Welcome to Kyrgyzstan!
At least that's what we thought the sign said... It was written in Cyrillic so it was kind of hard to tell what with all the backwards R's and P's and C's and some other letter that we didn't know what the hell they meant.
Yes we had arrived in the frequently misspelled and rarely heard of back home Kyrgyzstan, and, as regular readers would no doubt be aware, we couldn't have been happier about it. As one of the republics of the former Soviet Union Kyrgyzstan was really only of interest to the Ruski's as a mountain getaway, know it all 10 year olds with the world map on their notebooks that listed all the member countries of the Union of Socialist Soviet Republics, the 5 million or so people that actually live there and, presently, Michelle and I.
Now to be completely straight with everyone we kind of chose this trip that came to Kyrgyzstan because no one has heard of it or really even knows where it is. There was no avid intrest in USSR history, or central Asian culture or even a firm idea about what was there; we just thought it would be cool to go somewhere that hardly anyone else we knew had, or would, go. The sum total of my knowledge of Kyrgyzstan was garnered from my friend from Renewtek, Djail, who is Kyrgyz and some unrelated reading about the dissoltion of the USSR that mention it in passing.
So it was now that our learning (and yours too, dear reader!) would begin in earnest. The first, most obvious, salient point about Kyrgyzstan is that it is quite mountainous. And I mean mountainous in the sense that the sun is quite a distance from the earth, or French people are rude and smelly. The whole country is mountainous ie mountains everywhere you look. Big mountains, smaller mountains, grass covered mountains, rocky mountains, snow capped peaks, peaks with glaciers, summits with snow on the north face, ragged pointy tops with snow on both faces, just lots and lots of mountains. It is, in fact, 90% covered in mountains. There are basically only 2 flat areas in the whole country, one valley where the captial Bishkek is situated that is perhaps 200 km's long and maybe 30 - 40 km's wide and the Ferghana valley that is mostly part of neighbouring Uzbekistan. For all the driving we did here, there was maybe 2 hours where we weren't encircled by, perched upon, or near the shadows of some fantastically picturesque mountain range.
And inhabiting this mountain paradise are the totally excellent Kyrgyz people. For all the different ethnic groups in Central Asia, such as Uzbeks, Armenians, Tajiks, Turkmen, Khazaks and Kyrgyz, almost everyone but the Kyrgyz are of Turkish descent. Apparently due to their nomadic nature they never really mixed with the neighbouring tribes and have maintained their unique culture since something like 2nd Century BC. Believe it or not, the mountains and surrounding valleys are deeply ingrained in their way of life with many farming horses and cattle and living in these round tents called Yurts. We saw them everywhere and spent our first night in Kyrgyzstan in one (see Shell's blog on our night at Tash Rabat). They aren't exactly backward though with many a post modern Kyrgyz yurt dweller quite happy to tie up his horse next to his Mercedes or BMW that are frequently parked besides the yurt.. There is also a large Russian population whom, despite being ethnically Russian and potentially predisposed to being lets say gruff, seemed to share the laid back and friendly Kyrgyz attitude that we met along the way.
So let's see: mountains? Check. Yurts? Check. People? Check. Aged and crumbling Soviet Infrastructure? Hmmmm, where to start. Lets start at the border. We crossed into Kyrgyzstan from China via the 3700m Torugart Pass. For such a high pass it was not actually that dramatic as to get there we pretty much drove up a valley and then up a mountain road that is not even as steep as the Mt Dandenong Tourist Road. The road up to the pass was typically Chinese: probably over engineered but comfortable and well made. Once we hit the border though, we were in a different world.
Firstly there was the immigration building. This totally 100% matched my expectations of what a Soviet built mountain administrative building should look like, expectations that were in no small part formed when playing the James Bond 007 game on the Nintendo 64, where you have to sneak through buildings shooting bad guys. The building itself looked like it had been on the wrong end of a couple of earthquakes; a roofline that was no where near 90 degrees and bits of concrete actually falling off the walls like water dripping from a tap. Inside it was more of the same: a marble floor with large cracks and peices missing from the pavers, hydronic heating pipes leaning on the walls and a bunch of fluro lights barely hanging from the ceiling that were not actually in use, the light being provided by a single globe dangling from electric wiring strung along the walls.
I thought it was great, although the toilet that I used was even more shoddily constucted than the rest of the place. It was almost as if they designed the shitter to retain the stench and attack the unsuspecting user as they entered. Had they invented the technology to dispense smells via the Internet you could feel my pain, but until then you will just have to take my word that it was bad and I could feel my eyeballs being burnt by the exposure.
