My journey through Kyrgyzstan began in Bishkek. It is a typically Soviet city of broad boulevards and grandiose (often crumbling) monuments. I was struck by one World War II memorial featuring two Kyrgyz soldiers, with an inscription in Russian on one side (there is one in Kyrgyz on the other) declaring “We were fighting for Communism”. There has been little effort to airbrush out the communist past, with one notable exception: the statue of Lenin, arm outstretched pointing to the future in one of the stock poses seen all over the former empire, has been removed from its plinth on the central Ala-Too Square (formerly Lenin Square), in front of the State Historical Museum, and replaced by the legendary national hero, Manas. Lenin has been moved to a more modest spot behind the museum. The cult of Manas has become ubiquitous in Kyrgyzstan in recent years, an officially-inspired nation-building myth to bolster a people’s pride and consolidate a newly independent state.
Inside the museum, a strange hotchpotch of displays sits awkwardly together. Here, Lenin has pride of place. Several statues of him, striking a variety of inspirational poses, dominate a whole floor, as he addresses different sections of Soviet society: here workers, there intellectuals. A huge statue dominates the cavernous central stairwell. Interspersed among the statues are exhibits about the revolutionary and the Great Patriotic wars, uniting the principal legitimising themes that underpinned Soviet rule. Fitted in uneasily among all this are more recent displays concerning the unrest in Bishkek in April 2010, which led to the deaths of dozens of protesters and the flight from the country of President Kurmanbek Bakiyev. They appear to have been slotted into available space, incoherently, without any thought.
Upstairs, the main themes are prehistory and Kyrgyz folklore. Bizarrely, many of the mannequins draped in Kyrgyz national costumes have fair hair and blue eyes, rather than the Asiatic features of the Kyrgyz themselves. They would have been less out-of-place in shop windows. Perhaps these were standard mannequins used in Soviet-era department stores. The overall impression is of a country grappling uncertainly with its identity in the post-Soviet world, not sure what to do with its Soviet past, undecided about the motifs of its newly acquired independence.
Travelling east from Bishkek, I visit the Burana Tower, a Soviet-era reconstruction of a medieval minaret. There is little else to see now, a small museum, a collection of balbals, carved Turkic stone figures, and a mound of earth. Yet this was once Balasagun, an eleventh-century capital of the Karakhanids, a Turkic people who ruled a territory that included chunks of modern southern Kazakhstan, eastern Uzbekistan and western China. An artist’s impression attempts to give an idea of what it might have looked like in its heyday. Before the Karakhanids, Balasagun had belonged to the Sogdians, the Iranian people whose merchants once dominated the Silk Road, and whose language was the lingua franca of its traders. Central Asia has long been a region of migrations, of trade and exchange in goods and ideas, of mixing among peoples and cultures, of transience, sometimes great violence, and of impermanence. The once great civilisation of the Sogdians, whose power and influence had spanned continents, has passed into obscurity, just as Balasagun had vanished into dust.
Continuing eastwards, I reached the town of Karakol, founded by Russian settlers in the 1860s, close to the Chinese border, at the eastern end of Issyk-Kol Lake. It is a pleasant enough little town, with a bustling market and streets of single-story, wooden houses, painted white with ornate blue window frames. Karakol boasts an especially charming Orthodox Church, dating from the late-19th Century. Built of wood, its onion domes were destroyed by the Bolsheviks, who turned the building into a club. Now it is restored and returned to its original purpose, serving the dwindling Russian population.
But Karakol’s most extraordinary feature is the Dungan Mosque. Before the Bolsheviks, this was one of several mosques in Karakol, and it was the only one to survive their onslaught. It was built for the Dungan community, otherwise known as Hui, Muslims who migrated from China in the late 19th Century following rebellions against the Chinese. Numbering close to 60,000 in Kyrgyzstan according to the most recent census, they are also found in Kazakhstan and, in smaller numbers, in Russia. They speak a dialect of Mandarin, infused with Arabic, Persian and Turkic words. Indeed, although physiologically they appear Chinese, they are thought to be descendants of the medieval Arab conquerors who first brought Islam to the region. There are still a number of Dungan villages, near Karakol and Bishkek, where they have maintained their distinctive traditions.
