H E AV E N LY M O U N TA I N S
K Y R G Y Z S TA N
AS I PLOT THE COURSE, EVERY T R E A D I S F E LT I N E A R N EST. BELOW FROM THE TOP:
Ala-Too Square in Bishkek; The mayor’s office in Bishkek. OPPOSITE, CLOCKWISE FROM THE TOP:
Traditional yurts in the Susamir Valley; Livestock on the move to the jailoo (summer pastures); Friendly locals near Kara-Suu Lake.
alliums marching as far as the eye could see. As soon as we touch down in Bishkek, Kyrgyzstan’s capital and largest city, I smell the earth in the air. Enticing views of the foothills of the Tien Shan mountains and surrounding glaciers are visible from street level – at odds with the imposingly authoritarian statues that bestride the public squares, which make me want to run for the hills. It was in the 1920s that Stalin, rounding up the remnants of the tsarist empire, created five Central Asian territories to add to those of the recently formed USSR. When the Soviet tide finally ebbed away again in 1991, each territory – Kazakhstan, Uzbekistan, Tajikistan, Turkmenistan and Kyrgyzstan – emerged as a newly independent nation. Of these five ’Stans, the last, Kyrgyzstan, is considered the friendliest and the most beautiful. Locked away among alpine peaks – the majority of its borders run along scenic mountain crests – the country has a nostalgic storybook quality, a landscape of woozinessinducing passes and plunging valleys. Its traditions are nomadic – the word Kyrgyz actually means ‘40 tribes’ – and before the arrival of the Russians in the 1870s most settlements, including Bishkek, consisted of round white yurts. Sandwiched between the Karakum and Gobi deserts of Uzbekistan and China, they are a semi-nomadic people; when warm weather arrives, they disperse from the villages in which they shelter during
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