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Just as Cuba is opening up to U.S. travel, so is the remote Republic of Zaqistan.
Zaqistan's founder and Head of State, land artist Zaq Landsberg, is arranging tours of his two-acre nation — in Box Elder County, west of the northern end of the Great Salt Lake — this weekend.
Also, a Zaqistan tourism office has opened this month at CUAC, the contemporary art gallery at 175 E. 200 South, Salt Lake City.
Landsberg founded Zaqistan in 2005, after buying a two-acre parcel of desert via eBay for $610. Landsberg and fellow artist Jake Davidson soon mounted the first expedition to declare Zaqistan a sovereign nation, planting a flag on the new country's highest point, dubbed Mt. Insurmountable.
Zaqistan — which follows in the land-art tradition of Robert Smithson's Spiral Jetty and Nancy Holt's Sun Tunnels — now boasts several landmarks, including the Victory Arch (built in 2009, to pay tribute to "an unspecified victory"), the Decennial Monument (erected in 2015 to mark the nation's 10th birthday), and the Wildflowers public works project, made of plastic to suit Zaqistan's unforgiving climate.
Landsberg is conducting two daylong adventures of Zaqistan this weekend, sponsored by CUAC and the Zaqistan Tourism Board.
The first, set for Saturday from 1 to 11 p.m., will take a bus up to tour Zaqistan's landmarks. The event will include a dinner, cooked by Landsberg and CUAC director Adam Bateman, as well as a citizenship ceremony and a selection of Zaqistani swag. Tickets are $150, and are limited to 20 people. Deadline for applying is Wednesday, Sept. 21. Go to CUAC's website for details.
The second tour is set for Sunday, and includes a fancy dinner (catered by Blended Table) cocktails by Scott Gardiner on the bus and at the bunker bar, a quartet opera performance and fireworks display, as well as the citizenship ceremony and Zaqistani swag. The deadline for the $500-a-plate Sunday tour has passed.
The Zaqistan tourism office will remain at CUAC through Oct. 14. Hours are 11 a.m. to 6 p.m. Tuesdays through Fridays, noon to 4 p.m. Saturdays. (Closed Sundays and Mondays.)