.
Speaker 7 (01:50):
When I found this idea over the internet, I was
just dumbfounded and shocked by it. I thought I should
declare a nation myself, brain blue to bits, and I
did it?
Speaker 1 (02:02):
How much for a war bond?
Speaker 4 (02:04):
Five to ten bucks a month?
Speaker 3 (02:05):
Generally, I think nationalism is bad and that if you're
the subject of royalty that you didn't elect, that's problematic.
Speaker 8 (02:13):
Anyway, thank you in advancement for saving us a seat
at the u N in the first five rows if possible.
Speaker 1 (02:17):
Sorry, I hate to be that guy.
Speaker 5 (02:19):
Can you stamp my passborn?
Speaker 9 (02:20):
Oh yeah sure?
Speaker 1 (02:22):
A nice spam neutral zone, border checkpoint approved. Microcon demilitarized
neutral Zone. Yeah, that's comforting.
Speaker 4 (02:36):
Episode two, Becoming Zakistani.
Speaker 1 (02:44):
Sometime around two thousand and six, twenty five year old
Zach Landsberg is on his way to California from Argentina
on a red eye. He just spent a week or
so setting up the Zakistani embassy in Buenos Aires. Zach,
easily identifiable with his long jet black hair, hasn't slept much.
(03:05):
His light brown skin is a mix inherited from his
Chinese American mom and Jewish dad. His flight lands, he
collects his stuff at baggage claim and makes a phone call.
Speaker 3 (03:16):
I call my mom and I'm like, hey, I just
got a clear customs and then you know, you can
pick me up like outside on the curb. And I
made several errors coming back into the country, which I
realized now, so it's coming from South America, which.
Speaker 5 (03:33):
Is like red flag number one.
Speaker 3 (03:34):
I have long hair, I have a shady box. I
also didn't realize that my flight arrived at like seven
in the morning, and I didn't realize that the customs
shift ends at eight.
Speaker 1 (03:47):
You'd think the customs agent's working the night shift would
be eager to get home, but something about Zach could
be the hair the shady box. Something gives them pause.
Speaker 3 (03:56):
So I go through and there's like an older white guy.
It takes my customs for him. He puts like just
red slash through it, and he's like bline.
Speaker 1 (04:06):
They point Zach to a different window where a different
guy takes the shady box.
Speaker 3 (04:10):
I'm not totally realizing exactly what's happening. So dude starts
opening up and none of this makes any sense. I
had probably like one hundred one hundred something blank Zakistan passports.
Speaker 1 (04:23):
This is when the real trouble begins for Zach. Sure
there's the box of blank passports, but also two passports
belonging to one Zachary Landsberg, an American passport and a
Zakistani one.
Speaker 3 (04:36):
Somebody disappears with my Zakistan passport. Somebody disappears with my
American passport. I don't really understand what's going on, and
so I could see them like looking at my website
and looking up Zakistan stuff.
Speaker 5 (04:49):
They're not allowing me.
Speaker 3 (04:50):
To look at my phone or like call my mom
to tell her that like this.
Speaker 5 (04:53):
Might be a while.
Speaker 3 (04:55):
And so yeah, the Latino guy is like, real, just
you know what do you think you're doing.
Speaker 1 (04:58):
Here good cut back copoosts or like just kind of
openly hostile.
Speaker 3 (05:03):
Well, they open the box of passports and they're like
what are these. I'm like, they're zach San passports and
they're like, what if somebody try to enter the country
with one of these?
Speaker 5 (05:13):
And I should I probably shouldn't have.
Speaker 3 (05:14):
Said this, but I was like, hey, man, I don't
want to tell you how to do your job, but
I'm guessing that if somebody comes into the country with
the Zakstan passports, they're going to need a US visa, right,
don't you? Guys have a list of countries like at
the front that you have relationships with, and so they're like,
(05:35):
why you have this many who do you give these two?
I was like, you know, friends of mine and they're
like you have one hundred friends. I'm like, hey, hey,
you know, maybe not right now, but you know, you know,
and they're just like you can't have these, and I'm like, well, man,
are you seizing every Disneyland.
Speaker 5 (05:53):
Passport that comes by?
Speaker 3 (05:54):
And they're like that's different. It's like how they're like,
we know where Disneyland is, we don't know where Zakistan is.
Speaker 1 (06:06):
It's a good question. Where is Zakistan. Well, Zach doesn't
really want to reveal the exact location for reasons we'll
get to later, but suffice to say it's in the
middle of the desert, due west of the Great Salt
Lake in Utah. Now, Disneyland, I know where that is,
but I've never been. You haven't, Zaren. You have, Ryan,
(06:28):
you have to go. It's a place for kids and families.
Speaker 10 (06:31):
You have those. I mean, yes, it is cheesy, we
all know this, but kids they always remember going to Disneyland.
I mean that's worth it alone. Ryan, Are you not
into it?
Speaker 1 (06:41):
I mean my adult cousins go every year and they
have fun.
Speaker 5 (06:45):
But I don't know.
Speaker 1 (06:45):
It sounds kind of miserable. I hate long lines, expensive junk.
Plus it all just sounds so fake. There's like gimmicky
passports and stuff. Right.
Speaker 10 (06:56):
Yes, Epcot happiest place on Earth. This is a small world,
after all, I'm telling you.
Speaker 5 (07:01):
You have to Yeah.
Speaker 4 (07:02):
I think I went when I was a kid and
had a good time. But I did go to Disneyland
Paris as an adult and I had a panic attack
there and I think it was just because there were
like huge crowds of people, but also when you're there,
you could just kind of feel the excessive capitalism of
it all. So it feels kind of gross. But honestly,
props to Disney World in Florida because they publicly criticized
(07:24):
that Don't Say Gay Bill, which pissed off Governor DeSantis,
and then to retaliate, he revoked their self governing status
in Florida that they had had since the nineteen sixties.
So basically, for fifty plus years, Disney World was kind
of like a micronation.
Speaker 1 (07:39):
Yeah, I guess if we're talking about going to fake micronations,
Disneyland's not all that different from Zakistan, although I doubt
anyone has ever called Zakistan the happiest place on Earth.
In fact, Zach himself is pretty candid about what it's
like at there. Here's what he told me.
Speaker 3 (07:56):
It is my country. I mean to be honest, it
kind of sucks. Like it's nice at sunrise and sunset,
but it's like it's high desert, so it's you know,
five thousand feet and change. The sun's really intense, it's
cold at night. The landscape is not remarkable, just like
you know cartoon landscape, just rolling rolling past.
Speaker 1 (08:18):
Like the road Runner goes back.
Speaker 5 (08:19):
Yeah yeah, yeah yeah.
Speaker 1 (08:21):
But whether Zakistan is better or more real than Disneyland
doesn't change the fact that Zach is still in line
at the customs booth in Lax, worried he's about to
be in big trouble for his box of blank passports.
Speaker 3 (08:35):
There's a point where all my stuff is spread out,
there's multiple people, I'm not sure where my US passport is,
and then it all basically stops abruptly.
Speaker 1 (08:45):
Just like that. They stamp Zach's US passport. But is
zakistanione in the box of blank passports? The customs officials
keep those.
Speaker 4 (09:01):
Now.
Speaker 1 (09:01):
Zach had spent a considerable amount of time and energy
designing these passports to look authentic. He found a printing
shop in China that would print three hundred of them.
He even asked his ex girlfriend's new boyfriend to help
bring them into the country in his suitcase. And now
they're gone, and.
Speaker 3 (09:18):
So like, they just wrap that stuff in green US
customs tape, slap a bunch of like bonded bright orange
stickers to it.
Speaker 5 (09:28):
They give me a slip of paper.
Speaker 3 (09:31):
I was going to open up the Zakistan consulate General
in New York. You know, I guess like in a
week's time, So like if they had held onto it,
that would have totally messed up I deal.
Speaker 1 (09:41):
Zach was about to open an office for the Consulate
General of Zakistan in an art gallery in New York City,
where he hoped to grow the ranks of his citizenry.
But to do that, he needed that box of passports.
He leaves the airport dejected.
Speaker 3 (09:56):
You know, like I hadn't really slept. My mom is
a ray, you know, and I was just like they
took all I stopped there, you know, and so we
go home. I like take a nap, collect myself, take
my piece of paper, and I go down to the
warehouse by the airport in Lax. I wait my turn
(10:18):
to like handle my forum and they're like, you need
a stamp from the customs office. We can't give this
to you yet. I was like, okay, where's that.
Speaker 1 (10:27):
So Zach heads to a different building, wait's in a
different line.
Speaker 3 (10:30):
And I give them the paper and they're like what
is this. I'm like, you tell me, like I'm trying
to get my stuff back, and they're like, you're trying
to bring passports into this country, Yeah, you can't bring
these in. I'm like, it's my you know, Like show
me a section of the law, like, explain to.
Speaker 5 (10:48):
Me how this is going.
Speaker 1 (10:51):
This is where Zach's pretend country bumps up against the
real one they're in. In Zakistan, there's no law about
bringing in foreign passports. There aren't any laws about anything,
at least not written down. But here in the United
States of America, we are a nation of laws, as
they say, also a nation of bureaucracy. Zach and the
customs agents go round and round until finally the woman
(11:13):
says there's nothing that can be done today.
Speaker 3 (11:16):
Like when can you do something? She's like ten am tomorrow,
Like you know, this isn't even gonna get process until
then at the earliest.
