November 27, 2024 • 45 mins
Ryan heads off into the desert, finally! Along the way, he revisits the history of sketchy ebay land deals, the Bush era policy of not-nation-building, and the moment Zaq’s land became a country. The team encounters Ivo Zdarsky, an eccentric desert dweller who builds his own aircraft. And it turns out the road to Zaqistan is not paved with…anything. Nor is it much of a road at all.
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Speaker 1 (00:03):
A different.
Speaker 2 (00:05):
I have a couple yet cool.
Speaker 3 (00:07):
It's a bright morning, clear and sunny at Mike Aboo's
house in Salt Lake City. We're finally ready to head
out for zak Stan. I think Zach calls a team
meeting Specier.
Speaker 4 (00:17):
You're driving your car.
Speaker 5 (00:20):
Joey and Benn are driving mobile.
Speaker 3 (00:22):
Yes, Zach and I are going to drive a rented
four wheel drive Ford F three point fifty pick up.
The rest of the team are driving cars that are
not so desert friendly. Mike and Spencer and Spencer's shiny
yellow twenty twenty three Chevy Seeker hatchback. Joey and Ben
are going to drive Mike's busted old Suber with no AC.
That's because Mike's busted too. His arm is in a cast,
(00:44):
so he can't drive a stick shift.
Speaker 6 (00:46):
Was the situation like until we go off the road.
Speaker 5 (00:49):
But I would say like, don't don't schedule your work
zoom for you know, Like I'm just saying, if we
get separated in like walking talkies with the way.
Speaker 3 (00:56):
Clones are not liable, Nope, cell phone are not reliable
in Zakistan or for much of the way out there. Either.
Our root will take us out of Utah into Windover, Nevada,
before looping back into Utah and eventually to Zakistan.
Speaker 5 (01:11):
Everybody needs to top off in Windover, have a full tank,
go into Zakastam.
Speaker 3 (01:17):
In Windover. It's our last chance to get gas, but
also our only chance to buy beer, this being Utah
Mormon country.
Speaker 5 (01:25):
Whatever you just Windover first hits the liquor.
Speaker 7 (01:28):
Store, you end up buying all the foot hold on,
let me buy that time Wise, I have one Errand
and you guys generally have zero, so I'm gonna be
running behind the team.
Speaker 3 (01:39):
Gives Zach a skeptical look. Already this morning, we've picked
up the tents, done the grocery shopping, grab the rental
truck and load it up.
Speaker 4 (01:46):
All the year I'm trying to hurry this process.
Speaker 5 (01:49):
Uh, I'm not trying to be like a task master
on everybody. I'm just trying to like put things in
orders that we can get there and chill.
Speaker 2 (01:58):
Yeah.
Speaker 8 (02:00):
Good on site.
Speaker 5 (02:01):
Thank you all for your effort.
Speaker 4 (02:03):
I got maps and directions for everybody in case anybody
gets separated.
Speaker 7 (02:07):
Or what have you.
Speaker 3 (02:09):
We head outside to the truck, Mike and Spencer take
off on an unnamed Errand. Maybe for ice. I have
no idea if we have everything we need for our
time in the desert. I make sure I have enough
batteries for my recording equipment. And then I asked Zach
about water more than beer. I want to make sure
we have enough water.
Speaker 4 (02:27):
So we have five hundred pounds of water. Actually, no,
scrisch sits. No, you're fifty five downs of water five
hundred pounds of concrete.
Speaker 3 (02:36):
The water is not so much for drinking, though, it's
for rebuilding Zakistan. I guess we'll have to drink the
beer for hydration.
Speaker 4 (02:44):
We got all the wood signage?
Speaker 3 (02:46):
How we doing on time?
Speaker 4 (02:48):
Not good?
Speaker 5 (02:50):
Not good?
Speaker 8 (02:52):
It's eleven. Mike's show is not cocked right, is not
it's not even here.
Speaker 3 (03:01):
Getting everyone out the door is starting to feel insurmountable.
And this is just the first step of a long process.
Speaker 7 (03:07):
Can't pictures letter?
Speaker 4 (03:10):
So you guy's cooler.
Speaker 3 (03:12):
I have that feeling I get sometimes trying to get
my kids ready for school in the morning, sunscreen, library,
book commission slips. Do you have your water bottle? Did
you get sheet.
Speaker 8 (03:21):
Metal this morning?
Speaker 4 (03:22):
No, we still got to get that.
Speaker 3 (03:25):
At some point, the school bus just shows up and
you get on it. I text my wife that I'm
headed out and off the grid, headed to Zakistan. Talk
to you soon, I hope. I'm Ryan Murdac. This is
Escape from Zakistan.
Speaker 5 (03:46):
We exclude no one reaward to everyone rocks from Zakistan.
Speaker 2 (03:52):
The name of my country is Unicorn, Bunny, fairy, Mermaid,
pony island.
Speaker 5 (03:58):
That headline turns into something more like giant robots guard
sovereign nation in Utah desert.
Speaker 2 (04:03):
I think this is a fake country. I think he's
gonna pull some terrorist act, impersonating somebody from a fake country.
Speaker 3 (04:10):
Oh damn, it's getting windy, man, Holy shit, Episode three,
Plant your Flag. Maybe this feeling I'm having is the
same feeling Columbus had before setting off across the Atlantic,
(04:31):
an optimism mixed with queasiness, the feeling that you don't
know what's coming, but it could be something big, awesome
or not. Either way, we're finally moving. In the back
of our truck is a giant cooler and all the
building supplies concrete and drills, and the official flag of Zakistan.
(04:51):
Zach doesn't leave the flag out there because the desert
wind and sand would demolish it. In no time. He's
learned this from experience. He's learned a lot from experience.
I'm one of Zach's early trips. He and his buddy
Jeff drove out as far as they could, left a
minivan at the end of the dirt road, and hiked
the last leg to Zakstan, carrying robot parts and power
(05:13):
tools on their backs, but not enough water. They installed
robots all day in the hot sun, then headed back
to the van as night was falling.
Speaker 5 (05:22):
Of the three mile hike back to the car, they
probably like a while two and a half, I'm feeling
like kind of dizzy and we had already run out
of water. My legs kind of get wobbly, and I
like lean over and just cukee and I like look
at Jeff, and Jeff looks at ba where like this
isn't good. Basically, yeah, I have like heat exhaustion.
Speaker 3 (05:46):
And are you thinking like I can die out here?
Or you're twenty two and it's like it doesn't even
cross your mind.
Speaker 5 (05:52):
Not quite like I'm gonna die, but just like you know,
this is serious, Like I have to get hydrated. You
have water at the van, there's water at the Yeah,
I'm like trying to stumble a couple steps. I'm able
to sort of make it to the van. You know,
it's a triumphant moment. The next day, when we broke
camp and we drove out, we were just like sight.
Speaker 3 (06:18):
Zach was psyched to leave Zakistan, and I've been psyched
to go there. But now as we drop out a
cell phone range, I'm not so sure.
Speaker 8 (06:26):
But Ryan, it's the great American road trip. Why are
you so worried? I mean, yes, you're from New England,
so had you even been out this way before?
Speaker 1 (06:35):
Yeah?
Speaker 3 (06:36):
I mean after college, I lived in Montana for a
year and when I was there, I took the solo
motorcycle trip across the whole state of Utah from north
to south in just two days. I mean, I was
twenty two, possessing a kind of stupid confidence. I guess
all I had was a tent, a sweatshirt, and a
rolled up at list. I don't even know if we
had cell phones back then. It was like extremely exhausting,
(06:59):
and I almost broke down in tears a few times,
But what did I care. I didn't have anywhere else
to be. But now I'm on the road to Zakistan.
And I'm over forty, I have young kids back home.
It feels a little different, even though I do kind
of wish I could be that care free again.
Speaker 2 (07:16):
Yeah, it seemed that Zach was kind of reckless back then.
Is he different now?
Speaker 3 (07:21):
Yeah, he's definitely more cautious, you know, since that first
trip out to Zakistan. But the rest of the team,
I don't know. I mean, Mike Abu's arms in a
sling already. Ben didn't even know how long we were
going for Joey's the sensible one, so I take comfort
in that. But one of the first things that happens
is we're driving, is the lid of the cooler blows
(07:42):
off and all of our perishable foods in there.
Speaker 8 (07:45):
You gotta love the desert for that though. It's always
the chaos that gets you. I looked up the route
you were taking on the map and I saw you
guys go past Salt Lake, you go into Nevada, into
the middle of nowhere.
Speaker 1 (07:55):
Yeah.
Speaker 3 (07:55):
We had to meet up in this tiny casino town
called Wendover, and it was the last chance to get gas,
and somehow the other car found the lid of the
cooler on the side of the Highway, and so we
strapped it back together and filled it up with ice,
got gas, and we took off.
Speaker 8 (08:16):
That spot you found the casino town Wendover. That's actually
not too far from where like the Og Pioneers, the
wagon trains the Donner Party, that type of crowd when
they were heading west and like the post gold Rush
era the eighteen forties eighteen fifties, that's where they would
find water after crossing this huge desert, the basin of Utah, Nevada,
and then all of a sudden they get to this
watering hole. It literally saved so many lives, well, you
(08:39):
know for the Donner Party obviously until they got to
California and they had their little cannibal dinner party. But
just ignoring all that setting off at all the side
Wendover is like the spot where like this whole American
tradition of folks heading west and going up to claim
their land and claim their future, it all runs right
through this part of the map.
Speaker 3 (08:56):
Yeah, I mean it feels like the middle of nowhere.
But then I did see on the map a place
called Murdoch Mountain. I was like, oh, I wonder if
maybe like my Irish ancestors left Boston a long time
ago and somehow made it all the way out here.
And you know, maybe they even built a bar before
the Mormons came and outlawed it. And then a little
further down the road we found a bar.
Speaker 2 (09:18):
Right ooh, a bar in the middle of the desert.
Do tell.
Speaker 3 (09:24):
We're three hours into a drive that's supposed to be five,
and we're still in the wrong state. We drive parallel
to a train track until we reached the town of Montello, Nevada.
I used the word town generously. It's mostly a few
trailers sprinkled along the railroad tracks. The gas station is open,
but isn't selling gas, just some dishes open, stale wonderbread.