Standing in front of the mosque in Karakol, I was initially confused. Before me was what looked very much like a pagoda, the architecture purely Chinese, until I noticed the squat little minaret to one side. The interior, with its spread prayer carpets, appears more identifiably Muslim. What an astonishing blend of different styles and civilisations, Muslim and Chinese. But in its way it is quintessentially Central Asian, a product of the toing and froing from east to west and back that characterised the Silk Road for centuries, exchanging ideas and technologies, combining them in novel ways. For the purist Muslim zealots of Saudi Arabia, the vandals of Timbuktu, Karakol’s Dungan Mosque would no doubt be an impossible affront. Yet this mosque appeared to be a glorious expression of the globalisation and multi-culturism of the Silk Road long before such terms had been invented.
Since time immemorial, the nomadic Kyrgyz have set off every summer with their animals to the high summer pastures. Even amid the urban living of the 21st century, some still leave their villages to spend the summer months in these jailoos, living in yurts, the traditional felt-covered tents of the Central Asian nomads. Taking to the mountains around Karakol, I got a foretaste of this summer migration, at the hot springs of Altyn Arashan and in the Jeti-Oguz (Seven Bulls) gorge, and the Valley of Flowers. In serene landscapes, families go about their business, tending sheep, and making kymys, the extremely sour fermented mare’s milk that the Kygyz value highly, but which to me is only just barely palatable.
Increasingly, the traditional life of the Kyrgyz is being overtaken, not only by modern living, but by the beginnings of mass tourism, and the commercialism it brings. Some of the shepherds in the summer pastures now supplement their incomes by putting up visitors in one of their yurts, offering them food and traditional hospitality. In the little town of Kochkor, just to the west of Issyk-Kol, this seems particularly visible. Westerners, with their hiking boots and ruck sacks, stride through the bazaar, or lounge outside the little café which has been adopted as their favoured drinking spot. Their numbers are not great for now, and Kyrgyzstan is still a destination for the somewhat adventurous. But they will certainly increase, and the facilities on offer for them will become more elaborate, more comfortable.
Kochkor is the main jump-off point for visits to Song-Kol lake, perhaps the greatest jewel of Kyrgyzstan, a little over 3,000 metres above sea level, the most breath-taking of the jailoos. For now, no tarmacked roads lead there, and there are only one or two derelict buildings dating from the Soviet era. Well away from civilisation, families spend the summer in their yurts, tend their animals, collect water from the lake, and carry out their ablutions in little basins fed by water from a small tank above. Behind each little group of yurts, a small shed stands over a deep hole in the ground, and patches of brown grass around it reveal where previous years’ latrines have been filled in. Chickens and turkeys run about the little encampments, while horses and cattle wander the meadows around the lake, the horses often hobbled by short ropes tied around their legs, preventing them from moving far. In one small area, about a dozen family encampments are grouped together, with signs on their yurts indicating which travel company they are connected with. In this yurt camp, a few dozen foreign tourists and their guides are put up, fed traditional dishes such as laghman, a broth of noodles, mutton and a variety of vegetables, or plov. Sitting on felt mats at a low table, the hostess attends with a pot of tea, from which she repeatedly refills the little bowls of the guests. In one yurt, I initially made the mistake of sitting opposite my companions, with my back to the door. I was gently told by my guide that, as a foreign guest, I should sit on the other side of the table, facing the door, as was traditional for honoured guests.
Walking along the shore of Song-Kol, away from the yurt camp, I have a sense of timelessness, of wandering in a wilderness unchanged over centuries. Meadows surround the lake, wreathed by snowy mountains beyond. A great variety of birds flutter and skip across the water, some of them diving in after the abundant fish. In the last light of evening and the first light of dawn, I tread quietly among the little humps of earth close to the water’s edge, pock-marked with mouse burrows, trying to approach the eagles as they stand and wait, before soaring into the air, flying low over the burrows, spying out the mice that are their prey. As I sit at the lake’s edge, a girl rides down to water her horse a few yards away from me, offering a “salam” as greeting, then leaning in her saddle as the horse lowers his head to slurp in his evening drink. In this country, children take to a horse at a very young age, and I saw boys of six or seven cantering along with full confidence and control over their mounts, riding bear-back, their legs too short to reach a stirrup.