Speaker 5 (11:25):
So I'm like, all right, whatever.
Speaker 1 (11:27):
Zach's not one for bureaucracy. In fact, he kind of
hates it, so he's grumpy. Plus his mom, Cynthia, is
not happy with the whole situation.
Speaker 3 (11:38):
My mom was like mad, you know, and I was like, Mom,
I just don't I don't know what to do. I
don't know how to get them back. We kind of
like calmed down and she was like, all right, do
we know anybody who works at customs or the airport.
Speaker 5 (11:51):
And then she was like.
Speaker 8 (11:52):
Gino, Cynthia calls and says, Zachary's at the airport and
they took these things that are passports and he made
and he took them away him, and how do I
get them back? And what are we going to do?
Speaker 1 (12:02):
This is Gino, a friend of Zach's mom.
Speaker 8 (12:04):
I said, oh my god, this is okay. I know
what happened.
Speaker 3 (12:08):
I feel like, yeah, I had to wait like a
full two minutes for you to stop laughing.
Speaker 11 (12:14):
It's hysterical.
Speaker 8 (12:15):
It's ridiculous. They don't get the joke. It's a fake country,
the fake passports. These guys took it seriously.
Speaker 1 (12:21):
Gino's retired now, but back then he was a commercial
import specialist, and before that he was a customs inspector.
He told me he was surprised that the customs agents
didn't just let Zac through, even with the long hair
and shitty box.
Speaker 8 (12:35):
The part that drove me crazy was they could have
sent that stuff out the door with him four or
five different ways and nobody would have minded, and everything
would have been fine. But they made more out of it.
I think it's because they don't. They don't understand that
much about commercial operations. Now they all worry about immigration
and terrorist, immigration and terrorism. When I started working for customs,
we didn't carry a gun like before. We were like
(12:57):
tax collectors. And now they wanted this to be police.
What changed, Well, nine to eleven changed everything. Once that happened.
We went from being the part of the Treasury Department
to being part of the war against terrorism. And so
by the time poor Zachary came wandering in with fake
passports from a country these people had never heard of.
I mean, he's gonna pull some terrorist act, impersonating somebody
(13:20):
from a fake country. And that was something that surprises
me to say. I know, the geography is not everybody's
strong suit. I don't know how many countries that are
in Africa. There's like sixty or something. But uh, this
was zach even the name.
Speaker 1 (13:35):
Yeah, it seems like you'd have some sort of basic
geography test.
Speaker 8 (13:39):
Well, yeah, exactly, is exactly right. There is a list
in the back of the twer schedule is in the book,
lists of all the countries, you know, alhabetical order. None
of these people knew how to just aod will. We
used to say, ass outdoor, Just get you out of here, goodbye.
Speaker 1 (13:54):
I mean, I guess you don't want something to come back.
Like it in theory, if you let something in that
wasn't supposed to and then they find out about it,
could that come back?
Speaker 8 (14:04):
Eh? Nobody finds out of it. I have these what's
going on? Honestly? I used to sign off stuff all
the time.
Speaker 1 (14:12):
Well, so what was your advice to zactly? What did
you tell them to do?
Speaker 8 (14:16):
I told him make an informal entry, which is valued
on the twenty five hundred dollars. Here's the paperwork.
Speaker 4 (14:20):
I think.
Speaker 8 (14:21):
I gave him a form. I gave him some number
that is used to classify. Everything has to be classified.
Everything's got a number except for electricity, currency, and dead bodies.
So I gave hi a piece of paper. I gave
my tariff number, and apparently it worked and they gave
you the stuff without charging anything. Is that the way
it worked out in the end, So I did.
Speaker 3 (14:41):
I went in the next day after ten am. I
gave him a piece of paper and they like stamped
it so at eating anything.
Speaker 1 (14:49):
Else, Zach felt vindicated. Finally the passports were back in
his possession. All it took was two trips to two
different warehouses, several hours of waiting in lines, a family
connection to the Customs department, and a nap passports in hand.
Zach drove his family's minivan across the country the United
States and set up the office of the Consulate in
(15:11):
New York City. That week, zach Stan's population grew tenfold.
His country was on the rise.
Speaker 5 (15:29):
So this is it? This is it? Yeah?
Speaker 3 (15:32):
Where this is the zachar LLC studio where I make
a mess, where the things come together.
Speaker 1 (15:42):
I'm standing in zach Landsberg studio in Brooklyn. Almost the
entire space is taken up by the statue of Liberty,
or Zach's interpretation of it. The patina looks very real.
Speaker 3 (15:56):
Yeah, this one initially is pain with copper flex and
it hit with an oxidizing acid. So what's left of
the blue here you see is real.
Speaker 5 (16:07):
There's no paint or pigment in this.
Speaker 1 (16:11):
At one twelfth the scale off the real thing. Zack's
sculpture is a bit bigger than a minivan or two,
but rather than standing stoically holding a torch, Lady Liberty
is resting on her side, head in hand, as if
she herself has grown weary of her duties, having watched
too many tired and poor, huddled masses yearning to breathe free.
(16:32):
Or maybe she's tired of America's indifference to those huddled masses,
tired of reminding our citizens that America's status as a
beacon of hope still applies to everyone. Either way, she
seems like she needs a break, and in Zach's studio
she's getting a makeover.
Speaker 3 (16:48):
The a patina is very protective and it's very iconic.
But you know, when you rub a penny like that,
the blue goes away.
Speaker 1 (16:56):
So people were rubbing the statue.
Speaker 5 (16:59):
Yeah, like got rubbed down.
Speaker 3 (17:01):
But I'm working on the permanent version, and so I'm
still trying to get the secret sauce right.
Speaker 1 (17:07):
The sculpture has been a hugely successful project for Zach,
who's thirty nine now. For a while. Reclining Liberty was
even installed in Liberty Park, where she greeted visitors on
the New Jersey side of the Hudson River as they
boarded the ferry to see the real deal. Zack is
a sculptor by trade. He builds things, big things made
(17:28):
of steel, aluminum, wood. His work is mostly public art
on display in parks and on plazas, and it tends
to grapple with big, complicated ideas about the American project.
He's built statues of Christopher Columbus and Roberty Lee out
of fungus mycillium to be exact, so that over time
the statues slowly wrought. The Lee sculpture replaced a marble
(17:52):
one taken down in twenty seventeen, as if to say,
we're replacing our whitewashed history with something more honest. Of
all his work over his nearly twenty year career, the
project that he can't seem to put to rest, that
he's still working on is when he started when he
was in college.
Speaker 3 (18:09):
Here's a shoe box of the remaining blank Zakistan passports.
Speaker 5 (18:13):
I think I have about one hundred left.
Speaker 1 (18:16):
The other two hundred and something have been issues.
Speaker 3 (18:19):
Yeah, yeah, or like two eighty three right now. The
originals are a lot of them are expired, which is
kind of crazy. I did not anticipate. I thought ten
years of validity would be enough, but here we are.
Speaker 1 (18:38):
So people get their passport renewed.
Speaker 5 (18:41):
Yeah, yeah, we definitely do that.
Speaker 3 (18:44):
But passports are diabolical because I mean like everything in
Zakistan is like labor intensive.
Speaker 1 (18:51):
To date, there are two hundred and eighty three official
Zakistani citizens. He thinks lots more of applied, though seems
like they're at aplications got stuck in limbo.
Speaker 3 (19:02):
As Zakistan's gotten bigger and as it's gotten more attention,
there's like nuts and bolts bureaucratic stuff that has to
happen to keep it running, which makes me into a bureaucrat.
Speaker 1 (19:15):
Zach did not start a country with ambitions to become
a bureaucrat. Nonetheless, before I leave his studio, I ask
for an application.
Speaker 5 (19:24):
Here's a citizenship application.
Speaker 1 (19:29):
Do you have to use pen?
Speaker 5 (19:31):
Probably? Probably?
Speaker 1 (19:33):
Zack has a stuffed folder of applications and seemingly random order.
He's got a stamp that reads approved and a stamp
that reads denied, and the stamp of the official seal
of Zakistan a giant squid. Even though Zakistan is in
the middle of the desert. It's unclear with the actual
application process entails why you might be denied or not.
(19:56):
But I decided to roll the dice. Here's my citizen applications.
Pakistan citizenship is free. The requirements are that you genuinely
wish to become a citizen true and your greed to
accept both benefits and duties that this entails. You must
also complete this form in full. If your application is approved,
the Republic of Zakistan will send you an official document
(20:19):
naturalizing you as a citizen and bestowing all the rights
and privileges that come with it. This document may not
be recognized by other nations and will not allow travel
over international borders. Holding dual Zakistan citizenship and citizenship to
another country is allowed.
Speaker 4 (20:35):
Works for me, so Ryan, I hope you get your citizenship,
but I do wonder at the end of the day,
Zakistan is mostly an art project. Why do you want
to become a citizen so badly?
Speaker 1 (20:51):
I think part of it is just a simple desire
to have something cool like this passport, be part of
a group, a community. I like this idea Zach has
about citizenship. That's kind of aspirational. Citizenship is ultimately about belonging,
and Zakistan as kind of a everyone is welcome policy.
And because it's art, there aren't these weighty consequences.
Speaker 10 (21:14):
From what y'all found in a Joliet at the micro con.
There were other art project micronations.
