Central Asia Part I: Kyrgyzstan and Kazakhstan

While I do have an album of pictures on Facebook, I'll repeat the best ones here to put them in context and will add others as well)

In 2019, Nancy and I were signed up for a group tour to Tanzania. We realized that due to a sale, it would be cheaper to delay our departure by a week and join the next offering of the tour. We ended up saving quite a bit, but the company kept our deposit, which could be used against a future trip. We reasoned that even if we didn't use the deposit, the pricing differential still made the change a net positive. Obviously we couldn't make use of this credit over 2020-2021, but decided in spring 2021 to book a trip for the next year, hoping the pandemic would have loosened its death grip on the travel industry by that point. We wanted to go somewhere that would be difficult to travel to on our own, and narrowed it down to two choices: the Middle East (Israel, Egypt, Jordan) or Central Asia (Kyrgyzstan, Kazakhstan, Turkmenistan, Uzbekistan, and Tajikistan). For no particular reason we chose the latter and left on May 2 to journey to this underrated part of the world. Unfortunately, the Turkmenistan portion of the trip was cancelled due to draconian covid restrictions in that country, which is an autocracy run by a president-for-life and ranks below North Korea in terms of foreign tourist arrivals. This was obviously disappointing, as it would have been very interesting to see in terms of culture, and also has some unique landmarks - chief among them a gas cavern that was set on fire approximately 50 years ago to burn off excess gas and has been burning every since. Nonetheless, the receipt of this news meant that the other four countries were a go so we starting preparing for our departure in earnest. 

The flight there was long, taking over 30 hours and involving transfers in Toronto, London and Istanbul, but we finally arrived with no delays. With the 12-hour time difference, we were a bit jetlagged but had about a day and a half to explore Bishkek before the tour started. Bishkek is essentially what you think a former Soviet provincial capital would be like - Khrushchev flats, monuments, and lots of concrete interspersed with beautiful parks. We also took a brief visit to a local bazaar, and saw many of the key sights of the central part of the city. It is located right in the mountains, and contrasts starkly with the crumbling concrete covering much of the city.

Contrasts in Bishkek

The countries of Central Asia have a minor identity crisis, being located - by geographic accident - in an unfortunate part of the world: Russia to the north, China to the southeast, Mongolia to the east, Turkey to the west, and Iran to the south. Most of the Central Asian countries were conquered by empires emanating from these powerful nations at one or multiple points in their history, and they only recently gained independence following the collapse of the Soviet Union in 1991. They are therefore looking to their histories to form a sense of identity, including celebrating historical leaders like Manas, who united the various Kyrgyz tribes hundreds of years ago...

Ala-too square, the national flag of Kyrgyzstan, and a statue to national hero Manas. A soldier stands guard in a glass box.

Changing of the guard

...and even minor local strongmen like Baatyr Kaba Uulu Kozhomkul, who sits in front of the Palace of Sport:

Kozhomkul's supposed hand size to compare to yours. Also, he could carry his horse through the mountains without trouble, as depicted in the monument

You see the same thing in Uzbekistan...

Amir Temur, cultural hero of Uzbekistan; last great conqueror of the Asian steppe; statue in Tashkent

...and Tajikistan.

Ismail Samani, cultural hero of Tajikistan. United various factions of the Samanid empire; statue in Dushambe

Anyway, lots of imposing squares, monuments and buildings built in Soviet scale. There doesn't appear to have been much development since the Soviet days, and despite the throngs, the city, at least to me, is permeated by a vague sense of decay and fallen grandeur. 

Lenin was moved to a less prominent location in front of a museum from the main park, but still lords over a square... some pine for the old days before the USSR's breakup

Bishkek city hall

Victory Square in Bishkek. War memorials are everywhere here

Circus building in Bishkek

Park of the Martyrs of the Revolution - typical Central Asian city park

Central mosque of Bishkek. Like all of Central Asia, Kyrgyzstan is 90%+ Muslim

Another monument to a local hero

Our first night, we ran into some members of our tour and went for dinner with them. The next night we met everyone, consisting of a BC contingent, a Quebecker, a American, a German, a French guy living in Abu Dhabi, a couple from Northern Ireland, and three people from England. Overall it was a pretty good group. There were basically two clusters of ages - one around our age range, and another post-retirement. Our guide for this part was Alex (from Kyrgyzstan), who was really good, and the overall tour leader was Alisher (from Uzbekistan).

Each country has a local language (Tajik, Uzbek, Kyrgyz, Kazakh) but Russian is a kind of lingua franca - in Krygyzstan, for example, Russian is the de facto day-to-day language, though the government is trying to build up Kyrgyz as part of the emphasis on national identity. Many people are at least bilingual (Russian and something else) but most people don't speak any English at all. Each country also has its own currency.