The next morning, it was my turn to mount a horse, for the first time in my life, not counting occasions when, as a child, I had ridden a pony led by a man walking in front. Not to worry, I had been assured, I would have a very calm horse that would just follow the horse of my guide, riding in front. And for the most part, it was true. My guide’s horse, however, was far more unruly, repeatedly trying to veer off, or refusing to budge, the guide responding with sharp whacks with his whip to the horse’s haunches or neck. This was unsettling for my horse, as well as for me, and I was happy to hang back. Occasionally, my horse too dug in his hooves and refused to move, but for the most part he was content quietly to amble along, choosing a path with which he was well familiar. My guide said the horse was happy to have a tourist on his back, who would not hit him hard, and who would let him get away with his transgressions. I wasn’t sure the horse had a favourable opinion of me. Kyrgyz horses are used to being hit hard, and he probably thought I was weak. But I became used to him, and perhaps he became used to me.
Horses are central to the culture of the Kyrgyz, nomads until only a few generations ago. I was a little perturbed at the readiness I sometimes saw to beat them without mercy. At Altyn Arashan, I watched a young man on horseback as he tried to round up a couple of unwilling horses, who were possibly also confused as to what he wanted them to do. When he finally got them where he wanted them, he dismounted and beat them both savagely and gratuitously with his rope. My guide at Song-Kol told me he would prefer not to have to hit a horse, but that it was necessary to show who was boss.
Beginning my trek alongside the lake, after lunch in a yurt along the way, we turned up towards a mountain pass, following a stream past yurt encampments, with their grazing horses and sheep, and children at play. It was an idyllic scene, and, I felt, in this country there was no better way to see it than from the back of a horse, gently rocking to and fro as we climbed up to the top of the pass.
Arriving at the top, I was in for a shock, Looking down the other side, the path appeared alarmingly steep. My guide assured me it would not be a problem. No doubt he found my trepidation feeble. Probably any Kyrgyz child would not have given it a second thought. Setting off gingerly on the descent, my horse, probably sensing my discomfort, was as reluctant as I. Both horses tended to slip and slide on the loose, gravelly rocks on the steep slope. They always recovered their footing, but, unsettled, I said I would rather dismount and descend the steep sections on my own feet, leading my horse. Reluctantly the guide agreed. It was only my first day in the saddle, and maybe I would have become accustomed to such steep slopes in time. I watched impressed as Kyrgyz men almost ran their mounts down nearly sheer inclines. The following day, I rode down a similarly steep slope, not without fear, but I did it.
By the end of the second day, if it were not for the mounting pain in my knees, I was starting to feel at ease, as we followed the mountain paths, up and down, from one valley to the next, my horse generally obeying my commands by now. As we rode across a final meadow at the end of the trek, we passed a couple of local men setting off with supplies strung over the sides of their steeds. As my guide stopped to chat with them, the horse of one of them suddenly, without warning, dropped to its haunches, his rider maintaining his seat on its back. “Oh yes, they sometimes do that”, my guide said.
Although I intended to head farther south, for Osh, the absence of any regular public transport meant I had to return, with my driver, first to Bishkek. There are several daily flights from Bishkek to Osh, Kyrgyzstan’s second city, but I wanted to travel overland. There were no public buses or minibuses. Other than by airplane, the only way to make the journey was in a private, shared taxi. I arrived at the place from where taxis departed for Osh at about 6 am the following morning. There were three or four taxis waiting to fill all their places before setting off. So I waited. By 8.30, I was beginning to wonder whether we would ever get away. Could it be possible that so few people wished to travel from the capital to the country’s second city? The north-south divide is frequently cited as one of Kyrgyzstan’s biggest problems. Indeed, what does it say about a country when there are no regular buses between its two most important cities? Most people would not be able to afford the price of an air ticket. Yet no one, not even the government, had thought it necessary or desirable to ensure regular transport links between the capital and the southern provinces, including Jalal Abad and Osh.