Speaker 4 (21:21):
Right, yeah, I mean I think most people there were
kind of having a goof, but there was a few
other art based micronations. Remember the Queen of Ladonia who
was hosting the con. Well, Ladonia actually started as a
protest art project, kind of like Zakistan. Do you guys
remember around two thousand and seven when that Swedish artist
(21:42):
drew cartoons that depicted the prophet Mohammed.
Speaker 10 (21:45):
Oh yeah, yeah, Like a lot of people, especially in
the Muslim community, they found all of that super offensive. Yeah,
I remember international outrage.
Speaker 4 (21:57):
Yeah, these cartoons led to protests, death threats, assassination attempts.
Even Al Qaeda placed a bounty on the artist. And
on the intellectual side of things, there are all these
debates about free speech versus respect for religion. Well, that
artist is the guy who founded Ladonia, are you for real? Yes?
His name was Lars vilks So. Back in the eighties,
(22:18):
long before those cartoons, he built two giant driftwood sculptures
in this nature reserve in Sweden, the Catches. He didn't
get any permits and it was in a protected area,
so the Swedish authorities were not amused q a decade
long legal battle. Then Vilks did something a little crazy.
He declared the area around his sculptures an independent nation
(22:42):
called Ladonia, claiming that Sweden had no jurisdiction there. I
imagine the Swedish authorities were kind of like rolling their
eyes at this point, but thanks to all the press attention,
the sculptures had become a symbol of artistic freedom. And
now they're still there as like a quirky tourist spot,
mostly intact. And Ladonia, the micro nation, has twenty nine
(23:04):
thousand citizens worldwide who are all dedicated to free speech
and creative expression, and obviously some of those citizens are
in Juliet, Illinois.
Speaker 1 (23:15):
Zakistan got some press attention to back in twenty fifteen,
some of it wanted, some unwanted, and it kind of
changed the equation for Zach, made his art project suddenly
more real.
Speaker 4 (23:27):
When you eventually get to Zach's land, that's when you
enter the Republic of Zakistan.
Speaker 3 (23:33):
Basically after twenty fifteen, we're on the Utah local news
and kind of had this viral moment. Each day seemed
to get crazier of like somebody you know texted me
just like, hey, you know you're on Conan.
Speaker 5 (23:45):
It's a weird.
Speaker 12 (23:46):
Story, but follow me on this one. A man named
Zach is creating his own sovereign nation in Utah that
he is calling Zakistan. Unfortunately, Zakistan has gotten into a
ground war with its neighbor. The people was Republic of Todd.
Speaker 3 (24:01):
So the next day I got an email from the
Daily Mail and they asked if they could use some
images from my website. I got to sleep the next day.
The story is in like forty different languages, Zakistan.
Speaker 6 (24:23):
That lends the book Zakistan.
Speaker 3 (24:31):
That headline turns into something more like giant robots guard
sovereign nation and Utah desert, which is like not. The
whole idea of Zakistan is that you're not supposed to
accept the hook line and sinker and so like the
media did, and then it seemed like kind of everybody
else did.
Speaker 1 (24:52):
To be fair, Zach did build robots along the US
Zakistan border, but they weren't giant, maybe eight or nine
feet and not very intimidating. Think Bender from Futurama. But
fake news was already accelerating online, even though we didn't
use that word for it, back then. So this story
about a new idealistic country with giant robots with easy clickbait,
(25:17):
but below the surface, the story took off for a
different reason. The promise of Zakistan felt so terribly real
for many desperate people around the world.
Speaker 3 (25:27):
I would go to sleep, but I'd wake up and
I'd have like eighty eight new emails, and it would
be like Pakistani's sending scans of their passports, their resumes
and saying that they wanted to move their families and
their small businesses to Zakistan. And it became overwhelming.
Speaker 1 (25:46):
A man named Adal wrote to Zach.
Speaker 13 (25:49):
Hello, I am from Uplaniston and now I am a
refugee in Germany. But I feel not good in Germany.
I want to go away from European and Asian people.
What is the visa? I want to come to Zakistan
for a good and peacefully life.
Speaker 1 (26:04):
Najim from Pakistan sent him an email.
Speaker 14 (26:07):
Hellosa, I live in Pakistan. I'm a businessman. I'm also
fit as a horse. I've seen about the Zakistan on Internet.
I'm interested in the Zakistan nationality. What will be the
procedure to get nationality of the Zakistan candly, please send
me the detail.
Speaker 1 (26:23):
A young couple made Zach generous offer.
Speaker 6 (26:26):
Hi, Zach, I had seen the news regarding the new
country you have declared on the earth. I try to
explore more about Zakistan and concluded that it's an independent
country with a new young blood president. It's only a
land area at the moment, but hopefully with your true efforts,
it will get developed soon. For the development of this
(26:50):
new country, you will be definitely in need of some
manpower and educated people. Me and my partner decided to
contribute in this good pace.
Speaker 1 (27:02):
Zach started replying to these requests in earnest at first,
even developed a bit of a form.
Speaker 3 (27:07):
Reply, thank you for your interest in the Republic of Zakistan.
Due to the overwhelming response, it could be several days
to one month before your inquiry can be personally handled.
Please note, Zakistan is small, remote and bound on all
sides by the United States. It is as of now
unrecognized by any other country. It is not possible to
(27:29):
travel to Zakistan without going through the United States. There
are no living facilities, no roads, and no water in Zakistan.
It is not possible to live in Zakistan Zakistan cannot
offer employment to anyone at this time. It is currently
not possible to obtain a visa to visit Zakistan or
set up business operations in Zakistan, and probably won't be
(27:49):
for some time.
Speaker 1 (27:52):
But replying to these emails took a lot of Zach's energy,
a lot of actual diplomacy. He hesitated to continue offering
passports online.
Speaker 3 (28:01):
So it was very difficult to like convey this in
a language that they would understand, because you know, I
could be like, hey, look, if I give you this,
like you need to acknowledge that you're not going to
try and cross borders with it. You know, there's like
responsibility on my end.
Speaker 1 (28:18):
Zakistan started to feel a little too real, and Zach
grew overwhelmed.
Speaker 3 (28:23):
I completely lost control of it, and it really kind
of freaked me out.
Speaker 1 (28:28):
He decided to essentially shut the whole thing down, close
the borders, let his country fall into ruins. He walked
away from Zakistan, became a leader in exile. But nearly
a decade later, still sitting out there in the desert
(28:48):
is the real Zakistan, in disrepair, once guarded by medium
sized robots. This place, this idea still holds promise for many,
and Zach wants to say second chance.
Speaker 3 (29:01):
I didn't have the direction of like cool, all these
people become citizens, and I don't have all these citizens.
What do I do with these citizens? Let's direct this
energy into a cause or a thing.
Speaker 1 (29:13):
So Zach has pulled together a team of unlikely heroes
and one opportunistic podcaster to rebuild it. Will Zach Stan
rise from the ashes.
Speaker 11 (29:30):
I'm ten years old and I'm in fourth grade, and
I just wanted to talk about my country's map.
Speaker 1 (29:37):
Okay, so what maybe? What is this?
Speaker 11 (29:43):
This is a created country plan?
Speaker 1 (29:47):
Can you read it?
Speaker 11 (29:50):
The name of my country is Unicorn Bunny, Fairy Mermaid
Pony Island.
Speaker 1 (29:57):
This is my daughter June telling me the colorful map
she made for a class project of a country she
invented called Unicorn Bunny, Fairy Mermaid Pony Island. The island
itself is shaped like a unicorn, sits in the middle
of the Pearl Sea. The country has five states Unicorn Bunny.
You get the idea by go to the State of Bunny.
(30:21):
Is there bunnies everywhere?
Speaker 11 (30:23):
Yeah, that's why it's called the State of Bunny.
Speaker 5 (30:25):
Yeah.
Speaker 11 (30:27):
Well, there's a bunny forest in a bunny lands.
Speaker 1 (30:30):
Right, those sound pretty fun. Unlike the guys from microcon,
my daughter's desire to start a country came from a
class assignment, although, come to think of it, a couple
of micro nationalists we met mentioned that their idea had
started as a class project and just kept going, which,
let's hope is not what happens the unicorn, bunny, fairy, mermaid,
(30:51):
pony island. Besides, it's not that easy to just start
a country, right.
Speaker 5 (31:00):
Would you want to?
Speaker 1 (31:00):
Would you be able to read this?
Speaker 11 (31:03):
The directions is you will create a country. You will
make a political political political political map of this country
that shows state borders, state capitals, major cities in the
capital city of your country. You will also color the map,
(31:26):
but first you must plan.
Speaker 5 (31:29):
It says.
Speaker 1 (31:31):
Sometimes students choose a theme for their country, then make
the place names connect to that theme in some way.
Other students start with real place names but then change
them up in some way. Pakistan Zakistan. Ha I told
you about Zakistan, right, yeah, a.
Speaker 11 (31:49):
Little bit, but it's not a real thing.
Speaker 1 (31:51):
Right, Well, it's real, it's a real place, it exists.
Speaker 11 (31:58):
Well yeah, but they needed.
Speaker 1 (32:01):
But it's real, Like there's a place I went to
called Zakistan.
Speaker 11 (32:06):
I don't get it anyway.
Speaker 10 (32:11):
Okay, gotta say I'm with her. I don't get it either, Ryan,
How is Zakistan real?
Speaker 1 (32:18):
Well, think about it this way. If you google Unicorn, bunny, fairy, Mermaid,
Pony Island, you're gonna get a bunch of colorful pictures.
But if you google Zakistan, z Aqstan, it's on the map.