(09:48):
Mike tries to convince the clerk to leave some visit
Zakistan brochures on the counter. She's not having it. There's
a bar next door, the Cowboy Cafe. I suddenly feel
like I'm in a classic Western scene that starts with
a bunch of city folk riding into town on horseback
(10:08):
and ends with a gunfight. Not wanting to miss an
opportunity for drama, we tie up our horses, swing in
through the saloon doors. The music stops, the thick smoke clears.
It's busier than I expected. Maybe eight or nine old
guys who all turn around on their stools. Judging from
(10:30):
the glares they don't look kindly on Zach Stany's. We
can take them, I say, there's six of us. Who
am I kidding? I turned around and got back in
the car as quickly as I could. Let's get out
of dodge.
Speaker 5 (10:46):
All these things.
Speaker 7 (10:47):
You know, where.
Speaker 5 (10:49):
These places the you know, it's just railroad towns, and
once they move the tracks, then they just withered and died.
Montello has held on for some reason.
Speaker 3 (11:03):
Yeah, that's what that bumper sticker in the bar.
Speaker 5 (11:07):
Yeah, yeah, I'll tell in Nevada, the town that refuses
to die.
Speaker 3 (11:12):
Yeah, in the rearview mirror, A tiny American town that
refuses to die ahead of us, a tiny nation on
the brink of rebirth. Oh, here we are, Thanks for
visiting Nevada.
Speaker 5 (11:25):
The next service is ninety three miles.
Speaker 3 (11:27):
Welcome to Utah. Zach says. There's no sign indicating the
turnoff to Zakistan, so I'm just staring at an endless
vista of sagebrush and rocks. Trusting Zach knows when the
turn is. He's done this plenty of times before. Why
should I worry so much? What trip number or would
this be for you?
Speaker 5 (11:49):
Do you know there was a two thousand and five
that was the first one, two thousand and six, two
thousand and seven.
Speaker 3 (11:55):
In the early years of Zakistan, he made the trip often,
sometimes twice a year. He's building his nation. I don't know,
so you're looking at maybe as high as twenty before
a trip. Zach told me how this all got started
back when he was in college.
Speaker 5 (12:13):
I'm a college kid. I'm like young and dumb, but
also possessing a like stupid confidence, right which I wish
I could have again.
Speaker 3 (12:23):
So you heard about some land this eBay deal. Yeah yeah.
Speaker 5 (12:27):
The parcel I bid on was six hundred and ten dollars.
I put it in a big because I was like, yeah,
I don't think I'm going to win this, but whatever.
So it was kind of a lark, but it was
a like, all right, if I buy two acres, I
could tell people I own a couple of acres and
that might even be worth like six hundred bucks right there.
Speaker 3 (12:48):
It was two thousand and five and ion ago in
internet years at the time, the traditional economy was shit.
This was the George W. Bush era, but the Internet
was just starting to become able marketplace. Vice president Dick
Cheney argued that the bad employment numbers overlooked people who
were making money online. Four hundred thousand people make some
(13:11):
money trading on eBay. Cheney infamously said as if any
poor soul howking beanie babies to the lowest bidder was
getting as much money as Cheney did drilling for oil.
To make oil size money, you'd have to sell something
bigger like land.
Speaker 9 (13:30):
No reserve, no monthly payments, cash seale now available private
half acre lot near beautiful Grouse Creek, Utah dirt road,
access mountains to the north west and south. Cattle on
nearby parcels, close to dozens of activities and attractions.
Speaker 3 (13:49):
Zach as he might have guessed, won the bid.
Speaker 9 (13:53):
Taxes paid current No leans I own mini lots in
this area.
Speaker 8 (13:58):
Picks are not of your life.
Speaker 3 (14:01):
Two acres of America not pictured here, now belonged to
one Zachary Landsberg.
Speaker 9 (14:06):
Owning land an American dream with real estate values climbing
higher every day. This land is by all means a
smart investment.
Speaker 3 (14:16):
At age twenty, Zach was a landowner.
Speaker 9 (14:19):
This is a wide open space, come and check it out.
Speaker 5 (14:26):
So I went out there. Yeah, with my friend. We
kind of planned out this whole road trip in my
Honda Civic at the time. Basically we drove until we
couldn't really go anymore, and the dirt road turned into
kind of a four by four track, which the Honda
Civic like could not do. I took the GPS from
like my dad's like fishing boat or something, so you know,
(14:47):
it's like it's an old, clunky thing and I still
have it, and it basically, yeah, you put in the
coordinates and it gives you an arrow and then you
kind of just follow it. So yeah, we set out
some backpacks and stuff. Yeah, I just walked three miles
like straight out into the desert. We kind of had
to adjust like a little bit to the left, a
little bit to the right, and then basically.
Speaker 8 (15:11):
We got there.
Speaker 3 (15:12):
This is the moment where Zach's Lark turned into something bigger,
like the Spanish Conquista Doors of old. Zach felt powerful.
Speaker 5 (15:21):
I had this flag that I had left over from
like some student council campaign or something, and so there's
just a little bit of a rise that's I don't know,
maybe like eight feet taller than the rest of the desert,
and so like I took the flag and the flag
pole and just planted the flag and just kind of
looked out of like this is mine, this dirt and
(15:44):
this like this desert brush, like I own this.
Speaker 3 (15:52):
This little eight foot rise in the desert. Zach calls
it mount insurmountable, And there's video of this moment in
the hot sun. Wearing a black T shirt, twenty year
old Zach's the top mountain surmountable, hands on his hips,
he surveys his land, takes it all in. The flag
flaps in the wind. This moment wasn't the birth of
(16:15):
the nation, though not yet. After planting his flag, twenty
year old Zach heads back to civilization and he starts
(16:38):
listening to the news.
Speaker 10 (16:42):
My fellow citizens. At this hour, American and Coalition forces
are in the early stages of military operations to disarmour Rack,
to free its people, and to defend the world from
grave danger. On my orders, Coalition forces have begun striking.
Speaker 5 (17:00):
The bush eraw was very bad. It was sort of like, okay,
you know, we have to avenge nine to eleven, we
have to find Aslaum Bin Laden and then all of
a sudden, like you're invading a totally different country. I
had no relationship to nine to eleven, letting asylam bin
Lad get away, and you also have no plan for Afghanistan.
Speaker 3 (17:22):
As do you know? The customs agent said in episode one,
nine to eleven did change everything for my generation. In
Zach's it was the defining historical moment.
Speaker 5 (17:32):
I wasn't really like politically aware or you know, like
followed politics when I was a teenager. I think nine
to eleven kind of changed that and the whole distinct
like before time and then after time.
Speaker 3 (17:48):
I remember the first few months after nine to eleven
the country felt united in a way I'd never experienced.
It was the good kind of nationalism, built of common
purpose and mutual respect. But then I remember the cynicism
I felt after Bush used that political goodwill to rekindle
his daddy's war in Iraq. Saddam Hussein was toppled.
Speaker 5 (18:10):
Sure, but what then the whole Bush administration, Cheney Rumsfeld,
the thing, they use the word nation building to describe
what they're not going to do, right, So the whole
idea is that they were going to evade Iraq takes
it them out, but not expand capital and energy and whatever.
(18:32):
Rebuilding the thing the oil revenues and the Iraqis would
just take care of it. So the language at the
time was We're not going to do nation building.
Speaker 3 (18:42):
Of course, nation building is very much something America does
not always well see for example Afghanistan, and not always
legally see for example Chile. But nonetheless, this idea of
nation building was on Zac's mind, and much like today,
it felt like country was falling apart.
Speaker 5 (19:02):
So this, yeah, American imperial project, the lying, the misdirection.
You have pictures from Abu Greb coming out, you have
you know, a hurricane country in a situation like this
is not going well.
Speaker 3 (19:16):
The American project rit large. Yeah right, and that feeling
is almost like this whole idea, this whole American enterprise
is like kind of a farce.
Speaker 5 (19:26):
I mean for me at the time, you know, I
was twenty years old and I was like, look, I'm
no political scientist, but how hard could this be? The
kernel of the whole Zaki san idea kind of stems
from this right of like, Okay, you know, I didn't
vote for this guy. I don't approve of anything that
(19:47):
like my government's doing, but like I am an American,
I was born here, I'm a citizen. Here is there
a way to create my own identity, right.
Speaker 3 (19:59):
And that's Zakistan was born.
Speaker 5 (20:02):
I just remember waking up in my sleeping bag and
not being able to go back to sleep, and just
like this is going to be like a little cliche,
but the inspiration felt like I had been like struck
by lightning or something, you know, just one of those
things where you can't go back to sleep and you
just have to like jot down these notes.
Speaker 3 (20:19):
His ideas are rolling. One of the first ideas Zach
had was to bate the US government to invade his
fledgling country. Talk about possessing a kind of stupid confidence.
Speaker 5 (20:31):
Zakistani in a Stan country, you know, with Afghanistan, with
the general like and still to this day that I
think the United States like geographical illiteracy about even the
places we invade.
Speaker 3 (20:46):
Here's a quick geography and etymology lesson the suffolk Stan
means land of so Afghanistan is the land of the
Afghan people, and Kyrgyzstan is the land of the Kirghiz people,
and so on. Now, Pakistan's a little more complic There
was no pack people. It's an acronym for the lands
of Asia and India. But by the same linguistic logic,
(21:07):
it follows that Zakistan is the land of Zach or
land of Zach's plural. But Zach is pretty sure that
the American people can be easily misled, are easily misled often,
and maybe the same stupid confidence Bush had an invading
Iraq could be used against him. Remember the Bush administration's
(21:28):
major talking point about why we had to invade Iraq
was because they were supposedly building weapons of mass destruction.
Speaker 11 (21:36):
Well, we can't let the world's worst leaders blackmail threaten
hold freedom loving nations hostage with the world's worst weapons supposedly.
Speaker 3 (21:47):
As evidence, Secretary of State Colin Powell presented to the
UN a series of grainy aerial photos of supposed weapons
manufacturing facilities. It worked, bombs were drop statues, toppled, taxpayer
dollars spent like candy money. After the invasion, and hundreds
of thousands of Iraqis killed, little evidence was found to
(22:09):
back up the administration's claims about weapons of mass destruction.
Zach's idea was that maybe he could go out to
his patch of desert and build something that from the
sky looked like those photos, then share those photos on
the internet. You can see the headlines. Now are weapons
of mass destruction being built in Zakistan?
Speaker 5 (22:30):
You know, the Bush administration invaded an entire country based
on like some grainy, wrong aerial photos. So if I
went out to Zakistan and just built some fake you know,
some like outlines of tanks, like, would they quote unquote
invade Zakistan based on that?
