KYRGYZSTAN
May 2026
The Swiss come to ski and would-be Everest conquerors come here to practice. Others come to hike or explore the mountains on horseback. So if that’s the appeal of Kyrgyzstan, why on earth are Susan and I here? Sebastian loves an outdoor adventure, but the older generation? Hmmm.
The answer (which some of you know) is that in the early 1990s, Susan worked here. After the breakup of the Soviet Union and the independence of its various socialist republics, the World Bank commissioned the Australian Government to provide experts to help Kyrgyzstan to set up their social welfare/pension scheme. She had three trips over two years and spent nearly 10 months here. And in the process, met Sebastian’s father. So the desire to return and see the changes was strong for her and I’d heard so many stories - from the whole sheep feasts accompanied by copious amounts of vodka to introducing people who were still using abacuses to computers - that I was eager to see the country too. I’ll leave Susan to tell you how she found the changes after 30 odd years and just concentrate on my perceptions.
Firstly, the physicality. It’s a country ringed with snow-capped mountains. Whether you’re looking out of your hotel room in Bishkek or walking around the edge of Lake Issyk-kul (the 7th largest lake in the world), there they are: sharped tipped and new. But then in other parts of the country, there’s landscape that looks as if it could be in the Pilbara, with iron ore coloured hills and scrubby dry fields.
Next, there’s the people. There are 80 different ethnic groups including Russians, Koreans, Uzbeks and Uighurs but 73% are Kyrgyz. Compared to the Uzbeks (who tend to look Persian/Turkic), they look like a mixture of Mongol and Chinese which reflects their history although interestingly, early Muslim records describe them as red headed with blue/green eyes. Unlike Uzbekistan where the language was written in a Latin script, Kyrgyz is written in Cyrillic.
Its history goes back hundreds of thousands of years with the first written stories of the land told by the Chinese 2,000 years ago but the most important impact was when the Mongols invaded in the 13th century. There is still the remains of a 9th century minaret from a large city destroyed during that invasion but the Mongols managed to destroy most of the urban infrastructure of the country and it became a land of nomads. This means that unlike Uzbekistan, there is little physical evidence of its role in the Silk Road. With the exception of a huge mosque in Bishkek funded by Türkiye recently, most of the mosques ones sees are small modest community affairs albeit with colourful domes of silver and gold, green and blue, along the side of the road, with the Dungan mosques being an exception as they look like Chinese pagodas. There are still some Russian Orthodox churches to be seen, some nearly renovated such as one in Bishkek but also some slowly disintegrating such as a wooden one in Karakol.
The country was only integrated into the Russian Empire in 1876 when cities such as Bishkek started to develop. Its nomadic culture is still to be seen with yurts made of felt in the mountain side and wiry boys and men on horseback herding sheep and cattle up to the summer mountain pastures.
Mind you, riding on horseback is probably much more comfortable and efficient than driving in Kyrgyzstan. I thought that first hour of driving out of Khiva in Uzbekistan was the worst road I’d driven on, even taking the Gibb River Road into account. But I was wrong. Why would any civil engineer think that digging up 200 kilometres of a major road between Karakol and Bishkek at the same time was a good idea? Why not just fix a couple of kilometres at a time rather than creating havoc for traffic for hours and hours?
Luckily for us, we had a brilliant driver for our entire time: Kanat (which means wings) who remained calm and focused even in the most difficult of circumstances. A handsome Kyrgyz in his 30s he had some English unlike our Uzbek drivers. He’d worked for the Americans in Afghanistan and Iraq in his youth. The sweetest comment was when we finally said goodbye at the airport and he said he had to leave before he started to cry.
If Susan and I benefited from the museums and mosques in Uzbekistan, Sebastian was in his element in Kyrgyzstan, going off on hikes up mountains and through gorges with Olga while Susan and I pottered around on more modest slopes and then sat to take in the views. One of the best shared moments was going out to the plains near Lake Issyk-kul to see a traditional eagle trainer at work. We had the chance to see him on horseback with golden eagles and with Kyrgyz hunting dogs which are rather like a small version of an Afghan hound. And of course (we were tourists after all) we had photo opportunities with said eagles. Susan and Sebastian also took the opportunity to try some archery. I’m a wimp in such circumstances, not willing to show my inadequacies so unlike Susan, I didn’t dance with the felt carpet ladies either as they pressed the wool.
We stayed in a 5 star hotel where they check incoming cars with mirrors for bombs as well as the glamping equivalent of a yurt on the sandy banks of Lake Issyk-kul. We also experienced a modest guest house up a bumpy road and a huge almost empty resort waiting for the warm weather to arrive and bring it guests.
And compared to Uzbekistan, the temperatures were lower with some days of rain. Our day touring Bishkek was spent in raincoats trying not to slip on the white marble of huge public squares. It’s a green city with lots of parks and trees but its key feature for me was endless statues. Some of them are of mythical figures such as Manas, some of them political figures (including some murdered by Stalin) but most were of artists - poets and writers, dancers and actors. The Epic of Manas tells the story of Kyrgyz nomadic life, is even longer that Homer’s Odyssey and Iliad, and is still performed by story tellers called manaschi. The style is described as shamanic and it was interesting to hear from our guide in Osh that even though she’s married to a doctor, she still goes to see a shaman if she has a headache.
Another tradition is of course food. Uzbeks and Kyrgyz share a love of plov, a dish of rice, carrots and meat (with some regional additions). We’d tried it in Uzbekistan and wanted to try it here but, much to Olga’s embarrassment, we failed to find it in restaurants that had it on the menu on three separate occasions. So that was our final meal together. In between failure and success we did have some spectacularly excessive feasts in the homes of both Uighur/Tartar and Kyrgyz folk. Not quite Susan’s whole sheep experience of all those years ago but generous helpings of dozens of courses of home made food.
As for the those thirty years that have passed since Susan was here:
• Where once meals for visitors were limited to official restaurants with little on offer, now there are KFC ads on every bus stop
• Where once there was a shop that had just 3 cans of pineapple in the window, now all the European designer brands are on display
• Where once advertising was unthinkable, now banks and gas companies plaster their ads over hillsides
• Where once yurts where family homes, now they are made for tourists.
But there are still young men training to hunt with eagles and young women training to make felt carpets.
Photos:
1. Here Oguz Gorge area
2. Burana Tower
3. Interior, Russian Orthodox Church, Bishkek
4. Exterior, Russian Orthodox Church, Karakol
5. Hats, bazaar, Karakol
6. Kanat & Olga
7. Olga & Sebastian searching for a snake
8. Susan dancing/pressing a felt carpet
9. Ann & a Golden Eagle and its’ “owner” [they let them go free at 15 years of age to breed and live for another 15-25 years]
10. Issykul-kul yurt
11. Raining in Bishkek
12. Statue to ballerina Bubusara Beyshenalieva (1926-73)
13. Sebastian & plov
14. Sharing a meal with Rosa (and another visitor, Constantin)
Comments
Post a Comment