It's there. It's a real place. You know, if Google
says it, it's got to be.
Speaker 4 (32:35):
Real, right, Ryan, I'm curious. I know you wanted to
become a citizen. Why did you want to visit Zakistan.
It kind of seems like a miserable experience to get
out there.
Speaker 1 (32:46):
I was into this idea of rebuilding Zakistan, that the
nation was once mighty, But looking at the pictures Alicia
sent the woman who visited on her honeymoon, it just
looked sad. Plus, I was excited about the adventure going there.
It's probably the most remote place I've ever been, and
my wife wasn't all that surprise. It's kind of a
thing for me. I've been to the easternmost point in
(33:08):
Nova Scotia. I've been to the very end of the
Mississippi River, where the road just literally fades into the ocean.
Something about those places that are just so remote is
appealing to me. Plus, you know, I've got a podcast
to make, so I told my family I was going
to the desert and i'd be gone for a few days.
Speaker 10 (33:26):
Yeah. But other than Zach, did you know any of
the other guys who made that trip with you you're going
into the desert?
Speaker 1 (33:32):
Yeah, I didn't know anyone.
Speaker 4 (33:33):
So other than telling your wife and kids goodbye, how
did you get ready for Zakistan?
Speaker 1 (33:37):
Let's just say I was probably the most prepared. It's
the night before we depart on our mission to rebuild Zakistan.
I'm in Salt Lake City at the house of Mike
Abuzolov or is. Everyone calls him Mike Abou. Sometimes Zach
just calls him boo, which is cute.
Speaker 15 (33:58):
Gotta hatch it, got private or got u hammer, got
a uh now hammer, just so we can really nail
some of.
Speaker 6 (34:10):
The stuff up, like the top of the robots heads.
Speaker 1 (34:14):
Mike is kind of just wandering in and out of
his apartment looking for things that might be useful out
in the deskert.
Speaker 5 (34:20):
Should we bring the danger tape.
Speaker 15 (34:22):
You have tape for the set of Danger, Probably no.
Speaker 5 (34:25):
Reason not to take it at this point.
Speaker 8 (34:27):
Yeah, we already have paper towels.
Speaker 5 (34:32):
I don't know. I hope we're doing pretty well.
Speaker 1 (34:35):
Mike thinks we're doing pretty well. Me, I'm not so sure.
There's no master packing list as far as I can tell, which,
since we're headed off the grid in the middle of nowhere,
seems like a bit of a problem. Zach is focused
on the stuff he needs for rebuilding, so we head
to home depot to get some parts for the robots.
It's eight o'clock the night before we leave in things
(34:58):
are pretty chaotic.
Speaker 15 (35:01):
Oh yeah, I don't know, man, I've been trying to
run logistics.
Speaker 5 (35:17):
They don't run through Micah Boo as much as I
don't like emails, Like.
Speaker 16 (35:31):
I'm trying to keep trying things on spreadsheets and whatever,
and my kaboo is just doing it by like making
phone calls and not writing anything down, just making the
planning like a little freaking.
Speaker 1 (35:46):
This is kind of the way it goes with Micah Boo.
Zach's used to it. Mike and Zach have been friends
and collaborators for the last dozen or so years. You
could say that Mike is the Secretary of State of Zakistan.
Since he lives in Salt Lake and Zachson Brooklyn, Mike's
become the local representative. He runs the passport control, handles
(36:07):
diplomatic relations, and let's state visitors crash it as apartment
robot parts in hand. We gather for a team meeting
back at Mike's place. Another team member, Spencer wool Rab,
is again unofficially the Minister of Media. He'll be taking
photographs for the planned upgrade to the Tourism department website.
(36:29):
His concerns are more practical.
Speaker 15 (36:32):
Toilet paper. I thought about that we should get Can
we bring the day?
Speaker 5 (36:38):
You mean any water for that?
Speaker 4 (36:40):
We have one ply type of toilet paper?
Speaker 15 (36:42):
No, you gotta go, no insane? One ply is fine
if we bring the Should we bring it the day?
Speaker 5 (36:50):
I wouldn't go that extravago.
Speaker 1 (36:52):
Okay, I go wipes over, Yeah, I have two packages
of baby wipes already. Now that the hygiene problem is solved,
the conversation turns to provisions.
Speaker 5 (37:06):
Make sure you get enough beer for Paul? Yeah, bracelets,
friendship bracelets?
Speaker 3 (37:13):
Yeah, right right?
Speaker 5 (37:14):
I add see where people reached out to me for
the pop.
Speaker 1 (37:17):
Look, that's Joey Castillo. If this were a heist movie,
and this is definitely not a heist movie. More like
Bill and Ted's Bogus Journey, Joey would be the brains,
but brains only get you so far. Nobody responded to
the spreadsheet Joey sent out last week for meal planning,
so we need a new plan. Mike doesn't want to
(37:40):
do it, so he looks to Ben's Sklar. Ben doesn't
have an official or unofficial title. He's just here, Ben.
Speaker 15 (37:48):
I will help you, but like you want to be
in charge on this kind of not particularly Yeah, I
don't want to either.
Speaker 4 (37:55):
That's what I'm on.
Speaker 1 (37:58):
No one wants to deal with food, so we move
on to another topic. No one wants to deal with
Where are we going to sleep?
Speaker 5 (38:05):
Do we need rent tents?
Speaker 8 (38:06):
I thought we were getting three tenths that were six
people's six person tents?
Speaker 5 (38:12):
Is that right?
Speaker 8 (38:12):
Yeah?
Speaker 11 (38:13):
Yeah?
Speaker 5 (38:13):
Well in place to order tonight way that we still
can I don't know what.
Speaker 3 (38:17):
I literally just said the exact same thing from about
two hours ago.
Speaker 15 (38:22):
Joey's an ari I member, Well that we can order him.
Speaker 5 (38:25):
I just hope that they have in stock.
Speaker 3 (38:27):
This is why they have tents, right, I would hope.
Speaker 1 (38:34):
Now that we've not covered the basic necessities of food
and shelter, another thing we still have to do is
rent a pickup truck to get all this stuff out there,
plus grab random things like a giant cooler for ice
and sheet metal.
Speaker 5 (38:48):
The dream is to way up early.
Speaker 3 (38:50):
Somebody does an ARII run, somebody does the food run,
somebody does pick up the rental car run, and.
Speaker 5 (38:55):
We all converge. So the dream is irrelevant. Let's just
actually make a plant. What tools do we have for
like cooking and stuff? That's an interesting question.
Speaker 13 (39:05):
We have literally everything I have that says so forth?
Speaker 1 (39:10):
How many days are we going for to change? So
like we'll be back Sunday.
Speaker 9 (39:15):
Yeah, eventually we come up with the plan to I'm
not really sure there's a plan actually, but either way,
the team meeting is over and we're going out to
the desert tomorrow, ready or not.
Speaker 1 (39:28):
Here we come start.
Speaker 4 (39:31):
Doing it instead of talking about it.
Speaker 5 (39:34):
Yeah, okay, let's go.
Speaker 13 (39:40):
Let's you want to do this all night.
Speaker 1 (39:46):
As they drift off to sleep, my last night in
a real bed, I try to put the chaos of
packing out of my mind, ignore that sense of impending done,
turn off my dad brain, and just focus on the
adventure ahead, the improv ability of building a nation or
rebuilding it in the middle of the desert. That's part
of the appeal of Zakistan.
Speaker 3 (40:06):
It's named after me, but it's inherently collaborative, and it's
about putting people together rather than like my own weird
solitary vision of like how things should be.
Speaker 1 (40:18):
Unfortunately, before the trip's over, some of Zach's collaborators will
abandon him. One will have a life threatening medical emergency. Well,
I'll lose our way literally and emotionally, and oh there's
a sandstorm. But hey, Zach wants to revitalize his real country.
It'll all be worth it, right, shit, Okay.
Speaker 5 (40:38):
That's scary, Yeah, de capitate any of those You're going to.
Speaker 1 (40:42):
Get someone's Zach.
Speaker 5 (40:44):
I feel I'm gonna put somebody off the quills.
Speaker 16 (40:47):
All being real quick contry.
Speaker 4 (41:02):
Escape from Zakistan is a production of iHeart Podcasts and
School of Humans. The show was written by Ryan Murdoch.
Sarah Burnett is our story editor and co host, Reporting,
hosting and editing by Gabby Watson. Ryan Murdoch editing by
Emily Meronoff, music and sound design by Jesse Niswanger. Show
art by Lucy Keintonia. Executive producers are Jason English, Brandon Barr,
(41:23):
Elsie Crowley, Virginny Prescott and Ryan Murdoch. Thanks for listening.
In the summer of twenty twenty three, Zach Landsberg got
an email from someone he'd never met, a woman named Alisha.
Speaker 2 (00:10):
Hey, Zach, I'm sure you're curious to know the state
of Zakistan. I definitely have a lot to tell you.
I at least want to get the photos to you.
Speaker 1 (00:18):
Alicia followed up a week later.
Speaker 2 (00:21):
Zakistan was in sad shape. The door on the customs
booth had fallen off. What I think is the victory
arch had become warped. People are idiots and have shot
the dissennial monument. The rest of the robots are kind
of strewn about. You can tell that people have tried
to gather them or put them somewhere more safe, like
(00:41):
the robot that was put on top of the mysterious
wide object. The visitor's log has been severely damaged by water.
