Our Stay in Bishkek, Kyrgyzstan

I am actually learning to spell and pronounce the names of these countries. Today was another day filled with variety of adventures. The first stop was the International University of Central Asia which is an American credited university. This university got its start with the help of Al Gore and Hillary Clinton. It offers students the opportunity to receive a western style liberal education with many classes conducted in English. The curriculum includes business management, IT, Chinese language, international relations, law, and psychology. There are between 150 to 200 students and tuition is based on the students major, the highest being $9000 per year. I am surprised that it is a credited as a university since there are no graduate degrees and the library is about the size of my living room. But I was really impressed with what they’re trying to do. We actually spent some time with an English class talking with the students. It turned out to be a really enjoyable activity because we got to meet with local people, especially young people.

In the English class
The library
Some of the books in the English section of the library, which was the size of one large bookcase.

Our next stop was a village home where we got a demonstration on how to make felt carpets.

First step is to lay out the wool in the desired size. She did two layers.
The next step is to put other colored wool down to make the design. 
Adding more color
Finished design
The carpet to be is enrolled up and they wet it down and apply a lot of pressure over a number of hours. Then you get the final carpet. We were not able to stay that long to see how that worked. But you can see that the gal on the left is sitting on a felt carpet that they made previously.
Another way to get designs is to cut out patterns and then sew them into place.
This is a wall hanging that is about 2 1/2 feet long and 1 foot wide which I bought for only six dollars. Who could resist. Now I got to find a place to hang it in my house.

After the felt and demonstration, we got a delightful lunch in their home.

The first course. First courses are now seeming to be a wonderful variety of vegetables and breads. The upper vegetable dish is this eggplant that I am dying to figure out how to make. The one on the right is noodles and veggies and the one on the bottom is tomatoes and cucumbers, the left is fried dough. The bread in the upper left corner is a lot like a bagel and I would guess that it was actually boiled because of the texture.
Dough stuffed with cabbage
Main course was the national dish of boiled meat and noodles. This boiled meat was better season than the one we had the other night.

Our next stop was ruins dating back to the height of the Silk Road. Site has been turned into an outside museum, and several figures have been moved to the area.

Remains of tombs of 11th century rulers of Kara-Khanid Khaganate. This state was formed in the middle of the 10th century and lasted to the middle of the 12th.

The Burana tower was built during the 11th century to serve as a minaret to call the faithful to prayer and also to serve as a guard tower along the Silk Road. The original height of the tower was 47 m. Now it is only 24 m. An ancient settlement developed around the tower.

The northern part of Kyrgyzstan is an area of widespread stone sculptures and monuments of Turkie nomads. Usually, they are sculptures with careful study of the figures, as well as hats, clothing, ornaments, and weapons. Moreoffen, the warrior was drawn with a weapon or without it and with vessel in right hand. There are rare occurrence of images of women. Stone sculptures installed on the graves wich depiected a powerful enemy or who was killed by deceased during the lifetime else was a kind of monument to the dead.

Stone sculptures date from VI-X centuries.

Mill stone
The hill I climbed up to get a better view of the tower.

Afterwards, we attended a demonstration of Kyrgyz horse games, such as Ulak Tartysh, a sort of polo played with a goat carcass, and Kurdish which is wrestling on horseback.

Green and Red teams
Practicing by picking up a shuttle cock
Practicing wrestling
Let’s get started
Red team has it
Racing to put it in the goal
Green team’s turn
Action around the goal
Green has got it again
End of game. Green team wins the flag
The carcass is really heavy. I could not pick it up. They removed the head and part of the legs before playing.
Future player

That was the end of the activities for the day so the next stop is of course dinner. On the way we stopped at a supermarket. I’m including a couple pictures I took. I was surprised at the number of choices that were available. I have been in a supermarket in Israel, which eas no better than a glorified 7-Eleven.

Bulk section

Now for dinner pictures.