After a while, I noticed that in each of the taxis waiting to depart for Osh there were one or two passengers. There was no taxi-rank system, filling up one car at a time. So I suggested that four of us should combine and all get into one taxi. The drivers themselves would never suggest this, I was told, as they would not poach each other’s passengers. But when initiative came from the passengers themselves, there were no objections. Ten minutes later we were on our way.
It is a long, ten-hour journey, the road following a twisting route over mountain passes, looping well to the west, before heading back eastwards along the Uzbekistan border, through Jalal Abad, and finally down to Osh. Setting out along the built-up plain west of Bishkek, the journey begins in the most developed part of the country, before heading south, up into the Alatau mountain range. Before reaching the mountains, close to the town of Kara-Balta, the road passes a big new oil refinery, still under construction, a huge sign in Chinese characters outside, and numerous Chinese workers in identical red overalls beetling away around it. This may be the future for Kyrgyzstan. Beijing is also investing in other major infrastructure projects, including a railway from China to Uzbekistan, across Kyrgyz territory, and a north-south power line, linking the hydroelectric plant at Jalal Abad with the energy poor north of the country. Numerous Sino-Kyrgyz joint ventures have been established in recent years, and Chinese traders increasingly make their presence felt in Kyrgyz markets.
Many Kyrgyz have mixed feelings about all this. Suspicion and antipathy towards Chinese is widespread. Many want the prosperity they hope Chinese investment may bring, but fear being swamped by their vast eastern neighbour. And, aware of the environmental degradation that has accompanied China’s economic growth, they fear the despoliation of the beautiful nature of their land. Surveying the magnificent landscape of Song-Kol, my guide had told me the Kyrgyz would try to protect its pristine beauty. But he was anxious. A young man in Karakol, close by the Chinese border, told me there were, as yet, few Chinese in the region, and he hoped it would remain that way. Daniar, my guide at Altyn Arashan, above Karakol, thought it was better for Kyrgyzstan to maintain its key relationship with Russia, which he saw as less of a threat. I was not sure it represented such an opportunity as China either.
Heading up into the mountains, via a long tunnel, the road goes over the Tor-Ashuu Pass. In many places prone to avalanches the road is shielded by concrete shelters against the winter snow. Yet I am told the road is often impassable during winter, adding to the isolation of north and south. On my return journey, we had to wait in a long queue of vehicles at the entrance to the tunnel, because some cattle were being herded through it. And this was the main north-south artery of the country. Beyond the pass the road proceeds westwards through a long valley, bordered with yurts at frequent intervals, some of them inhabited by shepherds, others selling kymys, food and other products to passers-by. After traversing another mountain pass, the road descends, around the Toktogul reservoir, before turning eastwards for Jalal Abad and Osh.
Here, beyond the mountains, we entered a different world from northern and central Kyrgyzstan, the world of the Fergana Valley, with gentle rolling hills, and a hot, sultry climate. Fergana, with its diverse ethnic make-up, had long had a distinct identity. Then the Bolsheviks divided it up arbitrarily among three Soviet Republics, Uzbekistan, Tajikistan and Kyrgyzstan, their territories coiling around each other in an awkward and nonsensical carve-up. Some think it was a deliberate policy on the part of Moscow, to divide and rule. Perhaps it did not matter so much when they were all republics of one country, under one imperial authority. But as in so many other examples of botched decolonisation, independence and separation brought to the surface all the underlying tensions that too often afflict multi-ethnic regions.
Some writers downplay the distinctiveness of the Central Asian nations, seeing them as modern constructs forged by the Bolsheviks out of disparate tribes which had previously had no sense of national identity. Colin Thubron, in his account of his travels through the region, Shadow of the Silk Road, writes that the Kyrgyz nation-state was “the gift of Stalin”. It was the Soviets who drew its boundaries, and standardised the Kyrgyz language, taking care to differentiate it from its close Kazakh relative. And it was Russians who promoted the compilation of the Manas epic out of the oral tradition of the Kyrgyz nomads, to buttress the Kyrgyz national identity. Of course, there is much truth in this, in the notion that modern nations are constructs, or “imagined communities”, in the phrase dreamed up by political scientists. The historical accuracy of the official story of Manas is much in doubt. Early versions were changed in the Soviet period to portray Manas as Kyrgyz, rather than Nogay.