However, in the Crappy Infrastructure Olympics that is Kyrgyzstan, the toilets in are no match
for the roads. To say they are bad is an insult to bad roads in the rest of the world, even Laos. You would almost think the potholes were dug on purpose, such is scientific precision and planning necessary to make a road as bad as these were. From gravel roads with spine jarring corrugations to tarred roads with ruts 2 feet deep and everything imaginable in between the Kyrgyz road system has to be felt to be believed. I guess that most of it is caused by the heavy truck traffic that rockets along roads simply not designed to carry vehicles that heavy, but for whatever reason it is hard work.
Generally most of the buildings such as houses and shops (but excluding border posts!) are in better repair than the roads but you wouldn't know it from looking from the outside. In fact lots of the building look as though they had just or were just about to collapse, however they seem to maintain the facade to ward off bad spirits or perhaps criminals as once inside pretty much everywhere was really nice. Special mentions msut go to the homestay in Kochkor whose interior looked EXACTLY like a house in Port Melbourne I went to an open inspection for that was owned by an old Greek couple. The only difference was the Kyrgyz house had carpets hanging on the walls where the greeks had pictures of the Madonna. Scary.
Another legacy of the Russian influence is the use of the Cyrillic alphabet which is inordinately confusing. A breif sysnopsis follows:
A is A
B looks like a 6
C doesn't exist
D looks like an A
E is an E
F is weird
G is a 90 degree angle
H doesn't exist
I is a backwards N
J is sort of an asterisk but is pronounced "zh"
K is K
L is like a square with no bottom with the left side falling away
M is M
N escapes me at the moment
O is O
P is like the aforementioned square without the bottom but is all straight
Q doesn't exist
R is P
S is C
T is T
U is about 60 different characters, all with subtle sounds that are very difficult to distinguish
V is B
X is nothing
Y is probably wrapped up in the U's somewhere
Z is a backwards 3
Complicating matters is the fact that many signs have whatever they are trying to display written in Russian and Kyrgyz (and sometimes English) so you never know what bloody language you are trying to read. Once you get the hang of it it is not actually that hard but geez louise you wouldn't want to be dropped off here your own just with a phrasebook and a smile. I, for one, would not get very far.
So that is a brief introduction to Kyrgyzstan. We saw the mountains, sunbaked and swam in a beautiful alpine lake, went on what must be one of the most scenic drives in the world along side a hydro electric resevoir and dam, watched the Olympic opening ceremony in a classy sports bar in Bishkek, stayed in a Yurt, rode horses through the mountains, drank many glasses of beer and vodka and generally enjoyed ourselves immensely, placing Kyrgyzstan well ahead of the pack of countries we have visited so far and making it our number 1 favourite country thus far on the excellent adventure!
Брок Миллс (Brock Mills in Cyrillic! Cool eh?)
Now to be completely straight with everyone we kind of chose this trip that came to Kyrgyzstan because no one has heard of it or really even knows where it is. There was no avid intrest in USSR history, or central Asian culture or even a firm idea about what was there; we just thought it would be cool to go somewhere that hardly anyone else we knew had, or would, go. The sum total of my knowledge of Kyrgyzstan was garnered from my friend from Renewtek, Djail, who is Kyrgyz and some unrelated reading about the dissoltion of the USSR that mention it in passing.
So it was now that our learning (and yours too, dear reader!) would begin in earnest. The first, most obvious, salient point about Kyrgyzstan is that it is quite mountainous. And I mean mountainous in the sense that the sun is quite a distance from the earth, or French people are rude and smelly. The whole country is mountainous ie mountains everywhere you look. Big mountains, smaller mountains, grass covered mountains, rocky mountains, snow capped peaks, peaks with glaciers, summits with snow on the north face, ragged pointy tops with snow on both faces, just lots and lots of mountains. It is, in fact, 90% covered in mountains. There are basically only 2 flat areas in the whole country, one valley where the captial Bishkek is situated that is perhaps 200 km's long and maybe 30 - 40 km's wide and the Ferghana valley that is mostly part of neighbouring Uzbekistan. For all the driving we did here, there was maybe 2 hours where we weren't encircled by, perched upon, or near the shadows of some fantastically picturesque mountain range.
And inhabiting this mountain paradise are the totally excellent Kyrgyz people. For all the different ethnic groups in Central Asia, such as Uzbeks, Armenians, Tajiks, Turkmen, Khazaks and Kyrgyz, almost everyone but the Kyrgyz are of Turkish descent. Apparently due to their nomadic nature they never really mixed with the neighbouring tribes and have maintained their unique culture since something like 2nd Century BC. Believe it or not, the mountains and surrounding valleys are deeply ingrained in their way of life with many farming horses and cattle and living in these round tents called Yurts. We saw them everywhere and spent our first night in Kyrgyzstan in one (see Shell's blog on our night at Tash Rabat). They aren't exactly backward though with many a post modern Kyrgyz yurt dweller quite happy to tie up his horse next to his Mercedes or BMW that are frequently parked besides the yurt.. There is also a large Russian population whom, despite being ethnically Russian and potentially predisposed to being lets say gruff, seemed to share the laid back and friendly Kyrgyz attitude that we met along the way.