Speaker 4 (22:48):
That was?
Speaker 6 (22:48):
That was the first invasion of Zakistan.
Speaker 3 (22:52):
This is Dave Wilson. Dave does not work for the
United States government.
Speaker 6 (22:57):
Yeah, so I first learned about Zakistan by in twenty fifteen,
sixteen or seventeen, whenever you were here and we're on
the news Zach about the sovereign nache of Zakistan. And
not too long after that we found the coordinates online.
Speaker 3 (23:11):
Before we had left Salt Lake City, me and Zach
sat down with Dave, a jovial, outdoorsy guy who runs
a group called Expedition Utah. It's basically a bunch of
guys who go on off road camping adventures around the state.
Every winter they do an expedition called Freeze your Tail Off.
Speaker 6 (23:27):
Somebody had the idea to go invade Zakistan and take
it over. It was frozen, so we weren't too worried
about mud, because the mud out there can be just disgusting.
Once it hardens, it's like concrete. So we had an
impromptu invasion of Zakistan. I had a sunscreen in my
vehicle at the time that we signed our names to
and duct taped to a pole and flew it up
(23:49):
the flagpole because your flag wasn't there anymore.
Speaker 3 (23:52):
So since then, Dave and his friends have invaded Zakistan
almost every winter. They put up their own flag atop
Mountain Surmountable. Zach never got around building those tank outlines
before the American public moved on to other concerns. Instead,
Zach built his medium sized robots, which don't seem to
do much to keep out invaders. Now that we're on
(24:15):
the road, something Dave said about how he prepares for
a trip like the one I'm on gives me pause.
Speaker 6 (24:21):
In the event that you get stuck somewhere like Zakistan,
you're not anywhere near anything. You'd have to walk about
a mile a mile and a half to get up
onto a peak, to be able to get cell phone
service to call somebody for help. I carry tools to
fix things that might break. I carry a few spare parts.
I carry extra water, I carry extra gasoline, and then
I carry my recovery gear, my camping gear, and my food.
(24:43):
Even if I'm going for an overnight, I'm prepared to
have two to five days worth of supplies. And I
carry a garment in reach, which is a satellite communication device,
so that I can send text messages out in the
event that I am, you know, stranded.
Speaker 2 (25:02):
So based on what Dave is saying, you know, he's
talking about the satellite phones, he's talking about all this
other stuff, are you feeling like not prepared to be
at Zakistan at this moment?
Speaker 3 (25:13):
Yeah, I mean we've got like a pickup truck full
of water and food and tools and stuff. But I
don't know, we don't have a satellite phone, we didn't
bring extra gas, we don't have spare parts. The other
guys are driving cars that don't seem like they could
handle the desert.
Speaker 2 (25:31):
But I mean you have all those I mean, there's
all those sculptures in those robots. Certainly that that could
help you out somehow, you know, Yeah, I.
Speaker 3 (25:38):
Mean that'll keep out the invaders.
Speaker 8 (25:40):
Since you brought up invaders in this invasion. It's not
always about feeling, you know, prepared and having the right stuff,
but like, did you feel safe out there?
Speaker 6 (25:47):
Like?
Speaker 8 (25:48):
Who all is out there? What kind of desert people
own the land around Zakistan?
Speaker 2 (25:52):
Desert people?
Speaker 3 (25:53):
That's funny, that's an interesting question. Actually, a couple of
years into Zakistan's history, he got a letter from box
Elder County. That's an enormous county, it's like a third
the state of Utah, and the letter was about his land.
Referred to it as the parcel. So before we left,
(26:15):
Zach and I talked with a surveyor named Trent Williams
to help us understand it.
Speaker 1 (26:20):
Yeah.
Speaker 3 (26:20):
So this is a notice of non compliance.
Speaker 12 (26:22):
Notice hereby given that the parcels of real property described
below here and after the parcel is currently not in
compliance with the Box Elder Land Use Management and Development Code. Therefore,
Box Elder County cannot verify that this property has services available,
is accessible without trespass, or issue a building department for
(26:43):
a structure on the property be advised that any further division, subdivision, sell, exchange,
or transfer the partial may be a violation of Utah
State Code and Boxelder County ordinances and punishable as a
criminal offense.
Speaker 3 (26:57):
Zach looks weary listening to all this, and I'm trying
to figure out if this notice is because he started
his own country or if this is just some technical
issue about the sketchy eBay deal.
Speaker 12 (27:07):
How how far along was Zakistan when when you got
this this nose that was pretty soon after that was
two thousand and seven. You'd only had it for a
couple of years then.
Speaker 1 (27:14):
Right, years.
Speaker 12 (27:15):
Yeah, so you weren't upbuilding and have kind of what
you have there now at that point.
Speaker 5 (27:21):
May two thousand and seven. So I guess I have
placed three lonely robots out there.
Speaker 12 (27:26):
Okay, this is where government and the American dream kind
of clash is. It's it's my property and Utah's is
great for this because we are this republican.
Speaker 3 (27:36):
Don't tread on me.
Speaker 12 (27:37):
I mean, this is our land, and you know, you
look at Escalante and government don't come in here.
Speaker 2 (27:41):
Right.
Speaker 12 (27:42):
But at the same time, the cities, towns, and counties
have all these laws and regulations that we have to
give into.
Speaker 3 (27:51):
We'll hear more from Trent later. But it seems like
that notice wasn't about Zach's claims of sovereignty. According to
a two thousand and seven New York Times article, more
than three thousand people got notices like this. It turns
out a man named Michael Barstow and several others were
actually making a lot of money by selling stuff on eBay.
(28:11):
Just like Dick Cheney said.
Speaker 9 (28:13):
This is a fantastic opportunity to pick up a piece
of Utah real estate. I own mini lots in this area.
Speaker 3 (28:20):
It's just that they weren't making money Legally. You can't
just buy huge chunks of the American West and sell
it off in tiny breadcrumb sized bits. And now all
these people who'd grabbed their slice of the American dream
were being told they can't do anything with it. Zach
wasn't deterred, though, It's not like the letter said anything
explicitly about seceeding. No one ever built a new nation
(28:44):
by asking permission anyway, so legal or illegal didn't matter
to Zach. He kept building. In two thousand and nine,
Zach hired a guy he found on Craigslist named Cody
to drive out supplies in his pickup truck, but on
the way the desert, Zack's friend revealed what he learned
on his ride with Cody.
Speaker 5 (29:05):
Cody seems like a good guy, but he's mentioned the
time he's spent in lock up or whatever, you know.
Speaker 3 (29:11):
So it's like she'd like tread careful.
Speaker 5 (29:15):
He had been in some high speed chase and that
he was on cops and then he was like, yeah,
check it.
Speaker 8 (29:21):
Out, you can YouTube me.
Speaker 3 (29:23):
They kept going regardless.
Speaker 5 (29:25):
You know. It was like not a reasonable job, but
we kind of needed a wild man to like move
the parts of a victory arch into the middle of
the desert.
Speaker 3 (29:33):
Zach and his buddies, Cody, the wild Man, and the
supplies made it to Zakistan. Turns out Cody was the
thoughtful dude.
Speaker 5 (29:40):
We have Cody a wat of cash. He's like very
concerned that we're out in the middle of the desert.
Speaker 3 (29:46):
Zach reassured Cody they'd be okay, and Cody left.
Speaker 5 (29:50):
When we got out of the desert, you could see
like Cody in a giant truck getting chased by police
on cops. We named a spot after him where we
unloaded the arch.
Speaker 3 (30:02):
Zach even put up a little sign that said Cody's Point,
which has since fallen down. Using all the materials Cody hauled,
Zak and his buddies built the Victory Arch, officially a
monument to an unspecified victory, maybe a monument to its
own absurdity. From Afar from America, it looked like the
(30:25):
Arc de Triomph made of marble. Up close, it was
vinyl flooring from home depot. The Victory Arch collapsed a
few years later. It's maybe my favorite monument in Zakistan
for that very reason. The victory was short lived, yet
the monument lives on in failure. What better metaphor is
(30:46):
there for a country consumed by vanity. Zakistan's early history
gave way to its Middle Ages. Each time Zach went
out there, he got a little more familiar with the route,
and then he decided he needed a row. So we
hired a local guy with some heavy machinery to help
clear a path to the entrance. No one told him
he couldn't.
Speaker 12 (31:07):
Yeah, So in theory, from the nearest driveable public access,
you would need to have an easement, at the least
a permission from every landowner, you crossed to get to yours.
Because they call it landlock, your landlock, you can't get
to it without trespassing.
Speaker 3 (31:31):
I was curious, what if someone wanted to, I don't know,
buy some land and build their own country near Zakistan.
So I hopped on eBay one day.
Speaker 9 (31:40):
Bucks Elder County, Utah, to at a border quarter acre
lot near thousands of acres of public lands, spectacular stunning
mountain views, perfect for camping or any outdoor or recreational activities.
A great place to get away. This very rare to
find parsenal comes with beautiful vistas and is near roads.
Speaker 3 (32:04):
There were no bids on this rare parcel, but before
I threw down any money, I figured I should track
down the cellar a man named Sadik Washington. His company
Umacom buys and sells land all over the US, and
I asked him what someone who bought his land could
do with it.
Speaker 1 (32:22):
By the letter of the law, hardly anybody would be
able to do anything in regards to building out there.
The minimum requirements for building as a starting point are
one hundred and sixty acres, a well and a direct road,
So you have to have actual road frontage. Gosh, I
(32:44):
legally build yeah.
Speaker 13 (32:46):
I mean, I guess it's just kind of funny to
me that there would be a market for that. I mean,
I know you said it's recreation kind of land, But
I've talked to some people who just sort of say, like,
I just want to own land as an investment, and
I guess that's I don't know, a good investment.
Speaker 1 (33:07):
It all depends on the person and what the expectations
and purpose are for some people to get investment. For
some people, it's not. Some people are just wasting their
money and they end up losing it simply on not
paying the small amount of taxes, and then it goes
back up for auctions.
Speaker 3 (33:25):
To be clear, Sadik isn't illegally dividing up the land
like Barstow did, only buying in reselling land that was
subdivided by someone else. A long time ago, I talked
to some guys from the county and they told me
it's all a huge bureaucratic headache because the land was
sold off in tiny bits to thousands of different people.
(33:45):
There's no real practical way to stitch it all back together.
It'll forever be a patchwork of tiny parcels owned by
people in far away places who've never even been there.