A lot of the pages aren't readable anymore. The majority
of entries were people happy to have finally found Zakistan,
with a few talking about the amazing sex they had
in the customs booth.
Speaker 3 (01:00):
Zach replied, Hey, Alicia, thanks so much for the photos
and the info. This is enormously helpful. I'm planning on
heading out to Zakistan in September. Thanks again for all
your help.
Speaker 1 (01:13):
Zach, Zakistan was in sad shape back before microcon the
Convention of micro Nationalists, and now I'm on my way
to the desert to help fix it up, to find
out what it means to become a Zakistani citizen, and
to understand the question what exactly is a nation? Anyway?
Speaker 4 (01:38):
This is escape from Zakistan.
Speaker 5 (01:44):
I don't know.
Speaker 6 (01:44):
Frankly, I think the US should just basically have to
fall apart first, because no country willingly gives up their territory.
Speaker 7 (01:50):
When I found this idea over the internet, I was
just dumbfounded and shocked by it. I thought I should
declare a nation myself, brain blue to bits, and I
did it?
Speaker 1 (02:02):
How much for a war bond?
Speaker 4 (02:04):
Five to ten bucks a month?
Speaker 3 (02:05):
Generally, I think nationalism is bad and that if you're
the subject of royalty that you didn't elect, that's problematic.
Speaker 8 (02:13):
Anyway, thank you in advancement for saving us a seat
at the u N in the first five rows if possible.
Speaker 1 (02:17):
Sorry, I hate to be that guy.
Speaker 5 (02:19):
Can you stamp my passborn?
Speaker 9 (02:20):
Oh yeah sure?
Speaker 1 (02:22):
A nice spam neutral zone, border checkpoint approved. Microcon demilitarized
neutral Zone. Yeah, that's comforting.
Speaker 4 (02:36):
Episode two, Becoming Zakistani.
Speaker 1 (02:44):
Sometime around two thousand and six, twenty five year old
Zach Landsberg is on his way to California from Argentina
on a red eye. He just spent a week or
so setting up the Zakistani embassy in Buenos Aires. Zach,
easily identifiable with his long jet black hair, hasn't slept much.
(03:05):
His light brown skin is a mix inherited from his
Chinese American mom and Jewish dad. His flight lands, he
collects his stuff at baggage claim and makes a phone call.
Speaker 3 (03:16):
I call my mom and I'm like, hey, I just
got a clear customs and then you know, you can
pick me up like outside on the curb. And I
made several errors coming back into the country, which I
realized now, so it's coming from South America, which.
Speaker 5 (03:33):
Is like red flag number one.
Speaker 3 (03:34):
I have long hair, I have a shady box. I
also didn't realize that my flight arrived at like seven
in the morning, and I didn't realize that the customs
shift ends at eight.
Speaker 1 (03:47):
You'd think the customs agent's working the night shift would
be eager to get home, but something about Zach could
be the hair the shady box. Something gives them pause.
Speaker 3 (03:56):
So I go through and there's like an older white guy.
It takes my customs for him. He puts like just
red slash through it, and he's like bline.
Speaker 1 (04:06):
They point Zach to a different window where a different
guy takes the shady box.
Speaker 3 (04:10):
I'm not totally realizing exactly what's happening. So dude starts
opening up and none of this makes any sense. I
had probably like one hundred one hundred something blank Zakistan passports.
Speaker 1 (04:23):
This is when the real trouble begins for Zach. Sure
there's the box of blank passports, but also two passports
belonging to one Zachary Landsberg, an American passport and a
Zakistani one.
Speaker 3 (04:36):
Somebody disappears with my Zakistan passport. Somebody disappears with my
American passport. I don't really understand what's going on, and
so I could see them like looking at my website
and looking up Zakistan stuff.
Speaker 5 (04:49):
They're not allowing me.
Speaker 3 (04:50):
To look at my phone or like call my mom
to tell her that like this.
Speaker 5 (04:53):
Might be a while.
Speaker 3 (04:55):
And so yeah, the Latino guy is like, real, just
you know what do you think you're doing.
Speaker 1 (04:58):
Here good cut back copoosts or like just kind of
openly hostile.
Speaker 3 (05:03):
Well, they open the box of passports and they're like
what are these. I'm like, they're zach San passports and
they're like, what if somebody try to enter the country
with one of these?
Speaker 5 (05:13):
And I should I probably shouldn't have.
Speaker 3 (05:14):
Said this, but I was like, hey, man, I don't
want to tell you how to do your job, but
I'm guessing that if somebody comes into the country with
the Zakstan passports, they're going to need a US visa, right,
don't you? Guys have a list of countries like at
the front that you have relationships with, and so they're like,
(05:35):
why you have this many who do you give these two?
I was like, you know, friends of mine and they're
like you have one hundred friends. I'm like, hey, hey,
you know, maybe not right now, but you know, you know,
and they're just like you can't have these, and I'm like, well, man,
are you seizing every Disneyland.
Speaker 5 (05:53):
Passport that comes by?
Speaker 3 (05:54):
And they're like that's different. It's like how they're like,
we know where Disneyland is, we don't know where Zakistan is.
Speaker 1 (06:06):
It's a good question. Where is Zakistan. Well, Zach doesn't
really want to reveal the exact location for reasons we'll
get to later, but suffice to say it's in the
middle of the desert, due west of the Great Salt
Lake in Utah. Now, Disneyland, I know where that is,
but I've never been. You haven't, Zaren. You have, Ryan,
(06:28):
you have to go. It's a place for kids and families.
Speaker 10 (06:31):
You have those. I mean, yes, it is cheesy, we
all know this, but kids they always remember going to Disneyland.
I mean that's worth it alone. Ryan, Are you not
into it?
Speaker 1 (06:41):
I mean my adult cousins go every year and they
have fun.
Speaker 5 (06:45):
But I don't know.
Speaker 1 (06:45):
It sounds kind of miserable. I hate long lines, expensive junk.
Plus it all just sounds so fake. There's like gimmicky
passports and stuff. Right.
Speaker 10 (06:56):
Yes, Epcot happiest place on Earth. This is a small world,
after all, I'm telling you.
Speaker 5 (07:01):
You have to Yeah.
Speaker 4 (07:02):
I think I went when I was a kid and
had a good time. But I did go to Disneyland
Paris as an adult and I had a panic attack
there and I think it was just because there were
like huge crowds of people, but also when you're there,
you could just kind of feel the excessive capitalism of
it all. So it feels kind of gross. But honestly,
props to Disney World in Florida because they publicly criticized
(07:24):
that Don't Say Gay Bill, which pissed off Governor DeSantis,
and then to retaliate, he revoked their self governing status
in Florida that they had had since the nineteen sixties.
So basically, for fifty plus years, Disney World was kind
of like a micronation.
Speaker 1 (07:39):
Yeah, I guess if we're talking about going to fake micronations,
Disneyland's not all that different from Zakistan, although I doubt
anyone has ever called Zakistan the happiest place on Earth.
In fact, Zach himself is pretty candid about what it's
like at there. Here's what he told me.
Speaker 3 (07:56):
It is my country. I mean to be honest, it
kind of sucks. Like it's nice at sunrise and sunset,
but it's like it's high desert, so it's you know,
five thousand feet and change. The sun's really intense, it's
cold at night. The landscape is not remarkable, just like
you know cartoon landscape, just rolling rolling past.
Speaker 1 (08:18):
Like the road Runner goes back.
Speaker 5 (08:19):
Yeah yeah, yeah yeah.
Speaker 1 (08:21):
But whether Zakistan is better or more real than Disneyland
doesn't change the fact that Zach is still in line
at the customs booth in Lax, worried he's about to
be in big trouble for his box of blank passports.
Speaker 3 (08:35):
There's a point where all my stuff is spread out,
there's multiple people, I'm not sure where my US passport is,
and then it all basically stops abruptly.
Speaker 1 (08:45):
Just like that. They stamp Zach's US passport. But is
zakistanione in the box of blank passports? The customs officials
keep those.
Speaker 4 (09:01):
Now.
Speaker 1 (09:01):
Zach had spent a considerable amount of time and energy
designing these passports to look authentic. He found a printing
shop in China that would print three hundred of them.
He even asked his ex girlfriend's new boyfriend to help
bring them into the country in his suitcase. And now
they're gone, and.
Speaker 3 (09:18):
So like, they just wrap that stuff in green US
customs tape, slap a bunch of like bonded bright orange
stickers to it.
Speaker 5 (09:28):
They give me a slip of paper.
Speaker 3 (09:31):
I was going to open up the Zakistan consulate General
in New York. You know, I guess like in a
week's time, So like if they had held onto it,
that would have totally messed up I deal.
Speaker 1 (09:41):
Zach was about to open an office for the Consulate
General of Zakistan in an art gallery in New York City,
where he hoped to grow the ranks of his citizenry.
But to do that, he needed that box of passports.
He leaves the airport dejected.
Speaker 3 (09:56):
You know, like I hadn't really slept. My mom is
a ray, you know, and I was just like they
took all I stopped there, you know, and so we
go home. I like take a nap, collect myself, take
my piece of paper, and I go down to the
warehouse by the airport in Lax. I wait my turn
(10:18):
to like handle my forum and they're like, you need
a stamp from the customs office. We can't give this
to you yet. I was like, okay, where's that.
Speaker 1 (10:27):
So Zach heads to a different building, wait's in a
different line.