So let's see: mountains? Check. Yurts? Check. People? Check. Aged and crumbling Soviet Infrastructure? Hmmmm, where to start. Lets start at the border. We crossed into Kyrgyzstan from China via the 3700m Torugart Pass. For such a high pass it was not actually that dramatic as to get there we pretty much drove up a valley and then up a mountain road that is not even as steep as the Mt Dandenong Tourist Road. The road up to the pass was typically Chinese: probably over engineered but comfortable and well made. Once we hit the border though, we were in a different world.
Firstly there was the immigration building. This totally 100% matched my expectations of what a Soviet built mountain administrative building should look like, expectations that were in no small part formed when playing the James Bond 007 game on the Nintendo 64, where you have to sneak through buildings shooting bad guys. The building itself looked like it had been on the wrong end of a couple of earthquakes; a roofline that was no where near 90 degrees and bits of concrete actually falling off the walls like water dripping from a tap. Inside it was more of the same: a marble floor with large cracks and peices missing from the pavers, hydronic heating pipes leaning on the walls and a bunch of fluro lights barely hanging from the ceiling that were not actually in use, the light being provided by a single globe dangling from electric wiring strung along the walls.
I thought it was great, although the toilet that I used was even more shoddily constucted than the rest of the place. It was almost as if they designed the shitter to retain the stench and attack the unsuspecting user as they entered. Had they invented the technology to dispense smells via the Internet you could feel my pain, but until then you will just have to take my word that it was bad and I could feel my eyeballs being burnt by the exposure.
However, in the Crappy Infrastructure Olympics that is Kyrgyzstan, the toilets in are no match
for the roads. To say they are bad is an insult to bad roads in the rest of the world, even Laos. You would almost think the potholes were dug on purpose, such is scientific precision and planning necessary to make a road as bad as these were. From gravel roads with spine jarring corrugations to tarred roads with ruts 2 feet deep and everything imaginable in between the Kyrgyz road system has to be felt to be believed. I guess that most of it is caused by the heavy truck traffic that rockets along roads simply not designed to carry vehicles that heavy, but for whatever reason it is hard work.
Generally most of the buildings such as houses and shops (but excluding border posts!) are in better repair than the roads but you wouldn't know it from looking from the outside. In fact lots of the building look as though they had just or were just about to collapse, however they seem to maintain the facade to ward off bad spirits or perhaps criminals as once inside pretty much everywhere was really nice. Special mentions msut go to the homestay in Kochkor whose interior looked EXACTLY like a house in Port Melbourne I went to an open inspection for that was owned by an old Greek couple. The only difference was the Kyrgyz house had carpets hanging on the walls where the greeks had pictures of the Madonna. Scary.
Another legacy of the Russian influence is the use of the Cyrillic alphabet which is inordinately confusing. A breif sysnopsis follows:
A is A
B looks like a 6
C doesn't exist
D looks like an A
E is an E
F is weird
G is a 90 degree angle
H doesn't exist
I is a backwards N
J is sort of an asterisk but is pronounced "zh"
K is K
L is like a square with no bottom with the left side falling away
M is M
N escapes me at the moment
O is O
P is like the aforementioned square without the bottom but is all straight
Q doesn't exist
R is P
S is C
T is T
U is about 60 different characters, all with subtle sounds that are very difficult to distinguish
V is B
X is nothing
Y is probably wrapped up in the U's somewhere
Z is a backwards 3
Complicating matters is the fact that many signs have whatever they are trying to display written in Russian and Kyrgyz (and sometimes English) so you never know what bloody language you are trying to read. Once you get the hang of it it is not actually that hard but geez louise you wouldn't want to be dropped off here your own just with a phrasebook and a smile. I, for one, would not get very far.
So that is a brief introduction to Kyrgyzstan. We saw the mountains, sunbaked and swam in a beautiful alpine lake, went on what must be one of the most scenic drives in the world along side a hydro electric resevoir and dam, watched the Olympic opening ceremony in a classy sports bar in Bishkek, stayed in a Yurt, rode horses through the mountains, drank many glasses of beer and vodka and generally enjoyed ourselves immensely, placing Kyrgyzstan well ahead of the pack of countries we have visited so far and making it our number 1 favourite country thus far on the excellent adventure!
Брок Миллс (Brock Mills in Cyrillic! Cool eh?)
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