I asked Sadiq if he'd ever been to the land
he was selling, if he understood the deal his customers
were getting.
Speaker 1 (34:03):
I was already buying and selling land before I ever
visited Box Elder. I only physically saw it because I
came there to buy more via a county auction.
Speaker 3 (34:13):
Ikay, gotcha?
Speaker 1 (34:15):
Are you do you live in Utah?
Speaker 8 (34:17):
No?
Speaker 1 (34:18):
I live in New Jersey.
Speaker 3 (34:20):
I decided to pass on buying my quarter acre of
the American dream. I was headed to the spectacular, stunning
mountain views. Anyway, if we can find.
Speaker 1 (34:29):
It, it's on Google. I mean it's it's on the map.
I'm sorry, what's on the map? It's nation? Yo, Yeah, yeah,
if you google it, I mean you can't miss it.
I mean there's really nothing in that whole area.
Speaker 3 (34:45):
Sadik found Zach's project funny, whimsical. Even if you literally
can't do anything with the land you bought, why not
make it into a sovereign nation.
Speaker 1 (34:54):
The Zakastan guy isn't doing anything that's gonna as far
as I know of, it's gonna land him in kind
of potential international trouble or anything either.
Speaker 9 (35:05):
Dirt road access mountains to the north west and south.
The Loosen Airstrip is just a few miles northeast of
the old town of Lusen.
Speaker 3 (35:17):
There is something else out here. Sixteen years ago a
guy named Ivo Zadarski bought the airstrip near Zakistan. He
lives out here full time. Did Ivo want the solitude
or the airport? Zach suggests do we stop by for
a visit? Maybe he doesn't want visitors, I thought, but
Zach insists he's friendly a friend. Even Ivo keeps Zach
(35:40):
up to date about anything newsworthy out here, which is
to say they don't chat very often. As we drive,
a tiny speck appears on the horizon. We head towards it.
Eventually a low slung warehouse comes into focus. We arrive
at a large mechanical gate in an even larger no
(36:01):
trespassing sign. Barbed wire extends out in every direction. We
call Ivo to say we're here, but the connection is
breaking up. Suddenly the gate opens. We proceed slowly. We
pass by a large satellite dish and a small shed
looks like something out of that old Double O seven
video game. A random Cold War era building. You stumble
(36:24):
on that's somehow full of guns, so you can reload
and keep going. We keep going. We pull up in
front of an aluminum warehouse. Maybe this is where Amazon
lost my package. Ivo comes out wearing what I can
only describe as camo pajamas. He's small statued, long, dirty
(36:46):
blonde hair, and ryan his check accent is that's my microphone.
Microphone keeps the window.
Speaker 8 (36:54):
Hopefully it's a bit.
Speaker 5 (36:58):
Yeah, friends, man.
Speaker 14 (37:03):
You better fixing the bullet holes in your minumer No?
Speaker 2 (37:06):
I kind of like it.
Speaker 3 (37:07):
Do you like it? It's like put the sign there,
please shoot it more. These are the bullet holes that
Alicia emailed Zach about when she visited Zakistan last summer.
One of the many things in Disrepairvo invites us inside.
Speaker 14 (37:23):
Okay, no butty smokes, No, no butt of smokes anymore.
Speaker 8 (37:27):
I'm good, Thank you.
Speaker 3 (37:28):
How do you think the bullet holes got in Zakistan? Oh?
Speaker 14 (37:32):
Somebody drove the hat and they were having fun in
a way.
Speaker 5 (37:36):
It target which ones are yours?
Speaker 14 (37:39):
I wouldn't shoot you.
Speaker 3 (37:42):
Do you get a lot of people out here just
coming by and shooting stuff?
Speaker 14 (37:49):
Yeah?
Speaker 1 (37:51):
Is that? No?
Speaker 14 (37:52):
The last guy I've here. I had a big stop son.
He decided to shoot it, so I went after him
and he started escaping.
Speaker 3 (37:59):
Are you the track?
Speaker 14 (38:01):
So I said, okay, I'm gonna get you with the plane.
Speaker 3 (38:07):
Ivo has his own airplanes, three of them, in fact,
designed and built them himself. He's been doing this since
he was a teenager. Ivo famously built an airplane out
of lawnmower and wheelbarrow parts that's now in a World
War II museum in Berlin, but we'll get to that later.
How long does it take you to get your plane
up in the air if you tried it.
Speaker 14 (38:28):
Well, they have to untie it like a pre fight inspection,
very quick lawn. Then you have to start it. You
should warm up the engine a little bit, and then
you need to get to someone run away here and
let they go.
Speaker 3 (38:43):
It's not a quick responsible like jumping in a car.
Another scene plays out in my mind, this one from
Mad Max. I picture Ivo rushing to his plane to
chase a man in a truck across the desert. Except
this scene really happened.
Speaker 14 (39:00):
By the time I got the plane in the air,
he was already kind of gone. But it was like
an O went and you know, the dust kind of
hars for a while, so I just followed the dust
trail to the highway, and then I saw the dust
trail going to Grouse Creek. You don't see a dust
trail on a highway because it's paved. So I went
(39:22):
after that one and it was a bron car. I
should have just turned towards Montello because that's where usually
the bad guys go. So he escaped.
Speaker 3 (39:35):
Do you remember the first time you saw Zakistan.
Speaker 14 (39:40):
Yeah, after that was from the plane.
Speaker 3 (39:42):
Ivo explores the west by plane, the way you or
I might jump on a car and go on a
lazy Sunday drive. Where he's going, he doesn't need roads.
One day, from the sky, he saw the glint of
Zakistan's robots down below and decided to take a closer
look out a buddy from the local sheriff's office, the
(40:02):
local sheriff's office being one hundred and forty two miles away.
Speaker 14 (40:06):
They run out of things to do around here, so
you want to go and see something, he says, Okay,
they'll go. Oh they were so happy, you know that
they finally got to see something.
Speaker 8 (40:16):
New around me here.
Speaker 1 (40:18):
What did they say?
Speaker 3 (40:19):
Our sing everybody likes it.
Speaker 14 (40:21):
It didn't look like a meth lot. Okay, so yeah, okay,
that's what you mean.
Speaker 8 (40:28):
I love his iebo guy. He seems awesome. It feels
like he's actually friendly, like not just one of the
desert people. I mean, I assume he's probably a bit
lonely out there being all alone. But honestly, when you
when you first brought him up, I was expecting his
place was going to be this crazy survivalist bunker with
the dudes to match. I know, you know what I'm
talking about.
Speaker 3 (40:47):
Well, I mean, he did have a bunch of guns
and enough food and cigarettes to last I don't know
how long, but not too far off. Although he did
have a girlfriend who lived a few hundred miles away,
And I just kept thinking, you know, I'm glad I
was here because if we get stuck out in the desert,
I'll just call him and tell him to come pick
us up in his airplane. It would be like that
(41:09):
scene in the movie Alive, where after you've eaten half
your crew members, a helicopter pops up out of nowhere
and flies you to the nearest drive through.
Speaker 2 (41:17):
I mean, the only hitch in that plane is that again,
you don't have any cell phone service, so it might
be hard to get a hold of him.
Speaker 3 (41:23):
Yeah, there's that, Okay.
Speaker 2 (41:26):
I mean I also have that bad guy who got away.
I hope he doesn't show up in Zakistan because I mean,
no offense to you and the rest of the Zakistan crew.
I don't know if you guys are going to be
as effective as fighting somebody off with like your power
drills and your robots and all of that stuff.
Speaker 8 (41:42):
They got all the rocks, Gabby, you know, they got plenty.
Speaker 2 (41:44):
Of throw plenty of rocks to throw.
Speaker 1 (41:48):
Back.
Speaker 3 (41:48):
On the road to Zakistan. I can tell the sun
is getting lower by the way the small rocks leave
long shadows. I'd really like to make it before dark,
or else would have to set up camp. Somewhere in America,
a tourism sign in front of nothing in particular says
we're in the town of Terrace, former population nearly a
thousand people, half of which were Chinese laborers who built
(42:11):
the aqueducts and railroads. Zach muses that his Chinese ancestors
built this nation, America.
Speaker 5 (42:18):
Mine ancestors were out here, you know, building the railroad,
you know, like linking the continent, you know, like out here,
you know, one hundred years before I was born. Part
of this, like conquering of the West or whatever.
Speaker 3 (42:35):
The Golden Spike, where the East and West railroads were
linked together in eighteen sixty nine to finally create the
Transcontinental Railroad. It's only about one hundred miles from here.
We stopped at the Terrace Cemetery, a fenced in patch
of sagebrush with a dozen or so headstones. The Chinese
(42:57):
laborers didn't get the headstones. Judging from the name, these
are all white people. One of two legible headstones belongs
to Henry Gray, a New Yorker who died here in
eighteen ninety nine. It reads kindled to begin, Oh mystery,
why death is? But life weep not nor sigh. Henry
(43:19):
is my son's name. A sign next to the cemetery
doesn't do much to shed light on the people buried within,
but it does go into detail about the history of
local vandalism, dating back to nineteen eighty six. When vandals
stole some headstones. Please report vandalism to the Boxelder County Sheriff.
(43:44):
We turn off the paved road onto a dirt one
A lot of my pudoffs.
Speaker 5 (43:50):
Shit, these are not good.
Speaker 3 (43:54):
A few dilapidated railroad bridges dot the roadside every couple
of miles. Spencer is leaning out a shit heavy window
taking videos. The sun is setting. Wouldn't be a bad
spot for a truck commercial.
Speaker 8 (44:06):
How much further you think we have to go?
Speaker 4 (44:09):
Basically this is the knob On Terrace. I mean we
have probably about another.
Speaker 5 (44:15):
Hour because it goods really slow.
Speaker 3 (44:17):
Now because we have to go off the road.
Speaker 8 (44:21):
Yeah.
Speaker 1 (44:21):
Yeah.
Speaker 3 (44:22):
There hasn't been anything resembling a road sign for a while,
just dirt roads that fork in different directions, all seemingly
headed to a different patch of nothing. We've planned to
leave sandbags with orange spray paint at each turn so
that the people joining us tomorrow will know where to go,
but I'm not sure that we really know where we're
going to be honest.
Speaker 5 (44:42):
We still have the off road portion to go, and
we're losing daylight fast.
Speaker 4 (44:50):
Do you guys want to push forward to Zakistan? Are
you pushing forward right now? You can kind of see
us right now.
Speaker 8 (45:03):
We're not there.