But if the Kyrgyz, Kazakh and Uzbek nations are modern constructs, is that not equally true of hundreds of nations the world over? However or whenever nations are formed, if its members are convinced of their identity, can any one nation be counted as either more or less valid than any other? Is this not as true for Kyrgyz as it is for Macedonians, Montenegrins, Ukrainians. Palestinians or Kurds, all of whose claims to nationhood have been denied by others? The origins of nations, the development of their nation-founding myths, are interesting subjects for academic study, for sure. But it should not be overlooked that every nation, including those that consider themselves the oldest and most venerable, has its myths. That the development of national identities has in some cases been recent, and that the identities of some groups of people even today are not settled, still disputed by their putative members, is a matter of interest. But it should not be a reason to dismiss the claim of any who say “we are Macedonians” or “we are Kyrgyz”. This is a matter of practical sense as well as the recognition of peoples’ national rights. In the Fergana Valley, the differences between Kyrgyz and Uzbeks have been sufficiently strongly felt as to cause bitter and bloody conflict since the end of the Soviet Union.
I visited Özgön, a small Uzbek-majority town on the road between Jalal Abad and Osh. Özgön has an ancient pedigree, having been, like Balasagun in the north, an important centre of the medieval Karakhanids. Unlike Balasagun, a trace of the medieval splendour of Özgön remains. An 11th century minaret and three mausoleums, joined together in one building, are well preserved, and faced with fine ornamental brickwork. Unfortunately, Özgön is better known today for the inter-communal violence which in 1990 pitted crudely armed local Uzbeks and Kyrgyz against each other, resulting in hundreds of casualties.
Strolling through the town’s bazaar today, all appears calm and normal on the surface. Uzbeks and Kyrgyz are said to differ from each other physically, although they speak closely related Turkic languages. In general, Uzbeks’ appearance retains more of the pre-Turkic Indo-European, Iranian inheritance than the Kyrgyz. In addition, dress can give clues, Uzbek men preferring small skull caps, often green, rather than the tall felt hats sported by many Kyrgyz men. But I could not reliably distinguish between the two peoples. After generations living in close prosperity, united by their Muslim faith and the closeness of their local dialects, the differences must surely have been eroded by inter-marriage. Probably those differences are more apparent to locals. But nevertheless, the town and its people did look different to the places I had visited in northern and central Kyrgyzstan. Willowy women with fair complexions and sandy coloured hair peeping out from beneath their veils ambled through the streets.
Osh boasts a history stretching back more than two millennia. None of that can be seen today in the grid-like street pattern of a Soviet-era city. The town is dominated by a long rocky ridge known as Solomon’s Throne, a place of pilgrimage for Muslims, but also infused with pagan beliefs and rituals that probably pre-date the arrival of Islam in the region. At one end of the ridge stands a little mosque, built into the rock, originally constructed in the 15th century, and rebuilt in the 19th century and again following the end of communism. All along the ridge are holy places, caves, hollows, smooth rocks, which draw pilgrims hopeful of blessings, cures, and who knows what other miracles? The ridge itself, viewed from a certain angle, is said to resemble a reclining pregnant woman, and is a particular draw for prospective mothers. I paused before a narrow aperture in a rock, watching as women thrust their arms deep into it. One of them cajoled a little girl to do likewise. It seemed hardly surprising that she was reluctant to put her arm into a dark hole, but she eventually complied. Young people queued to do likewise. What is the significance of this hole? I did not know, but I gave it a go. I watched with curiosity as women slid down a gently sloping rock, smoothed away by countless others over the ages. They laughed as they did so. But what meaning did it have beyond innocent fun? Money had been placed in little niches in the rocks, blackened by candles. What were these offerings for?