Girls posing for us in traditional dress

The next day, after a brief tour of Bishkek (visiting many of the sights Nancy and I have viewed the day before, but neither of us minded the repetition) including the Osh Bazaar...

Offal market at the Osh Bazaar

.. it was off to see the Burana Tower, the only extant remains of a large city in the Tian Shan mountains, built by one of the khanates that ruled the region about 1,000 years ago. It was originally much taller but was damaged in an earthquake that took off the top part.

Burana Tower

You can climb up some uneven and very dark stairs to reach the pinnacle of the tower

We stayed in a rather nice guesthouse located right in the mountains at Chong-Kemin. The next day included a short hike in the mountains...

Hike up around Chong-Kemin

 ...and a very long drive up the side of a mountain (quite literally, it felt like) to a yurt camp at Song-Kul lake (the main road was closed; had to take the backroad, where the van got stuck and we pushed it out). Yurts are somewhat like a larger and less mobile tipi, covered in felt rather than buffalo skins. These particular ones had a woodstove that kept the place warm at night. The temperature was fairly low overnight, maybe 5C. Men slept communally in yurts separate from the women; this didn't bother Nancy and me but others were less blasé.

Yurts by Song-Kul

Road to Song-Kul

Almost to the camp - road in the background

The next day, after short hike up the mountains around the camp...

Our camp viewed from the mountains on our hike. The lake is still mostly frozen

Another view

...we went down down the same twisty mountain road and to a resort town called Tamga, located near the shores of Issyk-kul lake (the seventh-largest lake in the world by depth and tenth-largest by volume). The town itself contains a Soviet-era sanatorium where the cosmonauts relaxed after space flight. 

Yak crossing on the way to Tamga

Pastoral scene in Tamga 

Owing to the late arrival (11:30 PM) and a busload of cranky tourists, we got up later the next day and spent some time relaxing on the beach.

The shores of Issyk-kul

Issyk-Kul

Then we went to a yurt-making workshop to see how they are constructed, and on to another yurt camp in the gorgeous Jeti-Orguz area, dominated by massive red cliffs that are very striking.

The "seven bulls" of Jeti-Orguz

The "broken heart" of Jeti-Orguz - named after a kind of Romeo and Juliet story

Second yurt camp

Bridge to the yurt camp - infrastructure is not always in good repair around here. We drove up but walked down as the van got stuck in the mud

The little Lada that could - coming down from the camp with our luggage since the van couldn't make it

The following day, it was off to Karakol for a tour of a museum dedicated to Russian explorer Przhevalsky (a species of gazelle and horse are named for him, and he died in Karakol on his last expedition), a Chinese-style mosque, and a Russian Orthodox church.

Grave of Przhevalsky

Nancy in traditional attire to visit the mosque

Holy Trinity Orthodox Church, Karakol
We went our for our final dinner in Kyrgyzstan, and after Nancy started feeling sick. The next morning we both took covid rapid tests; I was negative, while Nancy was positive. The tour company requires clean PCRs if you feel sick, so the tour departed without us while we stayed separate in our hotel room with masks all day after taking the PCR at our hotel. The PCR results came back same as the rapid tests in the morning. I was able to rejoin the tour, and we agreed it made sense to do this. If I stayed behind, I would just be waiting to likely get sick, and further delay the trip for both of us. I was pretty thankful for this as initially, they told me that if just one of us was sick, both had to stay behind due to close contact.

The tour company arranged a transfer for me so I could meet up with the tour group, who had overnighted in Kazakhstan and were on their way to the former Kazakh capital of Almaty. I caught my taxi at 5 AM outside the hotel, after just a few hours' sleep for me after arranging everything late the night before; the driver dropped me at the Kazakh border and I went through on my own (I think I had it easy as I didn't speak Russian and they didn't speak English); another taxi was waiting for me on the other side; and I beat the group to the city! (I did miss some things I hoped to see, including Asia's answer to the Grand Canyon and a mountain camp accessing via Russian 4x4 vehicles, which was disappointing but a fair price to pay, all things considered). I arrived at about 2 PM despite a traffic jam into Almaty (my drivers were fast!) and had lots of time to download a walking tour to do on my own.

Almaty is a more "cosmopolitan" city; lots more Russian influence and seems more prosperous and more diverse than Bishkek. It was nice to go at my own pace through the various sites, then I reunited with the group at dinner. The next day (and next post), off to Tajikistan.

The (locally famous) Green Bazaar, Almaty

Almaty military history museum

Lenin in front of the Palace of the Republic, a concert hall

A bit more western influence in Almaty than other places in Central Asia

Zenkov Cathedral in Alamty

Hotel Kazakhstan

Typical Soviet-era apartment blocks

Almaty war memorial

Monument and apartments in Almaty

Central mosque of Almaty