Speaker 3 (10:30):
And I give them the paper and they're like what
is this. I'm like, you tell me, like I'm trying
to get my stuff back, and they're like, you're trying
to bring passports into this country, Yeah, you can't bring
these in. I'm like, it's my you know, Like show
me a section of the law, like, explain to.
Speaker 5 (10:48):
Me how this is going.
Speaker 1 (10:51):
This is where Zach's pretend country bumps up against the
real one they're in. In Zakistan, there's no law about
bringing in foreign passports. There aren't any laws about anything,
at least not written down. But here in the United
States of America, we are a nation of laws, as
they say, also a nation of bureaucracy. Zach and the
customs agents go round and round until finally the woman
(11:13):
says there's nothing that can be done today.
Speaker 3 (11:16):
Like when can you do something? She's like ten am tomorrow,
Like you know, this isn't even gonna get process until
then at the earliest.
Speaker 5 (11:25):
So I'm like, all right, whatever.
Speaker 1 (11:27):
Zach's not one for bureaucracy. In fact, he kind of
hates it, so he's grumpy. Plus his mom, Cynthia, is
not happy with the whole situation.
Speaker 3 (11:38):
My mom was like mad, you know, and I was like, Mom,
I just don't I don't know what to do. I
don't know how to get them back. We kind of
like calmed down and she was like, all right, do
we know anybody who works at customs or the airport.
Speaker 5 (11:51):
And then she was like.
Speaker 8 (11:52):
Gino, Cynthia calls and says, Zachary's at the airport and
they took these things that are passports and he made
and he took them away him, and how do I
get them back? And what are we going to do?
Speaker 1 (12:02):
This is Gino, a friend of Zach's mom.
Speaker 8 (12:04):
I said, oh my god, this is okay. I know
what happened.
Speaker 3 (12:08):
I feel like, yeah, I had to wait like a
full two minutes for you to stop laughing.
Speaker 11 (12:14):
It's hysterical.
Speaker 8 (12:15):
It's ridiculous. They don't get the joke. It's a fake country,
the fake passports. These guys took it seriously.
Speaker 1 (12:21):
Gino's retired now, but back then he was a commercial
import specialist, and before that he was a customs inspector.
He told me he was surprised that the customs agents
didn't just let Zac through, even with the long hair
and shitty box.
Speaker 8 (12:35):
The part that drove me crazy was they could have
sent that stuff out the door with him four or
five different ways and nobody would have minded, and everything
would have been fine. But they made more out of it.
I think it's because they don't. They don't understand that
much about commercial operations. Now they all worry about immigration
and terrorist, immigration and terrorism. When I started working for customs,
we didn't carry a gun like before. We were like
(12:57):
tax collectors. And now they wanted this to be police.
What changed, Well, nine to eleven changed everything. Once that happened.
We went from being the part of the Treasury Department
to being part of the war against terrorism. And so
by the time poor Zachary came wandering in with fake
passports from a country these people had never heard of.
I mean, he's gonna pull some terrorist act, impersonating somebody
(13:20):
from a fake country. And that was something that surprises
me to say. I know, the geography is not everybody's
strong suit. I don't know how many countries that are
in Africa. There's like sixty or something. But uh, this
was zach even the name.
Speaker 1 (13:35):
Yeah, it seems like you'd have some sort of basic
geography test.
Speaker 8 (13:39):
Well, yeah, exactly, is exactly right. There is a list
in the back of the twer schedule is in the book,
lists of all the countries, you know, alhabetical order. None
of these people knew how to just aod will. We
used to say, ass outdoor, Just get you out of here, goodbye.
Speaker 1 (13:54):
I mean, I guess you don't want something to come back.
Like it in theory, if you let something in that
wasn't supposed to and then they find out about it,
could that come back?
Speaker 8 (14:04):
Eh? Nobody finds out of it. I have these what's
going on? Honestly? I used to sign off stuff all
the time.
Speaker 1 (14:12):
Well, so what was your advice to zactly? What did
you tell them to do?
Speaker 8 (14:16):
I told him make an informal entry, which is valued
on the twenty five hundred dollars. Here's the paperwork.
Speaker 4 (14:20):
I think.
Speaker 8 (14:21):
I gave him a form. I gave him some number
that is used to classify. Everything has to be classified.
Everything's got a number except for electricity, currency, and dead bodies.
So I gave hi a piece of paper. I gave
my tariff number, and apparently it worked and they gave
you the stuff without charging anything. Is that the way
it worked out in the end, So I did.
Speaker 3 (14:41):
I went in the next day after ten am. I
gave him a piece of paper and they like stamped
it so at eating anything.
Speaker 1 (14:49):
Else, Zach felt vindicated. Finally the passports were back in
his possession. All it took was two trips to two
different warehouses, several hours of waiting in lines, a family
connection to the Customs department, and a nap passports in hand.
Zach drove his family's minivan across the country the United
States and set up the office of the Consulate in
(15:11):
New York City. That week, zach Stan's population grew tenfold.
His country was on the rise.
Speaker 5 (15:29):
So this is it? This is it? Yeah?
Speaker 3 (15:32):
Where this is the zachar LLC studio where I make
a mess, where the things come together.
Speaker 1 (15:42):
I'm standing in zach Landsberg studio in Brooklyn. Almost the
entire space is taken up by the statue of Liberty,
or Zach's interpretation of it. The patina looks very real.
Speaker 3 (15:56):
Yeah, this one initially is pain with copper flex and
it hit with an oxidizing acid. So what's left of
the blue here you see is real.
Speaker 5 (16:07):
There's no paint or pigment in this.
Speaker 1 (16:11):
At one twelfth the scale off the real thing. Zack's
sculpture is a bit bigger than a minivan or two,
but rather than standing stoically holding a torch, Lady Liberty
is resting on her side, head in hand, as if
she herself has grown weary of her duties, having watched
too many tired and poor, huddled masses yearning to breathe free.
(16:32):
Or maybe she's tired of America's indifference to those huddled masses,
tired of reminding our citizens that America's status as a
beacon of hope still applies to everyone. Either way, she
seems like she needs a break, and in Zach's studio
she's getting a makeover.
Speaker 3 (16:48):
The a patina is very protective and it's very iconic.
But you know, when you rub a penny like that,
the blue goes away.
Speaker 1 (16:56):
So people were rubbing the statue.
Speaker 5 (16:59):
Yeah, like got rubbed down.
Speaker 3 (17:01):
But I'm working on the permanent version, and so I'm
still trying to get the secret sauce right.
Speaker 1 (17:07):
The sculpture has been a hugely successful project for Zach,
who's thirty nine now. For a while. Reclining Liberty was
even installed in Liberty Park, where she greeted visitors on
the New Jersey side of the Hudson River as they
boarded the ferry to see the real deal. Zack is
a sculptor by trade. He builds things, big things made
(17:28):
of steel, aluminum, wood. His work is mostly public art
on display in parks and on plazas, and it tends
to grapple with big, complicated ideas about the American project.
He's built statues of Christopher Columbus and Roberty Lee out
of fungus mycillium to be exact, so that over time
the statues slowly wrought. The Lee sculpture replaced a marble
(17:52):
one taken down in twenty seventeen, as if to say,
we're replacing our whitewashed history with something more honest. Of
all his work over his nearly twenty year career, the
project that he can't seem to put to rest, that
he's still working on is when he started when he
was in college.
Speaker 3 (18:09):
Here's a shoe box of the remaining blank Zakistan passports.
Speaker 5 (18:13):
I think I have about one hundred left.
Speaker 1 (18:16):
The other two hundred and something have been issues.
Speaker 3 (18:19):
Yeah, yeah, or like two eighty three right now. The
originals are a lot of them are expired, which is
kind of crazy. I did not anticipate. I thought ten
years of validity would be enough, but here we are.
Speaker 1 (18:38):
So people get their passport renewed.
Speaker 5 (18:41):
Yeah, yeah, we definitely do that.
Speaker 3 (18:44):
But passports are diabolical because I mean like everything in
Zakistan is like labor intensive.
Speaker 1 (18:51):
To date, there are two hundred and eighty three official
Zakistani citizens. He thinks lots more of applied, though seems
like they're at aplications got stuck in limbo.
Speaker 3 (19:02):
As Zakistan's gotten bigger and as it's gotten more attention,
there's like nuts and bolts bureaucratic stuff that has to
happen to keep it running, which makes me into a bureaucrat.
Speaker 1 (19:15):
Zach did not start a country with ambitions to become
a bureaucrat. Nonetheless, before I leave his studio, I ask
for an application.
Speaker 5 (19:24):
Here's a citizenship application.
Speaker 1 (19:29):
Do you have to use pen?
Speaker 5 (19:31):
Probably? Probably?
Speaker 1 (19:33):
Zack has a stuffed folder of applications and seemingly random order.
He's got a stamp that reads approved and a stamp
that reads denied, and the stamp of the official seal
of Zakistan a giant squid. Even though Zakistan is in
the middle of the desert. It's unclear with the actual
application process entails why you might be denied or not.
(19:56):
But I decided to roll the dice. Here's my citizen applications.
Pakistan citizenship is free. The requirements are that you genuinely
wish to become a citizen true and your greed to
accept both benefits and duties that this entails. You must
also complete this form in full. If your application is approved,
the Republic of Zakistan will send you an official document
(20:19):
naturalizing you as a citizen and bestowing all the rights
and privileges that come with it. This document may not
be recognized by other nations and will not allow travel
over international borders. Holding dual Zakistan citizenship and citizenship to
another country is allowed.
