The vast steppe of Kazakhstan is the traditional stomping ground of galumphing camels and galloping horses. Now, however, an unexpected rival has appeared on the scene: the African ostrich.

On a small farm in the shadow of snow-capped mountains outside Kazakhstan’s commercial capital of Almaty, septuagenarian Yevgeniy Chaykovskiy lovingly tends his brood of flightless bipeds. Chaykovskiy is a man with a vision: after unexpectedly encountering his first ostrich in the 1970s as a member of a delegation of Soviet scientists visiting Belgium, he developed a keen interest in these gangling birds. Back then the Soviet scientists’ cultural program included a visit to an ostrich farm, where he learned of the health benefits of ostrich meat and “the idea emerged that it wouldn’t be a bad thing to include this healthy meat in the Kazakhstani diet.”