Central Asia IV: Road to China

We feasted our way across Central Asia.  My only reservation about our Mir tour was that there was simply too much food--three elegant meals every day.  It was often hard to refuse eating enthusiastically without hurting someone's feelings, since there were so many special events and intimate dinners at private homes.  The food, itself, was always luscious--more like Middle Eastern food than anything else, but with touches of Russia and China.  We savored our breakfast on October 11, 2021, at the Kemin Guest House.
 

One of the delights of the trip was meeting local people.  Aziz, our guide Fahrod, the young Manas-chi (epic reciter) who performed the night before, and one of Aziz' relatives talked and ate with us at breakfast.  Aziz had never heard of the Mormons, but he looked up You-Tube videos while we visited and learned from a video narrated in Russian about the Church genealogy library.  He said he would remember, if he had Mormon guests in the future, that they don’t drink tea and coffee.  Our guides in both Kyrgyzstan and Uzbekistan stocked up on cherry juice at local grocery stores and served it to us at every meal.  I have tried one brand of cherry juice after another here in SLC, but Dave says none of them are as good!

We woke up to a snowy world.  The temperature in Kyrgystan in mid-October is typically mild, but winter came early.  We were scheduled to ride a cart into the village, but we were willing to waive that activity!

Our rooms at the guest house were very comfortable.  We took off our shoes at the door and had a felt rug in our bedroom, as well as a hot shower and rustic furniture.

We drove east, through gorgeous, mountainous country along the north shore of Lake Issyk-Kul.

We stopped at the first class Museum of Nomad Civilization, near the resort town of Cholpon Ata.  

When we told the curator that we came from Salt Lake City, Utah, in the United States, the curator explained that she had visited SLC as part of a community exchange program, and that she thought, at the time, that Mormonism had much in common with her own Muslim religion.  Both forbid alcoholic drinks, and both encourage large families.  We said that Bishkek reminded us of SLC, with its mountains surrounding the city, and she said she also had the same feeling.  When we left, the curator gave us a booklet explaining the treasures of the museum.

We examined a very old map, made of animal skin, which showed the various "silk roads" crossing from China, across Central Asia, into the Middle East and Europe.

Fahrod said his ancestors, and those of most Kyrgis, originally came from Siberia.  They brought their nomad culture with them, including yurts.  A yurt was exhibited in the front, parking area of the museum.

The museum showed photos of nomadic culture during the 1800s and early 1900s.

Kyrgi nomadic culture is based on horses, and so museum displays included saddles and bridles.

There were also paintings of Manas, the legendary hero who is venerated across Kyrgyzstan.  America doesn't have anyone quite like him--a warrior hero.  I suppose King David in the Old Testament was such a hero, or Homer's Greek warrior heroes from the Iliad.

There was also a wall with photos of famous Manas-chis, the actors who memorized the Manas epic and related it dramatically, as did our young Manas-chi at the Kemin Guest House.

We recognized other heroes portrayed in monuments in Bishkek.  This is the queen who either repelled or embraced the Russian czar (still not sure which).

We saw many examples of nomadic crafts, including a resident artist making pictures from felt wrapped around reeds. I also saw the appliqued fabric hangings that typically adorn front doors or the openings to yurts.  I realized that the fabrics I brought home as table runners most likely originated as decorations for a yurt! 

Next stop was a petroglyph park.  The park was on the moraine of a glacier, filled with round boulders rolled forward by the ancient glacier.  The most impressive petroglyphs were of human hunters pursuing ibex antelope.  On several of the petroglyphs, the humans were accompanied by big cats on leashes.  Experts have speculated that the humans may have trained snow leopards, which live in this terrain, to hunt.  In some graves, decorated boxes with snow leopard bones have been buried next to the human bones.

Lake Issyk-Kul is the second largest alpine lake in the world, after Lake Titicaca in Peru.  We spent our week in Kyrgyzstan visiting Bishkek and then circling Lake Issyk-Kul.

We were scheduled to take a boat ride on the lake, but the manager of the marina said the waves on the lake were too high.  After the early winter storm, the boat ride went the way of this morning's ox cart!  

During Soviet times, oligarchs from throughout the Soviet republics vacationed at the lake.  We were scheduled to spent tonight at the lake, as well, but the resorts closed for the winter the week before we arrived.  

This photo shows summer merry-makers at Lake Issyk-kul.  They were gone by October.

This Russian postage stamp also shows Lake Issyk-kul.  As we drove out of town, we passed the new complex where the International Nomad Games will be held.  There is a race track for horses, as well as a playing field where polo players can compete with a beheaded goat carcass “ball.”  Fahrod told us how a team from Wyoming had competed during the last Nomad Games in the goat carcass polo.  “They came here a month early to learn the game and then made a decent showing in a game against Kazakastan,”  Fahrod said.

I googled "Russia and Lake Issyk-kul" and pulled up this image of Russian army soldiers next to a plane.  The article described Kyrgyzstan, as an independent country, objecting to the Russians' continued use of the Lake Issyk-kul area for army maneuvers.

The mountains got larger and more beautiful as we drove east towards China.

Our van was roomy and comfortable for Dave, Mike, Fahrod, the driver, Eltehorn, and me.

We stayed at the Green Yard Hotel in Karacol, at the eastern end of the lake.  We had a king-size bed in a large, neutral-toned room with a Kyrgis felt rug on the floor and photographs of the beautiful, austere mountains and lakes in the region.  There were gauzy gray and cream curtains around a curving wall of windows.  This is off season, and so the hotel was almost empty. It was quiet and very peaceful.  The elegant hotel was run by a European couple.  Before Independence, there were much higher percentages of European Russians in both Kyrgyzstan and Uzbekistan than there are now.

We went to dinner at the house of Fahrod’s “second mother,” a Uigur immigrant from China’s Xinjaing Province.   For appetizers there was the traditional eggplant/tomato/cucumber marinated salad, an eggplant “sandwich” with cream cheese, bread, and a platter of fresh vegetables.  The main dish was Lachman—noodles in a meat and vegetable broth.  And for dessert, there was a multi-layer European cake. Both Fahrod and our driver, Eltehorn, joined us.  Eltehorn told us about working for five years in Moscow as one of the many Kyrgis workers who send remittances home.

This girl was our waitress, a Uigur, whose family was originally from Western China.