Colin Thubron had described a visit to such a place, a mazar near Kochkor. He was given a tour by an Imam, who explained the magic of the place, the miracles that occurred there. Islam had put down shallow roots among the Kyrgyz, nomads whose traditional folk beliefs lingered, even under godless communism. Something similar can be found in South America, among the nominally Catholic peasants of the Andes who put a Christian gloss on older animist beliefs, and continue to make offerings to the Pachamama. And in the whirling suns, miraculous cures and rosaries turned to gold of Marian shrines in Europe. It is perhaps harmless enough. But nowadays a rigid conformity with the supposedly pure Islamic Orthodoxy of the Arabian peninsula is intolerant of the local cultural accretions of far-flung Muslim lands from Timbuktu to Indonesia. In such a world, where is the place for the mysticism and magic of places like Solomon’s Throne? Below the ridge is a large new mosque, built with donations from I don’t know where. What does the Islamic establishment make of the pagan pieties performed by Muslim pilgrims on the hill above?
Another feature distinguishing Osh and Özgön from the north of the country is the more overt devoutness of many of the people, even younger women more often going veiled, men wearing skull caps. This is in large part down to the Uzbeks, who according to the 2009 census made up almost half of Osh’s population, and who have long tended to be more strictly observant than their Kyrgyz neighbours. Although I was journeying through Kyrgyzstan during Ramadan, I had seen little sign of it. In so many little grocery stores, the main item on sale, sometimes taking up a whole wall of shelves behind the counter, was vodka, in a bewildering variety of brands. The Kyrgyz family with whom I stayed in Osh did not observe the fast at all until the last evening of my stay, when they invited a large party of people, men and women seated separately, to share the post-fast feast, commencing with prayers. One of the daughters of the household, like her mother and sisters dressed in modern, western clothes, explained that it was traditional to invite others during Ramadan.
Strolling through the bazaar in Osh, as in Özgön, all is outwardly calm. Uzbek and Kyrgyz appear to go about their business as normal. Perhaps the most pertinent difference between the two peoples is that, whereas the Kyrgyz were until relatively recently nomads, the Uzbeks had been settled. It was Uzbeks who had made up much of the urban population, including Osh, where they dominated commercial life. In recent decades, this had sparked resentment among Kyrgyz, who had moved in from rural areas in increasing numbers, but often found it hard to find work. Matters came to a head following the ouster of Bakiyev in April 2010. Bakiyev was a southerner. Many southern Kyrgyz saw his removal as a northern ploy to weaken their position, while Uzbeks in the south had often seen Bakiyev as favouring the Kyrgyz. The tensions peaked with clashes in Osh and Jalal Abad in June 2010, leading to anti-Uzbek pogroms as Kyrgyz poured in from the surrounding countryside to join in the attacks. Hundreds were killed and hundreds of thousands displaced, both within Kyrgyzstan and over the border into Uzbekistan. Thousands of houses and businesses were burned.
Numerous reports of complicity by Kyrgyzstan’s security forces in the attacks on Uzbek neighbourhoods in Osh were confirmed in a report by an Independent International Commission of Inquiry. While the report refuted claims that the events amounted to genocide, it did point to grave crimes against humanity. It infuriated the interim government in Bishkek. However, events since June 2010 suggest that Bishkek’s control in the south has become tenuous. The nationalist mayor of Osh, who came to prominence during the violence, has assertively championed Kyrgyz dominance, openly telling Uzbeks to accept a subordinate position. Several reports, including one by the International Crisis Group, have told how Uzbeks have been victimised by the police, subjected to arbitrary arrest, torture and extortion, with bribes sought for the release of detained young men. They have also pointed to tight links between the authorities in the south, the police and organised crime in a transit region for drugs from Afghanistan.
The Bishkek authorities have done nothing to address, or even to acknowledge the grievances of the Uzbeks, or to counter the narrative peddled by the Osh mayor that the Uzbeks were separatists who had brought their troubles upon themselves. While the large majority of victims in the violence were Uzbeks, most of those who have been arrested and charged in connection with it have also been Uzbeks. There is a dearth of Kyrgyz in the south willing to challenge the mayor’s the mayor’s version of events. An elderly Kyrgyz former policeman I spoke to in Osh told me “the Uzbeks had started to live well, and so we fired their houses; you understand, we fired their houses.” Facing hostile local authorities and an unsympathetic Kyrgyz public in the south, and indifference and powerlessness from Bishkek, southern Uzbeks have withdrawn into themselves, increasingly turning to the Islamic faith for succour. Despite the apparent calm, the festering conflict between Kyrgyz and Uzbeks threatens to boil up again unless the central government begins to get a grip.