Speaker 3 (45:04):
Just getting to Zakistan feels insurmountable.
Speaker 2 (45:16):
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,
(45:37):
Elsie Crowley, Virginny Prescott, and Ryan Murdoch. Thanks for listening.
A different.
Speaker 2 (00:05):
I have a couple yet cool.
Speaker 3 (00:07):
It's a bright morning, clear and sunny at Mike Aboo's
house in Salt Lake City. We're finally ready to head
out for zak Stan. I think Zach calls a team
meeting Specier.
Speaker 4 (00:17):
You're driving your car.
Speaker 5 (00:20):
Joey and Benn are driving mobile.
Speaker 3 (00:22):
Yes, Zach and I are going to drive a rented
four wheel drive Ford F three point fifty pick up.
The rest of the team are driving cars that are
not so desert friendly. Mike and Spencer and Spencer's shiny
yellow twenty twenty three Chevy Seeker hatchback. Joey and Ben
are going to drive Mike's busted old Suber with no AC.
That's because Mike's busted too. His arm is in a cast,
(00:44):
so he can't drive a stick shift.
Speaker 6 (00:46):
Was the situation like until we go off the road.
Speaker 5 (00:49):
But I would say like, don't don't schedule your work
zoom for you know, Like I'm just saying, if we
get separated in like walking talkies with the way.
Speaker 3 (00:56):
Clones are not liable, Nope, cell phone are not reliable
in Zakistan or for much of the way out there. Either.
Our root will take us out of Utah into Windover, Nevada,
before looping back into Utah and eventually to Zakistan.
Speaker 5 (01:11):
Everybody needs to top off in Windover, have a full tank,
go into Zakastam.
Speaker 3 (01:17):
In Windover. It's our last chance to get gas, but
also our only chance to buy beer, this being Utah
Mormon country.
Speaker 5 (01:25):
Whatever you just Windover first hits the liquor.
Speaker 7 (01:28):
Store, you end up buying all the foot hold on,
let me buy that time Wise, I have one Errand
and you guys generally have zero, so I'm gonna be
running behind the team.
Speaker 3 (01:39):
Gives Zach a skeptical look. Already this morning, we've picked
up the tents, done the grocery shopping, grab the rental
truck and load it up.
Speaker 4 (01:46):
All the year I'm trying to hurry this process.
Speaker 5 (01:49):
Uh, I'm not trying to be like a task master
on everybody. I'm just trying to like put things in
orders that we can get there and chill.
Speaker 2 (01:58):
Yeah.
Speaker 8 (02:00):
Good on site.
Speaker 5 (02:01):
Thank you all for your effort.
Speaker 4 (02:03):
I got maps and directions for everybody in case anybody
gets separated.
Speaker 7 (02:07):
Or what have you.
Speaker 3 (02:09):
We head outside to the truck, Mike and Spencer take
off on an unnamed Errand. Maybe for ice. I have
no idea if we have everything we need for our
time in the desert. I make sure I have enough
batteries for my recording equipment. And then I asked Zach
about water more than beer. I want to make sure
we have enough water.
Speaker 4 (02:27):
So we have five hundred pounds of water. Actually, no,
scrisch sits. No, you're fifty five downs of water five
hundred pounds of concrete.
Speaker 3 (02:36):
The water is not so much for drinking, though, it's
for rebuilding Zakistan. I guess we'll have to drink the
beer for hydration.
Speaker 4 (02:44):
We got all the wood signage?
Speaker 3 (02:46):
How we doing on time?
Speaker 4 (02:48):
Not good?
Speaker 5 (02:50):
Not good?
Speaker 8 (02:52):
It's eleven. Mike's show is not cocked right, is not
it's not even here.
Speaker 3 (03:01):
Getting everyone out the door is starting to feel insurmountable.
And this is just the first step of a long process.
Speaker 7 (03:07):
Can't pictures letter?
Speaker 4 (03:10):
So you guy's cooler.
Speaker 3 (03:12):
I have that feeling I get sometimes trying to get
my kids ready for school in the morning, sunscreen, library,
book commission slips. Do you have your water bottle? Did
you get sheet.
Speaker 8 (03:21):
Metal this morning?
Speaker 4 (03:22):
No, we still got to get that.
Speaker 3 (03:25):
At some point, the school bus just shows up and
you get on it. I text my wife that I'm
headed out and off the grid, headed to Zakistan. Talk
to you soon, I hope. I'm Ryan Murdac. This is
Escape from Zakistan.
Speaker 5 (03:46):
We exclude no one reaward to everyone rocks from Zakistan.
Speaker 2 (03:52):
The name of my country is Unicorn, Bunny, fairy, Mermaid,
pony island.
Speaker 5 (03:58):
That headline turns into something more like giant robots guard
sovereign nation in Utah desert.
Speaker 2 (04:03):
I think this is a fake country. I think he's
gonna pull some terrorist act, impersonating somebody from a fake country.
Speaker 3 (04:10):
Oh damn, it's getting windy, man, Holy shit, Episode three,
Plant your Flag. Maybe this feeling I'm having is the
same feeling Columbus had before setting off across the Atlantic,
(04:31):
an optimism mixed with queasiness, the feeling that you don't
know what's coming, but it could be something big, awesome
or not. Either way, we're finally moving. In the back
of our truck is a giant cooler and all the
building supplies concrete and drills, and the official flag of Zakistan.
(04:51):
Zach doesn't leave the flag out there because the desert
wind and sand would demolish it. In no time. He's
learned this from experience. He's learned a lot from experience.
I'm one of Zach's early trips. He and his buddy
Jeff drove out as far as they could, left a
minivan at the end of the dirt road, and hiked
the last leg to Zakstan, carrying robot parts and power
(05:13):
tools on their backs, but not enough water. They installed
robots all day in the hot sun, then headed back
to the van as night was falling.
Speaker 5 (05:22):
Of the three mile hike back to the car, they
probably like a while two and a half, I'm feeling
like kind of dizzy and we had already run out
of water. My legs kind of get wobbly, and I
like lean over and just cukee and I like look
at Jeff, and Jeff looks at ba where like this
isn't good. Basically, yeah, I have like heat exhaustion.
Speaker 3 (05:46):
And are you thinking like I can die out here?
Or you're twenty two and it's like it doesn't even
cross your mind.
Speaker 5 (05:52):
Not quite like I'm gonna die, but just like you know,
this is serious, Like I have to get hydrated. You
have water at the van, there's water at the Yeah,
I'm like trying to stumble a couple steps. I'm able
to sort of make it to the van. You know,
it's a triumphant moment. The next day, when we broke
camp and we drove out, we were just like sight.
Speaker 3 (06:18):
Zach was psyched to leave Zakistan, and I've been psyched
to go there. But now as we drop out a
cell phone range, I'm not so sure.
Speaker 8 (06:26):
But Ryan, it's the great American road trip. Why are
you so worried? I mean, yes, you're from New England,
so had you even been out this way before?
Speaker 1 (06:35):
Yeah?
Speaker 3 (06:36):
I mean after college, I lived in Montana for a
year and when I was there, I took the solo
motorcycle trip across the whole state of Utah from north
to south in just two days. I mean, I was
twenty two, possessing a kind of stupid confidence. I guess
all I had was a tent, a sweatshirt, and a
rolled up at list. I don't even know if we
had cell phones back then. It was like extremely exhausting,
(06:59):
and I almost broke down in tears a few times,
But what did I care. I didn't have anywhere else
to be. But now I'm on the road to Zakistan.
And I'm over forty, I have young kids back home.
It feels a little different, even though I do kind
of wish I could be that care free again.
Speaker 2 (07:16):
Yeah, it seemed that Zach was kind of reckless back then.
Is he different now?
Speaker 3 (07:21):
Yeah, he's definitely more cautious, you know, since that first
trip out to Zakistan. But the rest of the team,
I don't know. I mean, Mike Abu's arms in a
sling already. Ben didn't even know how long we were
going for Joey's the sensible one, so I take comfort
in that. But one of the first things that happens
is we're driving, is the lid of the cooler blows
(07:42):
off and all of our perishable foods in there.
Speaker 8 (07:45):
You gotta love the desert for that though. It's always
the chaos that gets you. I looked up the route
you were taking on the map and I saw you
guys go past Salt Lake, you go into Nevada, into
the middle of nowhere.
Speaker 1 (07:55):
Yeah.
Speaker 3 (07:55):
We had to meet up in this tiny casino town
called Wendover, and it was the last chance to get gas,
and somehow the other car found the lid of the
cooler on the side of the Highway, and so we
strapped it back together and filled it up with ice,
got gas, and we took off.
Speaker 8 (08:16):
That spot you found the casino town Wendover. That's actually
not too far from where like the Og Pioneers, the
wagon trains the Donner Party, that type of crowd when
they were heading west and like the post gold Rush
era the eighteen forties eighteen fifties, that's where they would
find water after crossing this huge desert, the basin of Utah, Nevada,
and then all of a sudden they get to this
watering hole. It literally saved so many lives, well, you
(08:39):
know for the Donner Party obviously until they got to
California and they had their little cannibal dinner party. But
just ignoring all that setting off at all the side
Wendover is like the spot where like this whole American
tradition of folks heading west and going up to claim
their land and claim their future, it all runs right
through this part of the map.
Speaker 3 (08:56):
Yeah, I mean it feels like the middle of nowhere.
But then I did see on the map a place
called Murdoch Mountain. I was like, oh, I wonder if
maybe like my Irish ancestors left Boston a long time
ago and somehow made it all the way out here.
And you know, maybe they even built a bar before
the Mormons came and outlawed it. And then a little
further down the road we found a bar.
Speaker 2 (09:18):
Right ooh, a bar in the middle of the desert.
Do tell.
Speaker 3 (09:24):
We're three hours into a drive that's supposed to be five,
and we're still in the wrong state. We drive parallel
to a train track until we reached the town of Montello, Nevada.
I used the word town generously. It's mostly a few
trailers sprinkled along the railroad tracks. The gas station is open,
but isn't selling gas, just some dishes open, stale wonderbread.
(09:48):
Mike tries to convince the clerk to leave some visit
Zakistan brochures on the counter. She's not having it. There's
a bar next door, the Cowboy Cafe. I suddenly feel
like I'm in a classic Western scene that starts with
a bunch of city folk riding into town on horseback
(10:08):
and ends with a gunfight. Not wanting to miss an
opportunity for drama, we tie up our horses, swing in
through the saloon doors. The music stops, the thick smoke clears.