Fried dough and cucumber salad with chicken slices
Tomato and eggplant salad
Love this bread. It tore a part like Filo dough.
We ate inside a yurt.
We were entertained by an ethnic group of musicians.
The main course was lamb and fried potato balls
Dessert came in a replica of a yurt
Dessert was frozen chocolate mousse with passionfruit and popcorn.

The next morning we visited the main mosque, a museum and the Central Park before boarding our flight to Tashkent.

Construction of the Bishkek Central Mosque started in 2012 and was inaugurated in 2018. It was funded by Turkey at a cost of 25 million. Built in an ottoman revival style, the mosque is one of the largest in central Asia. It has a capacity to accommodate 30,000 worshipers. It looks a lot like the Blue Mosque of Istanbul.
The mosque from the courtyard
The mosque from the rear

The natural history museum is in the central Park area.

In the second half of the XVIIIth century, the Kyrgyz people built diplomatic relations with the Qing and Russian empires in order to preserve independence and ensure the security of their people. In 1785 Atake Batyr sent the first ambassadors to Russia under the leadership of Abdrakhman Kuchakov.
On March 15, 1786 Catherine I| received the Kyrgyz ambassadors. In the Winter Palace, Her Majesty the Empress was handed a message on behalf of Atake Batyr and made appropriate offerings. As a result of the first diplomatic mission, the Kyrgyz received the patronage of Russia and strengthened trade relations.
19th century amulets
In traditional clothes of the Kyrgyz, the headwear is given a special place, and they are distinguished by a variety. The kalpak male headdress symbolized something more than just a headdress and had several varities: The type of female headdress depended on the status and age of women. The girls wore the light hat “topu”, its upward was decorated with embroidery, pearl, and “tebetey” was bordered by a wide strip of different types of fur. At the top of the “topu” and “tebetey” attached owl feathers “uku”. Brides wore pointed “shokulo”, young daughter in law—a shawl “joluk”. The status female headdress the “elechek” was made from a thin white fadric from 20 to 30 meters long, it was wound on the head in the form of turban. The shape “elechek” had different fashions.

We just went to watch the changing of the God of the national Memorial, which was just cross from the museum. They stand guard in one hour shifts from 8 AM to 6 PM.

Center of city
Kurmajan Datka was born May 22, 1811 and died February 1, 1907. She was also known as the queen of Alai or the queen of the south. She was a politician who acquiesced under duress to the annexation of that region to Russia. She was a female, tribal leader, and nickname the queen.
Saikal – Kyrgyzstan’s original nomad warrior woman and daughter of a nomad chief. Kyrgyzstan’s national hero Manas once fell in love with and fought with her.

We next went to lunch in a delightfully terraced restaurant in the park before going to the airport and flying to Tashkent, Uzbekistan.

Fruit plate
Fried dough. This stuff is addictive

Kyrgyzstan 

90% mountainous, 7.5 million people, 80 national groups. Central Asia melting pot. Bishkek built as Russian fortress in 19th century. Many Turkic tribes that fought among themselves so couldn’t organize to fight off mongols and Chinese.

Kyrgyzstan burns a significant amount of coal. Very polluting. They do have hydro power. But can have lack of water so can not completely rely on hydro. 

Constitution is Secular but country becoming more religious. Over 3000 mosques. More women covering head here than in Kazakhstan.

In nineteenth century Muslim Chinese rebelled, were persecuted and many moved to Kazakhstan and Kyrgyzstan. Uyghurs are actually Turkic people and are being seriously persecuted in China today.

2 thoughts on “Our Stay in Bishkek, Kyrgyzstan”

  2. Oops! I might have erased my comment, Here it is again….This looks like the usual GLORIOUS experience you have on these trips. The streets look so clean. The photos of the food are yummy looking! You might ask the Rhode Scholar people if they ever thought of publishing a Rhoads Scholar cook book covering all of the countries they go to!!!

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