Speaker 4 (20:35):
Works for me, so Ryan, I hope you get your citizenship,
but I do wonder at the end of the day,
Zakistan is mostly an art project. Why do you want
to become a citizen so badly?
Speaker 1 (20:51):
I think part of it is just a simple desire
to have something cool like this passport, be part of
a group, a community. I like this idea Zach has
about citizenship. That's kind of aspirational. Citizenship is ultimately about belonging,
and Zakistan as kind of a everyone is welcome policy.
And because it's art, there aren't these weighty consequences.
Speaker 10 (21:14):
From what y'all found in a Joliet at the micro con.
There were other art project micronations.
Speaker 4 (21:21):
Right, yeah, I mean I think most people there were
kind of having a goof, but there was a few
other art based micronations. Remember the Queen of Ladonia who
was hosting the con. Well, Ladonia actually started as a
protest art project, kind of like Zakistan. Do you guys
remember around two thousand and seven when that Swedish artist
(21:42):
drew cartoons that depicted the prophet Mohammed.
Speaker 10 (21:45):
Oh yeah, yeah, Like a lot of people, especially in
the Muslim community, they found all of that super offensive. Yeah,
I remember international outrage.
Speaker 4 (21:57):
Yeah, these cartoons led to protests, death threats, assassination attempts.
Even Al Qaeda placed a bounty on the artist. And
on the intellectual side of things, there are all these
debates about free speech versus respect for religion. Well, that
artist is the guy who founded Ladonia, are you for real? Yes?
His name was Lars vilks So. Back in the eighties,
(22:18):
long before those cartoons, he built two giant driftwood sculptures
in this nature reserve in Sweden, the Catches. He didn't
get any permits and it was in a protected area,
so the Swedish authorities were not amused q a decade
long legal battle. Then Vilks did something a little crazy.
He declared the area around his sculptures an independent nation
(22:42):
called Ladonia, claiming that Sweden had no jurisdiction there. I
imagine the Swedish authorities were kind of like rolling their
eyes at this point, but thanks to all the press attention,
the sculptures had become a symbol of artistic freedom. And
now they're still there as like a quirky tourist spot,
mostly intact. And Ladonia, the micro nation, has twenty nine
(23:04):
thousand citizens worldwide who are all dedicated to free speech
and creative expression, and obviously some of those citizens are
in Juliet, Illinois.
Speaker 1 (23:15):
Zakistan got some press attention to back in twenty fifteen,
some of it wanted, some unwanted, and it kind of
changed the equation for Zach, made his art project suddenly
more real.
Speaker 4 (23:27):
When you eventually get to Zach's land, that's when you
enter the Republic of Zakistan.
Speaker 3 (23:33):
Basically after twenty fifteen, we're on the Utah local news
and kind of had this viral moment. Each day seemed
to get crazier of like somebody you know texted me
just like, hey, you know you're on Conan.
Speaker 5 (23:45):
It's a weird.
Speaker 12 (23:46):
Story, but follow me on this one. A man named
Zach is creating his own sovereign nation in Utah that
he is calling Zakistan. Unfortunately, Zakistan has gotten into a
ground war with its neighbor. The people was Republic of Todd.
Speaker 3 (24:01):
So the next day I got an email from the
Daily Mail and they asked if they could use some
images from my website. I got to sleep the next day.
The story is in like forty different languages, Zakistan.
Speaker 6 (24:23):
That lends the book Zakistan.
Speaker 3 (24:31):
That headline turns into something more like giant robots guard
sovereign nation and Utah desert, which is like not. The
whole idea of Zakistan is that you're not supposed to
accept the hook line and sinker and so like the
media did, and then it seemed like kind of everybody
else did.
Speaker 1 (24:52):
To be fair, Zach did build robots along the US
Zakistan border, but they weren't giant, maybe eight or nine
feet and not very intimidating. Think Bender from Futurama. But
fake news was already accelerating online, even though we didn't
use that word for it, back then. So this story
about a new idealistic country with giant robots with easy clickbait,
(25:17):
but below the surface, the story took off for a
different reason. The promise of Zakistan felt so terribly real
for many desperate people around the world.
Speaker 3 (25:27):
I would go to sleep, but I'd wake up and
I'd have like eighty eight new emails, and it would
be like Pakistani's sending scans of their passports, their resumes
and saying that they wanted to move their families and
their small businesses to Zakistan. And it became overwhelming.
Speaker 1 (25:46):
A man named Adal wrote to Zach.
Speaker 13 (25:49):
Hello, I am from Uplaniston and now I am a
refugee in Germany. But I feel not good in Germany.
I want to go away from European and Asian people.
What is the visa? I want to come to Zakistan
for a good and peacefully life.
Speaker 1 (26:04):
Najim from Pakistan sent him an email.
Speaker 14 (26:07):
Hellosa, I live in Pakistan. I'm a businessman. I'm also
fit as a horse. I've seen about the Zakistan on Internet.
I'm interested in the Zakistan nationality. What will be the
procedure to get nationality of the Zakistan candly, please send
me the detail.
Speaker 1 (26:23):
A young couple made Zach generous offer.
Speaker 6 (26:26):
Hi, Zach, I had seen the news regarding the new
country you have declared on the earth. I try to
explore more about Zakistan and concluded that it's an independent
country with a new young blood president. It's only a
land area at the moment, but hopefully with your true efforts,
it will get developed soon. For the development of this
(26:50):
new country, you will be definitely in need of some
manpower and educated people. Me and my partner decided to
contribute in this good pace.
Speaker 1 (27:02):
Zach started replying to these requests in earnest at first,
even developed a bit of a form.
Speaker 3 (27:07):
Reply, thank you for your interest in the Republic of Zakistan.
Due to the overwhelming response, it could be several days
to one month before your inquiry can be personally handled.
Please note, Zakistan is small, remote and bound on all
sides by the United States. It is as of now
unrecognized by any other country. It is not possible to
(27:29):
travel to Zakistan without going through the United States. There
are no living facilities, no roads, and no water in Zakistan.
It is not possible to live in Zakistan Zakistan cannot
offer employment to anyone at this time. It is currently
not possible to obtain a visa to visit Zakistan or
set up business operations in Zakistan, and probably won't be
(27:49):
for some time.
Speaker 1 (27:52):
But replying to these emails took a lot of Zach's energy,
a lot of actual diplomacy. He hesitated to continue offering
passports online.
Speaker 3 (28:01):
So it was very difficult to like convey this in
a language that they would understand, because you know, I
could be like, hey, look, if I give you this,
like you need to acknowledge that you're not going to
try and cross borders with it. You know, there's like
responsibility on my end.
Speaker 1 (28:18):
Zakistan started to feel a little too real, and Zach
grew overwhelmed.
Speaker 3 (28:23):
I completely lost control of it, and it really kind
of freaked me out.
Speaker 1 (28:28):
He decided to essentially shut the whole thing down, close
the borders, let his country fall into ruins. He walked
away from Zakistan, became a leader in exile. But nearly
a decade later, still sitting out there in the desert
(28:48):
is the real Zakistan, in disrepair, once guarded by medium
sized robots. This place, this idea still holds promise for many,
and Zach wants to say second chance.
Speaker 3 (29:01):
I didn't have the direction of like cool, all these
people become citizens, and I don't have all these citizens.
What do I do with these citizens? Let's direct this
energy into a cause or a thing.
Speaker 1 (29:13):
So Zach has pulled together a team of unlikely heroes
and one opportunistic podcaster to rebuild it. Will Zach Stan
rise from the ashes.
Speaker 11 (29:30):
I'm ten years old and I'm in fourth grade, and
I just wanted to talk about my country's map.
Speaker 1 (29:37):
Okay, so what maybe? What is this?
Speaker 11 (29:43):
This is a created country plan?
Speaker 1 (29:47):
Can you read it?
Speaker 11 (29:50):
The name of my country is Unicorn Bunny, Fairy Mermaid
Pony Island.
Speaker 1 (29:57):
This is my daughter June telling me the colorful map
she made for a class project of a country she
invented called Unicorn Bunny, Fairy Mermaid Pony Island. The island
itself is shaped like a unicorn, sits in the middle
of the Pearl Sea. The country has five states Unicorn Bunny.
You get the idea by go to the State of Bunny.
(30:21):
Is there bunnies everywhere?
Speaker 11 (30:23):
Yeah, that's why it's called the State of Bunny.
Speaker 5 (30:25):
Yeah.
Speaker 11 (30:27):
Well, there's a bunny forest in a bunny lands.
Speaker 1 (30:30):
Right, those sound pretty fun. Unlike the guys from microcon,
my daughter's desire to start a country came from a
class assignment, although, come to think of it, a couple
of micro nationalists we met mentioned that their idea had
started as a class project and just kept going, which,
let's hope is not what happens the unicorn, bunny, fairy, mermaid,
(30:51):
pony island. Besides, it's not that easy to just start
a country, right.
Speaker 5 (31:00):
Would you want to?
Speaker 1 (31:00):
Would you be able to read this?
Speaker 11 (31:03):
The directions is you will create a country. You will
make a political political political political map of this country
that shows state borders, state capitals, major cities in the
capital city of your country. You will also color the map,
(31:26):
but first you must plan.
Speaker 5 (31:29):
It says.
Speaker 1 (31:31):
Sometimes students choose a theme for their country, then make
the place names connect to that theme in some way.