It's busier than I expected. Maybe eight or nine old
guys who all turn around on their stools. Judging from
(10:30):
the glares they don't look kindly on Zach Stany's. We
can take them, I say, there's six of us. Who
am I kidding? I turned around and got back in
the car as quickly as I could. Let's get out
of dodge.
Speaker 5 (10:46):
All these things.
Speaker 7 (10:47):
You know, where.
Speaker 5 (10:49):
These places the you know, it's just railroad towns, and
once they move the tracks, then they just withered and died.
Montello has held on for some reason.
Speaker 3 (11:03):
Yeah, that's what that bumper sticker in the bar.
Speaker 5 (11:07):
Yeah, yeah, I'll tell in Nevada, the town that refuses
to die.
Speaker 3 (11:12):
Yeah, in the rearview mirror, A tiny American town that
refuses to die ahead of us, a tiny nation on
the brink of rebirth. Oh, here we are, Thanks for
visiting Nevada.
Speaker 5 (11:25):
The next service is ninety three miles.
Speaker 3 (11:27):
Welcome to Utah. Zach says. There's no sign indicating the
turnoff to Zakistan, so I'm just staring at an endless
vista of sagebrush and rocks. Trusting Zach knows when the
turn is. He's done this plenty of times before. Why
should I worry so much? What trip number or would
this be for you?
Speaker 5 (11:49):
Do you know there was a two thousand and five
that was the first one, two thousand and six, two
thousand and seven.
Speaker 3 (11:55):
In the early years of Zakistan, he made the trip often,
sometimes twice a year. He's building his nation. I don't know,
so you're looking at maybe as high as twenty before
a trip. Zach told me how this all got started
back when he was in college.
Speaker 5 (12:13):
I'm a college kid. I'm like young and dumb, but
also possessing a like stupid confidence, right which I wish
I could have again.
Speaker 3 (12:23):
So you heard about some land this eBay deal. Yeah yeah.
Speaker 5 (12:27):
The parcel I bid on was six hundred and ten dollars.
I put it in a big because I was like, yeah,
I don't think I'm going to win this, but whatever.
So it was kind of a lark, but it was
a like, all right, if I buy two acres, I
could tell people I own a couple of acres and
that might even be worth like six hundred bucks right there.
Speaker 3 (12:48):
It was two thousand and five and ion ago in
internet years at the time, the traditional economy was shit.
This was the George W. Bush era, but the Internet
was just starting to become able marketplace. Vice president Dick
Cheney argued that the bad employment numbers overlooked people who
were making money online. Four hundred thousand people make some
(13:11):
money trading on eBay. Cheney infamously said as if any
poor soul howking beanie babies to the lowest bidder was
getting as much money as Cheney did drilling for oil.
To make oil size money, you'd have to sell something
bigger like land.
Speaker 9 (13:30):
No reserve, no monthly payments, cash seale now available private
half acre lot near beautiful Grouse Creek, Utah dirt road,
access mountains to the north west and south. Cattle on
nearby parcels, close to dozens of activities and attractions.
Speaker 3 (13:49):
Zach as he might have guessed, won the bid.
Speaker 9 (13:53):
Taxes paid current No leans I own mini lots in
this area.
Speaker 8 (13:58):
Picks are not of your life.
Speaker 3 (14:01):
Two acres of America not pictured here, now belonged to
one Zachary Landsberg.
Speaker 9 (14:06):
Owning land an American dream with real estate values climbing
higher every day. This land is by all means a
smart investment.
Speaker 3 (14:16):
At age twenty, Zach was a landowner.
Speaker 9 (14:19):
This is a wide open space, come and check it out.
Speaker 5 (14:26):
So I went out there. Yeah, with my friend. We
kind of planned out this whole road trip in my
Honda Civic at the time. Basically we drove until we
couldn't really go anymore, and the dirt road turned into
kind of a four by four track, which the Honda
Civic like could not do. I took the GPS from
like my dad's like fishing boat or something, so you know,
(14:47):
it's like it's an old, clunky thing and I still
have it, and it basically, yeah, you put in the
coordinates and it gives you an arrow and then you
kind of just follow it. So yeah, we set out
some backpacks and stuff. Yeah, I just walked three miles
like straight out into the desert. We kind of had
to adjust like a little bit to the left, a
little bit to the right, and then basically.
Speaker 8 (15:11):
We got there.
Speaker 3 (15:12):
This is the moment where Zach's Lark turned into something bigger,
like the Spanish Conquista Doors of old. Zach felt powerful.
Speaker 5 (15:21):
I had this flag that I had left over from
like some student council campaign or something, and so there's
just a little bit of a rise that's I don't know,
maybe like eight feet taller than the rest of the desert,
and so like I took the flag and the flag
pole and just planted the flag and just kind of
looked out of like this is mine, this dirt and
(15:44):
this like this desert brush, like I own this.
Speaker 3 (15:52):
This little eight foot rise in the desert. Zach calls
it mount insurmountable, And there's video of this moment in
the hot sun. Wearing a black T shirt, twenty year
old Zach's the top mountain surmountable, hands on his hips,
he surveys his land, takes it all in. The flag
flaps in the wind. This moment wasn't the birth of
(16:15):
the nation, though not yet. After planting his flag, twenty
year old Zach heads back to civilization and he starts
(16:38):
listening to the news.
Speaker 10 (16:42):
My fellow citizens. At this hour, American and Coalition forces
are in the early stages of military operations to disarmour Rack,
to free its people, and to defend the world from
grave danger. On my orders, Coalition forces have begun striking.
Speaker 5 (17:00):
The bush eraw was very bad. It was sort of like, okay,
you know, we have to avenge nine to eleven, we
have to find Aslaum Bin Laden and then all of
a sudden, like you're invading a totally different country. I
had no relationship to nine to eleven, letting asylam bin
Lad get away, and you also have no plan for Afghanistan.
Speaker 3 (17:22):
As do you know? The customs agent said in episode one,
nine to eleven did change everything for my generation. In
Zach's it was the defining historical moment.
Speaker 5 (17:32):
I wasn't really like politically aware or you know, like
followed politics when I was a teenager. I think nine
to eleven kind of changed that and the whole distinct
like before time and then after time.
Speaker 3 (17:48):
I remember the first few months after nine to eleven
the country felt united in a way I'd never experienced.
It was the good kind of nationalism, built of common
purpose and mutual respect. But then I remember the cynicism
I felt after Bush used that political goodwill to rekindle
his daddy's war in Iraq. Saddam Hussein was toppled.
Speaker 5 (18:10):
Sure, but what then the whole Bush administration, Cheney Rumsfeld,
the thing, they use the word nation building to describe
what they're not going to do, right, So the whole
idea is that they were going to evade Iraq takes
it them out, but not expand capital and energy and whatever.
(18:32):
Rebuilding the thing the oil revenues and the Iraqis would
just take care of it. So the language at the
time was We're not going to do nation building.
Speaker 3 (18:42):
Of course, nation building is very much something America does
not always well see for example Afghanistan, and not always
legally see for example Chile. But nonetheless, this idea of
nation building was on Zac's mind, and much like today,
it felt like country was falling apart.
Speaker 5 (19:02):
So this, yeah, American imperial project, the lying, the misdirection.
You have pictures from Abu Greb coming out, you have
you know, a hurricane country in a situation like this
is not going well.
Speaker 3 (19:16):
The American project rit large. Yeah right, and that feeling
is almost like this whole idea, this whole American enterprise
is like kind of a farce.
Speaker 5 (19:26):
I mean for me at the time, you know, I
was twenty years old and I was like, look, I'm
no political scientist, but how hard could this be? The
kernel of the whole Zaki san idea kind of stems
from this right of like, Okay, you know, I didn't
vote for this guy. I don't approve of anything that
(19:47):
like my government's doing, but like I am an American,
I was born here, I'm a citizen. Here is there
a way to create my own identity, right.
Speaker 3 (19:59):
And that's Zakistan was born.
Speaker 5 (20:02):
I just remember waking up in my sleeping bag and
not being able to go back to sleep, and just
like this is going to be like a little cliche,
but the inspiration felt like I had been like struck
by lightning or something, you know, just one of those
things where you can't go back to sleep and you
just have to like jot down these notes.
Speaker 3 (20:19):
His ideas are rolling. One of the first ideas Zach
had was to bate the US government to invade his
fledgling country. Talk about possessing a kind of stupid confidence.
Speaker 5 (20:31):
Zakistani in a Stan country, you know, with Afghanistan, with
the general like and still to this day that I
think the United States like geographical illiteracy about even the
places we invade.
Speaker 3 (20:46):
Here's a quick geography and etymology lesson the suffolk Stan
means land of so Afghanistan is the land of the
Afghan people, and Kyrgyzstan is the land of the Kirghiz people,
and so on. Now, Pakistan's a little more complic There
was no pack people. It's an acronym for the lands
of Asia and India. But by the same linguistic logic,
(21:07):
it follows that Zakistan is the land of Zach or
land of Zach's plural. But Zach is pretty sure that
the American people can be easily misled, are easily misled often,
and maybe the same stupid confidence Bush had an invading
Iraq could be used against him. Remember the Bush administration's
(21:28):
major talking point about why we had to invade Iraq
was because they were supposedly building weapons of mass destruction.
Speaker 11 (21:36):
Well, we can't let the world's worst leaders blackmail threaten
hold freedom loving nations hostage with the world's worst weapons supposedly.
Speaker 3 (21:47):
As evidence, Secretary of State Colin Powell presented to the
UN a series of grainy aerial photos of supposed weapons
manufacturing facilities. It worked, bombs were drop statues, toppled, taxpayer
dollars spent like candy money. After the invasion, and hundreds
of thousands of Iraqis killed, little evidence was found to
(22:09):
back up the administration's claims about weapons of mass destruction.
Zach's idea was that maybe he could go out to
his patch of desert and build something that from the
sky looked like those photos, then share those photos on
the internet. You can see the headlines. Now are weapons
of mass destruction being built in Zakistan?
Speaker 5 (22:30):
You know, the Bush administration invaded an entire country based
on like some grainy, wrong aerial photos. So if I
went out to Zakistan and just built some fake you know,
some like outlines of tanks, like, would they quote unquote
invade Zakistan based on that?
Speaker 4 (22:48):
That was?
Speaker 6 (22:48):
That was the first invasion of Zakistan.
Speaker 3 (22:52):
This is Dave Wilson. Dave does not work for the
United States government.
Speaker 6 (22:57):
Yeah, so I first learned about Zakistan by in twenty fifteen,
sixteen or seventeen, whenever you were here and we're on
the news Zach about the sovereign nache of Zakistan. And
not too long after that we found the coordinates online.
Speaker 3 (23:11):
Before we had left Salt Lake City, me and Zach
sat down with Dave, a jovial, outdoorsy guy who runs
a group called Expedition Utah. It's basically a bunch of
guys who go on off road camping adventures around the state.
Every winter they do an expedition called Freeze your Tail Off.
Speaker 6 (23:27):
Somebody had the idea to go invade Zakistan and take
it over. It was frozen, so we weren't too worried
about mud, because the mud out there can be just disgusting.
Once it hardens, it's like concrete. So we had an
impromptu invasion of Zakistan. I had a sunscreen in my
vehicle at the time that we signed our names to
and duct taped to a pole and flew it up
(23:49):
the flagpole because your flag wasn't there anymore.
Speaker 3 (23:52):
So since then, Dave and his friends have invaded Zakistan
almost every winter. They put up their own flag atop
Mountain Surmountable. Zach never got around building those tank outlines
before the American public moved on to other concerns. Instead,
Zach built his medium sized robots, which don't seem to
do much to keep out invaders. Now that we're on
(24:15):
the road, something Dave said about how he prepares for
a trip like the one I'm on gives me pause.
Speaker 6 (24:21):
In the event that you get stuck somewhere like Zakistan,
you're not anywhere near anything. You'd have to walk about
a mile a mile and a half to get up
onto a peak, to be able to get cell phone
service to call somebody for help. I carry tools to
fix things that might break. I carry a few spare parts.
I carry extra water, I carry extra gasoline, and then
I carry my recovery gear, my camping gear, and my food.
(24:43):
Even if I'm going for an overnight, I'm prepared to
have two to five days worth of supplies. And I
carry a garment in reach, which is a satellite communication device,
so that I can send text messages out in the
event that I am, you know, stranded.
Speaker 2 (25:02):
So based on what Dave is saying, you know, he's
talking about the satellite phones, he's talking about all this
other stuff, are you feeling like not prepared to be
at Zakistan at this moment?
Speaker 3 (25:13):
Yeah, I mean we've got like a pickup truck full
of water and food and tools and stuff. But I
don't know, we don't have a satellite phone, we didn't
bring extra gas, we don't have spare parts. The other
guys are driving cars that don't seem like they could
handle the desert.
Speaker 2 (25:31):
But I mean you have all those I mean, there's
all those sculptures in those robots. Certainly that that could
help you out somehow, you know, Yeah, I.
Speaker 3 (25:38):
Mean that'll keep out the invaders.
Speaker 8 (25:40):
Since you brought up invaders in this invasion. It's not
always about feeling, you know, prepared and having the right stuff,
but like, did you feel safe out there?
Speaker 6 (25:47):
Like?
Speaker 8 (25:48):
Who all is out there? What kind of desert people
own the land around Zakistan?
Speaker 2 (25:52):
Desert people?
Speaker 3 (25:53):
That's funny, that's an interesting question. Actually, a couple of
years into Zakistan's history, he got a letter from box
Elder County. That's an enormous county, it's like a third
the state of Utah, and the letter was about his land.
Referred to it as the parcel. So before we left,
(26:15):
Zach and I talked with a surveyor named Trent Williams
to help us understand it.
Speaker 1 (26:20):
Yeah.
Speaker 3 (26:20):
So this is a notice of non compliance.
Speaker 12 (26:22):
Notice hereby given that the parcels of real property described
below here and after the parcel is currently not in
compliance with the Box Elder Land Use Management and Development Code. Therefore,
Box Elder County cannot verify that this property has services available,
is accessible without trespass, or issue a building department for
(26:43):
a structure on the property be advised that any further division, subdivision, sell, exchange,
or transfer the partial may be a violation of Utah
State Code and Boxelder County ordinances and punishable as a
criminal offense.
Speaker 3 (26:57):
Zach looks weary listening to all this, and I'm trying
to figure out if this notice is because he started
his own country or if this is just some technical
issue about the sketchy eBay deal.
Speaker 12 (27:07):
How how far along was Zakistan when when you got
this this nose that was pretty soon after that was
two thousand and seven. You'd only had it for a
couple of years then.
Speaker 1 (27:14):
Right, years.
Speaker 12 (27:15):
Yeah, so you weren't upbuilding and have kind of what
you have there now at that point.
Speaker 5 (27:21):
May two thousand and seven. So I guess I have
placed three lonely robots out there.
Speaker 12 (27:26):
Okay, this is where government and the American dream kind
of clash is. It's it's my property and Utah's is
great for this because we are this republican.
Speaker 3 (27:36):
Don't tread on me.
Speaker 12 (27:37):
I mean, this is our land, and you know, you
look at Escalante and government don't come in here.
Speaker 2 (27:41):
Right.
Speaker 12 (27:42):
But at the same time, the cities, towns, and counties
have all these laws and regulations that we have to
give into.
Speaker 3 (27:51):
We'll hear more from Trent later. But it seems like
that notice wasn't about Zach's claims of sovereignty. According to
a two thousand and seven New York Times article, more
than three thousand people got notices like this. It turns
out a man named Michael Barstow and several others were
actually making a lot of money by selling stuff on eBay.
(28:11):
Just like Dick Cheney said.
Speaker 9 (28:13):
This is a fantastic opportunity to pick up a piece
of Utah real estate. I own mini lots in this area.
Speaker 3 (28:20):
It's just that they weren't making money Legally. You can't
just buy huge chunks of the American West and sell
it off in tiny breadcrumb sized bits. And now all
these people who'd grabbed their slice of the American dream
were being told they can't do anything with it. Zach
wasn't deterred, though, It's not like the letter said anything
explicitly about seceeding. No one ever built a new nation
(28:44):
by asking permission anyway, so legal or illegal didn't matter
to Zach. He kept building. In two thousand and nine,
Zach hired a guy he found on Craigslist named Cody
to drive out supplies in his pickup truck, but on
the way the desert, Zack's friend revealed what he learned
on his ride with Cody.
Speaker 5 (29:05):
Cody seems like a good guy, but he's mentioned the
time he's spent in lock up or whatever, you know.
Speaker 3 (29:11):
So it's like she'd like tread careful.
Speaker 5 (29:15):
He had been in some high speed chase and that
he was on cops and then he was like, yeah,
check it.
Speaker 8 (29:21):
Out, you can YouTube me.
Speaker 3 (29:23):
They kept going regardless.
Speaker 5 (29:25):
You know. It was like not a reasonable job, but
we kind of needed a wild man to like move
the parts of a victory arch into the middle of
the desert.
Speaker 3 (29:33):
Zach and his buddies, Cody, the wild Man, and the
supplies made it to Zakistan. Turns out Cody was the
thoughtful dude.
Speaker 5 (29:40):
We have Cody a wat of cash. He's like very
concerned that we're out in the middle of the desert.
Speaker 3 (29:46):
Zach reassured Cody they'd be okay, and Cody left.
Speaker 5 (29:50):
When we got out of the desert, you could see
like Cody in a giant truck getting chased by police
on cops. We named a spot after him where we
unloaded the arch.
Speaker 3 (30:02):
Zach even put up a little sign that said Cody's Point,
which has since fallen down. Using all the materials Cody hauled,
Zak and his buddies built the Victory Arch, officially a
monument to an unspecified victory, maybe a monument to its
own absurdity. From Afar from America, it looked like the
(30:25):
Arc de Triomph made of marble. Up close, it was
vinyl flooring from home depot. The Victory Arch collapsed a
few years later. It's maybe my favorite monument in Zakistan
for that very reason. The victory was short lived, yet
the monument lives on in failure. What better metaphor is
(30:46):
there for a country consumed by vanity. Zakistan's early history
gave way to its Middle Ages. Each time Zach went
out there, he got a little more familiar with the route,
and then he decided he needed a row. So we
hired a local guy with some heavy machinery to help
clear a path to the entrance. No one told him
he couldn't.
Speaker 12 (31:07):
Yeah, So in theory, from the nearest driveable public access,
you would need to have an easement, at the least
a permission from every landowner, you crossed to get to yours.
Because they call it landlock, your landlock, you can't get
to it without trespassing.
Speaker 3 (31:31):
I was curious, what if someone wanted to, I don't know,
buy some land and build their own country near Zakistan.
So I hopped on eBay one day.
Speaker 9 (31:40):
Bucks Elder County, Utah, to at a border quarter acre
lot near thousands of acres of public lands, spectacular stunning
mountain views, perfect for camping or any outdoor or recreational activities.
A great place to get away. This very rare to
find parsenal comes with beautiful vistas and is near roads.
Speaker 3 (32:04):
There were no bids on this rare parcel, but before
I threw down any money, I figured I should track
down the cellar a man named Sadik Washington. His company
Umacom buys and sells land all over the US, and
I asked him what someone who bought his land could
do with it.
Speaker 1 (32:22):
By the letter of the law, hardly anybody would be
able to do anything in regards to building out there.
The minimum requirements for building as a starting point are
one hundred and sixty acres, a well and a direct road,
So you have to have actual road frontage. Gosh, I
(32:44):
legally build yeah.
Speaker 13 (32:46):
I mean, I guess it's just kind of funny to
me that there would be a market for that. I mean,
I know you said it's recreation kind of land, But
I've talked to some people who just sort of say, like,
I just want to own land as an investment, and
I guess that's I don't know, a good investment.
Speaker 1 (33:07):
It all depends on the person and what the expectations
and purpose are for some people to get investment. For
some people, it's not. Some people are just wasting their
money and they end up losing it simply on not
paying the small amount of taxes, and then it goes
back up for auctions.
Speaker 3 (33:25):
To be clear, Sadik isn't illegally dividing up the land
like Barstow did, only buying in reselling land that was
subdivided by someone else. A long time ago, I talked
to some guys from the county and they told me
it's all a huge bureaucratic headache because the land was
sold off in tiny bits to thousands of different people.
(33:45):
There's no real practical way to stitch it all back together.
It'll forever be a patchwork of tiny parcels owned by
people in far away places who've never even been there.
I asked Sadiq if he'd ever been to the land
he was selling, if he understood the deal his customers
were getting.
Speaker 1 (34:03):
I was already buying and selling land before I ever
visited Box Elder. I only physically saw it because I
came there to buy more via a county auction.