Other students start with real place names but then change
them up in some way. Pakistan Zakistan. Ha I told
you about Zakistan, right, yeah, a.
Speaker 11 (31:49):
Little bit, but it's not a real thing.
Speaker 1 (31:51):
Right, Well, it's real, it's a real place, it exists.
Speaker 11 (31:58):
Well yeah, but they needed.
Speaker 1 (32:01):
But it's real, Like there's a place I went to
called Zakistan.
Speaker 11 (32:06):
I don't get it anyway.
Speaker 10 (32:11):
Okay, gotta say I'm with her. I don't get it either, Ryan,
How is Zakistan real?
Speaker 1 (32:18):
Well, think about it this way. If you google Unicorn, bunny, fairy, Mermaid,
Pony Island, you're gonna get a bunch of colorful pictures.
But if you google Zakistan, z Aqstan, it's on the map.
It's there. It's a real place. You know, if Google
says it, it's got to be.
Speaker 4 (32:35):
Real, right, Ryan, I'm curious. I know you wanted to
become a citizen. Why did you want to visit Zakistan.
It kind of seems like a miserable experience to get
out there.
Speaker 1 (32:46):
I was into this idea of rebuilding Zakistan, that the
nation was once mighty, But looking at the pictures Alicia
sent the woman who visited on her honeymoon, it just
looked sad. Plus, I was excited about the adventure going there.
It's probably the most remote place I've ever been, and
my wife wasn't all that surprise. It's kind of a
thing for me. I've been to the easternmost point in
(33:08):
Nova Scotia. I've been to the very end of the
Mississippi River, where the road just literally fades into the ocean.
Something about those places that are just so remote is
appealing to me. Plus, you know, I've got a podcast
to make, so I told my family I was going
to the desert and i'd be gone for a few days.
Speaker 10 (33:26):
Yeah. But other than Zach, did you know any of
the other guys who made that trip with you you're going
into the desert?
Speaker 1 (33:32):
Yeah, I didn't know anyone.
Speaker 4 (33:33):
So other than telling your wife and kids goodbye, how
did you get ready for Zakistan?
Speaker 1 (33:37):
Let's just say I was probably the most prepared. It's
the night before we depart on our mission to rebuild Zakistan.
I'm in Salt Lake City at the house of Mike
Abuzolov or is. Everyone calls him Mike Abou. Sometimes Zach
just calls him boo, which is cute.
Speaker 15 (33:58):
Gotta hatch it, got private or got u hammer, got
a uh now hammer, just so we can really nail
some of.
Speaker 6 (34:10):
The stuff up, like the top of the robots heads.
Speaker 1 (34:14):
Mike is kind of just wandering in and out of
his apartment looking for things that might be useful out
in the deskert.
Speaker 5 (34:20):
Should we bring the danger tape.
Speaker 15 (34:22):
You have tape for the set of Danger, Probably no.
Speaker 5 (34:25):
Reason not to take it at this point.
Speaker 8 (34:27):
Yeah, we already have paper towels.
Speaker 5 (34:32):
I don't know. I hope we're doing pretty well.
Speaker 1 (34:35):
Mike thinks we're doing pretty well. Me, I'm not so sure.
There's no master packing list as far as I can tell, which,
since we're headed off the grid in the middle of nowhere,
seems like a bit of a problem. Zach is focused
on the stuff he needs for rebuilding, so we head
to home depot to get some parts for the robots.
It's eight o'clock the night before we leave in things
(34:58):
are pretty chaotic.
Speaker 15 (35:01):
Oh yeah, I don't know, man, I've been trying to
run logistics.
Speaker 5 (35:17):
They don't run through Micah Boo as much as I
don't like emails, Like.
Speaker 16 (35:31):
I'm trying to keep trying things on spreadsheets and whatever,
and my kaboo is just doing it by like making
phone calls and not writing anything down, just making the
planning like a little freaking.
Speaker 1 (35:46):
This is kind of the way it goes with Micah Boo.
Zach's used to it. Mike and Zach have been friends
and collaborators for the last dozen or so years. You
could say that Mike is the Secretary of State of Zakistan.
Since he lives in Salt Lake and Zachson Brooklyn, Mike's
become the local representative. He runs the passport control, handles
(36:07):
diplomatic relations, and let's state visitors crash it as apartment
robot parts in hand. We gather for a team meeting
back at Mike's place. Another team member, Spencer wool Rab,
is again unofficially the Minister of Media. He'll be taking
photographs for the planned upgrade to the Tourism department website.
(36:29):
His concerns are more practical.
Speaker 15 (36:32):
Toilet paper. I thought about that we should get Can
we bring the day?
Speaker 5 (36:38):
You mean any water for that?
Speaker 4 (36:40):
We have one ply type of toilet paper?
Speaker 15 (36:42):
No, you gotta go, no insane? One ply is fine
if we bring the Should we bring it the day?
Speaker 5 (36:50):
I wouldn't go that extravago.
Speaker 1 (36:52):
Okay, I go wipes over, Yeah, I have two packages
of baby wipes already. Now that the hygiene problem is solved,
the conversation turns to provisions.
Speaker 5 (37:06):
Make sure you get enough beer for Paul? Yeah, bracelets,
friendship bracelets?
Speaker 3 (37:13):
Yeah, right right?
Speaker 5 (37:14):
I add see where people reached out to me for
the pop.
Speaker 1 (37:17):
Look, that's Joey Castillo. If this were a heist movie,
and this is definitely not a heist movie. More like
Bill and Ted's Bogus Journey, Joey would be the brains,
but brains only get you so far. Nobody responded to
the spreadsheet Joey sent out last week for meal planning,
so we need a new plan. Mike doesn't want to
(37:40):
do it, so he looks to Ben's Sklar. Ben doesn't
have an official or unofficial title. He's just here, Ben.
Speaker 15 (37:48):
I will help you, but like you want to be
in charge on this kind of not particularly Yeah, I
don't want to either.
Speaker 4 (37:55):
That's what I'm on.
Speaker 1 (37:58):
No one wants to deal with food, so we move
on to another topic. No one wants to deal with
Where are we going to sleep?
Speaker 5 (38:05):
Do we need rent tents?
Speaker 8 (38:06):
I thought we were getting three tenths that were six
people's six person tents?
Speaker 5 (38:12):
Is that right?
Speaker 8 (38:12):
Yeah?
Speaker 11 (38:13):
Yeah?
Speaker 5 (38:13):
Well in place to order tonight way that we still
can I don't know what.
Speaker 3 (38:17):
I literally just said the exact same thing from about
two hours ago.
Speaker 15 (38:22):
Joey's an ari I member, Well that we can order him.
Speaker 5 (38:25):
I just hope that they have in stock.
Speaker 3 (38:27):
This is why they have tents, right, I would hope.
Speaker 1 (38:34):
Now that we've not covered the basic necessities of food
and shelter, another thing we still have to do is
rent a pickup truck to get all this stuff out there,
plus grab random things like a giant cooler for ice
and sheet metal.
Speaker 5 (38:48):
The dream is to way up early.
Speaker 3 (38:50):
Somebody does an ARII run, somebody does the food run,
somebody does pick up the rental car run, and.
Speaker 5 (38:55):
We all converge. So the dream is irrelevant. Let's just
actually make a plant. What tools do we have for
like cooking and stuff? That's an interesting question.
Speaker 13 (39:05):
We have literally everything I have that says so forth?
Speaker 1 (39:10):
How many days are we going for to change? So
like we'll be back Sunday.
Speaker 9 (39:15):
Yeah, eventually we come up with the plan to I'm
not really sure there's a plan actually, but either way,
the team meeting is over and we're going out to
the desert tomorrow, ready or not.
Speaker 1 (39:28):
Here we come start.
Speaker 4 (39:31):
Doing it instead of talking about it.
Speaker 5 (39:34):
Yeah, okay, let's go.
Speaker 13 (39:40):
Let's you want to do this all night.
Speaker 1 (39:46):
As they drift off to sleep, my last night in
a real bed, I try to put the chaos of
packing out of my mind, ignore that sense of impending done,
turn off my dad brain, and just focus on the
adventure ahead, the improv ability of building a nation or
rebuilding it in the middle of the desert. That's part
of the appeal of Zakistan.
Speaker 3 (40:06):
It's named after me, but it's inherently collaborative, and it's
about putting people together rather than like my own weird
solitary vision of like how things should be.
Speaker 1 (40:18):
Unfortunately, before the trip's over, some of Zach's collaborators will
abandon him. One will have a life threatening medical emergency. Well,
I'll lose our way literally and emotionally, and oh there's
a sandstorm. But hey, Zach wants to revitalize his real country.
It'll all be worth it, right, shit, Okay.
Speaker 5 (40:38):
That's scary, Yeah, de capitate any of those You're going to.
Speaker 1 (40:42):
Get someone's Zach.
Speaker 5 (40:44):
I feel I'm gonna put somebody off the quills.
Speaker 16 (40:47):
All being real quick contry.
Speaker 4 (41:02):
Escape from Zakistan is a production of iHeart Podcasts and
School of Humans. The show was written by Ryan Murdoch.
Sarah Burnett is our story editor and co host, Reporting,
hosting and editing by Gabby Watson. Ryan Murdoch editing by
Emily Meronoff, music and sound design by Jesse Niswanger. Show
art by Lucy Keintonia. Executive producers are Jason English, Brandon Barr,
(41:23):
Elsie Crowley, Virginny Prescott and Ryan Murdoch. Thanks for listening.
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