Speaker 3 (34:13):
Ikay, gotcha?
Speaker 1 (34:15):
Are you do you live in Utah?
Speaker 8 (34:17):
No?
Speaker 1 (34:18):
I live in New Jersey.
Speaker 3 (34:20):
I decided to pass on buying my quarter acre of
the American dream. I was headed to the spectacular, stunning
mountain views. Anyway, if we can find.
Speaker 1 (34:29):
It, it's on Google. I mean it's it's on the map.
I'm sorry, what's on the map? It's nation? Yo, Yeah, yeah,
if you google it, I mean you can't miss it.
I mean there's really nothing in that whole area.
Speaker 3 (34:45):
Sadik found Zach's project funny, whimsical. Even if you literally
can't do anything with the land you bought, why not
make it into a sovereign nation.
Speaker 1 (34:54):
The Zakastan guy isn't doing anything that's gonna as far
as I know of, it's gonna land him in kind
of potential international trouble or anything either.
Speaker 9 (35:05):
Dirt road access mountains to the north west and south.
The Loosen Airstrip is just a few miles northeast of
the old town of Lusen.
Speaker 3 (35:17):
There is something else out here. Sixteen years ago a
guy named Ivo Zadarski bought the airstrip near Zakistan. He
lives out here full time. Did Ivo want the solitude
or the airport? Zach suggests do we stop by for
a visit? Maybe he doesn't want visitors, I thought, but
Zach insists he's friendly a friend. Even Ivo keeps Zach
(35:40):
up to date about anything newsworthy out here, which is
to say they don't chat very often. As we drive,
a tiny speck appears on the horizon. We head towards it.
Eventually a low slung warehouse comes into focus. We arrive
at a large mechanical gate in an even larger no
(36:01):
trespassing sign. Barbed wire extends out in every direction. We
call Ivo to say we're here, but the connection is
breaking up. Suddenly the gate opens. We proceed slowly. We
pass by a large satellite dish and a small shed
looks like something out of that old Double O seven
video game. A random Cold War era building. You stumble
(36:24):
on that's somehow full of guns, so you can reload
and keep going. We keep going. We pull up in
front of an aluminum warehouse. Maybe this is where Amazon
lost my package. Ivo comes out wearing what I can
only describe as camo pajamas. He's small statued, long, dirty
(36:46):
blonde hair, and ryan his check accent is that's my microphone.
Microphone keeps the window.
Speaker 8 (36:54):
Hopefully it's a bit.
Speaker 5 (36:58):
Yeah, friends, man.
Speaker 14 (37:03):
You better fixing the bullet holes in your minumer No?
Speaker 2 (37:06):
I kind of like it.
Speaker 3 (37:07):
Do you like it? It's like put the sign there,
please shoot it more. These are the bullet holes that
Alicia emailed Zach about when she visited Zakistan last summer.
One of the many things in Disrepairvo invites us inside.
Speaker 14 (37:23):
Okay, no butty smokes, No, no butt of smokes anymore.
Speaker 8 (37:27):
I'm good, Thank you.
Speaker 3 (37:28):
How do you think the bullet holes got in Zakistan? Oh?
Speaker 14 (37:32):
Somebody drove the hat and they were having fun in
a way.
Speaker 5 (37:36):
It target which ones are yours?
Speaker 14 (37:39):
I wouldn't shoot you.
Speaker 3 (37:42):
Do you get a lot of people out here just
coming by and shooting stuff?
Speaker 14 (37:49):
Yeah?
Speaker 1 (37:51):
Is that? No?
Speaker 14 (37:52):
The last guy I've here. I had a big stop son.
He decided to shoot it, so I went after him
and he started escaping.
Speaker 3 (37:59):
Are you the track?
Speaker 14 (38:01):
So I said, okay, I'm gonna get you with the plane.
Speaker 3 (38:07):
Ivo has his own airplanes, three of them, in fact,
designed and built them himself. He's been doing this since
he was a teenager. Ivo famously built an airplane out
of lawnmower and wheelbarrow parts that's now in a World
War II museum in Berlin, but we'll get to that later.
How long does it take you to get your plane
up in the air if you tried it.
Speaker 14 (38:28):
Well, they have to untie it like a pre fight inspection,
very quick lawn. Then you have to start it. You
should warm up the engine a little bit, and then
you need to get to someone run away here and
let they go.
Speaker 3 (38:43):
It's not a quick responsible like jumping in a car.
Another scene plays out in my mind, this one from
Mad Max. I picture Ivo rushing to his plane to
chase a man in a truck across the desert. Except
this scene really happened.
Speaker 14 (39:00):
By the time I got the plane in the air,
he was already kind of gone. But it was like
an O went and you know, the dust kind of
hars for a while, so I just followed the dust
trail to the highway, and then I saw the dust
trail going to Grouse Creek. You don't see a dust
trail on a highway because it's paved. So I went
(39:22):
after that one and it was a bron car. I
should have just turned towards Montello because that's where usually
the bad guys go. So he escaped.
Speaker 3 (39:35):
Do you remember the first time you saw Zakistan.
Speaker 14 (39:40):
Yeah, after that was from the plane.
Speaker 3 (39:42):
Ivo explores the west by plane, the way you or
I might jump on a car and go on a
lazy Sunday drive. Where he's going, he doesn't need roads.
One day, from the sky, he saw the glint of
Zakistan's robots down below and decided to take a closer
look out a buddy from the local sheriff's office, the
(40:02):
local sheriff's office being one hundred and forty two miles away.
Speaker 14 (40:06):
They run out of things to do around here, so
you want to go and see something, he says, Okay,
they'll go. Oh they were so happy, you know that
they finally got to see something.
Speaker 8 (40:16):
New around me here.
Speaker 1 (40:18):
What did they say?
Speaker 3 (40:19):
Our sing everybody likes it.
Speaker 14 (40:21):
It didn't look like a meth lot. Okay, so yeah, okay,
that's what you mean.
Speaker 8 (40:28):
I love his iebo guy. He seems awesome. It feels
like he's actually friendly, like not just one of the
desert people. I mean, I assume he's probably a bit
lonely out there being all alone. But honestly, when you
when you first brought him up, I was expecting his
place was going to be this crazy survivalist bunker with
the dudes to match. I know, you know what I'm
talking about.
Speaker 3 (40:47):
Well, I mean, he did have a bunch of guns
and enough food and cigarettes to last I don't know
how long, but not too far off. Although he did
have a girlfriend who lived a few hundred miles away,
And I just kept thinking, you know, I'm glad I
was here because if we get stuck out in the desert,
I'll just call him and tell him to come pick
us up in his airplane. It would be like that
(41:09):
scene in the movie Alive, where after you've eaten half
your crew members, a helicopter pops up out of nowhere
and flies you to the nearest drive through.
Speaker 2 (41:17):
I mean, the only hitch in that plane is that again,
you don't have any cell phone service, so it might
be hard to get a hold of him.
Speaker 3 (41:23):
Yeah, there's that, Okay.
Speaker 2 (41:26):
I mean I also have that bad guy who got away.
I hope he doesn't show up in Zakistan because I mean,
no offense to you and the rest of the Zakistan crew.
I don't know if you guys are going to be
as effective as fighting somebody off with like your power
drills and your robots and all of that stuff.
Speaker 8 (41:42):
They got all the rocks, Gabby, you know, they got plenty.
Speaker 2 (41:44):
Of throw plenty of rocks to throw.
Speaker 1 (41:48):
Back.
Speaker 3 (41:48):
On the road to Zakistan. I can tell the sun
is getting lower by the way the small rocks leave
long shadows. I'd really like to make it before dark,
or else would have to set up camp. Somewhere in America,
a tourism sign in front of nothing in particular says
we're in the town of Terrace, former population nearly a
thousand people, half of which were Chinese laborers who built
(42:11):
the aqueducts and railroads. Zach muses that his Chinese ancestors
built this nation, America.
Speaker 5 (42:18):
Mine ancestors were out here, you know, building the railroad,
you know, like linking the continent, you know, like out here,
you know, one hundred years before I was born. Part
of this, like conquering of the West or whatever.
Speaker 3 (42:35):
The Golden Spike, where the East and West railroads were
linked together in eighteen sixty nine to finally create the
Transcontinental Railroad. It's only about one hundred miles from here.
We stopped at the Terrace Cemetery, a fenced in patch
of sagebrush with a dozen or so headstones. The Chinese
(42:57):
laborers didn't get the headstones. Judging from the name, these
are all white people. One of two legible headstones belongs
to Henry Gray, a New Yorker who died here in
eighteen ninety nine. It reads kindled to begin, Oh mystery,
why death is? But life weep not nor sigh. Henry
(43:19):
is my son's name. A sign next to the cemetery
doesn't do much to shed light on the people buried within,
but it does go into detail about the history of
local vandalism, dating back to nineteen eighty six. When vandals
stole some headstones. Please report vandalism to the Boxelder County Sheriff.
(43:44):
We turn off the paved road onto a dirt one
A lot of my pudoffs.
Speaker 5 (43:50):
Shit, these are not good.
Speaker 3 (43:54):
A few dilapidated railroad bridges dot the roadside every couple
of miles. Spencer is leaning out a shit heavy window
taking videos. The sun is setting. Wouldn't be a bad
spot for a truck commercial.
Speaker 8 (44:06):
How much further you think we have to go?
Speaker 4 (44:09):
Basically this is the knob On Terrace. I mean we
have probably about another.
Speaker 5 (44:15):
Hour because it goods really slow.
Speaker 3 (44:17):
Now because we have to go off the road.
Speaker 8 (44:21):
Yeah.
Speaker 1 (44:21):
Yeah.
Speaker 3 (44:22):
There hasn't been anything resembling a road sign for a while,
just dirt roads that fork in different directions, all seemingly
headed to a different patch of nothing. We've planned to
leave sandbags with orange spray paint at each turn so
that the people joining us tomorrow will know where to go,
but I'm not sure that we really know where we're
going to be honest.
Speaker 5 (44:42):
We still have the off road portion to go, and
we're losing daylight fast.
Speaker 4 (44:50):
Do you guys want to push forward to Zakistan? Are
you pushing forward right now? You can kind of see
us right now.
Speaker 8 (45:03):
We're not there.
Speaker 3 (45:04):
Just getting to Zakistan feels insurmountable.
Speaker 2 (45:16):
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,
(45:37):
Elsie Crowley, Virginny Prescott, and Ryan Murdoch. Thanks for listening.
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