Central Asia V: Snowed In with Dumplings

The highlight of October 11, 2021, was our trip to snowbound Jyrgalan Valley, where we took a lesson in making "manty", or dumplings.  The day also had other delights.  After a breakfast of porridge and bread with a large selection of jams—apricot, black currant, raspberry, strawberry--we stopped by a Russian Orthodox Church built in the 1870s.   

Mike and I walked around the church, trying to find the best light and best angle to catch its shiny onion spires and rustic brown wood frame.  Inside, there was an altarpiece composed of many icons, with an elaborate brass chandelier and a Slavic-looking man saying his prayers.  In the gift shop, there were Easter eggs from Ukraine.

We then drove through snow into the exquisite Jyrgalan Valley.  It was chilly and there was a scattering of snow in Karacol, where we spent the night, but it felt like total winter in Jyrgalan, the village at the top of the canyon, some 50 miles from Karacol.  It was not, in fact, "total winter".  Our driver told us that, in the middle of the winter, the snow piles as high as two or three meters on the side of the road.  On either side of the road, there were huge evergreen trees and snow-covered peaks. Fahrod, our guide, has told us that the mountains we are seeing are only the foothills of the Tien Shan.

The road to our final destination—a guesthouse—was impassable, so our driver parked the car and we walked through another home, its backyard and the road behind to reach our destination, as dogs from nearby houses howled and Fahrod shoveled a walkway through the snow.  

The owner of the guesthouse welcomed us warmly and ushered us into her kitchen, where she gowned us in striped aprons. 

The cook was nearly as wide as she was tall, with a very Asian face and eyes that nearly closed when she smiled.  She was also very patient and sweet.  She handed Mike, Dave, and me our own balls of dough and a French rolling pin.

We rolled the dough as thin as we could and then filled squares of it with either meat and onions or green onions.  We then wrapped the dough into dumplings and relaxed in the dining room as our dumplings (“mantys”) steamed. 

Our mantys were just one part of the full-course lunch of soup, salad, the mantys, and cake still warm from the oven.  Fahrod confirmed that baking is an important part of Kyrgis cuisine, and that good home cooks make their own bread, noodles, and cakes.

When we arrived back in Karacol, we stopped by a Chinese mosque.  “The mixture of cultures represented by that mosque is amazing,” Mike said.  The Dunganans are a sect of Chinese Moslems, some of whom emigrated to Kyrgystan two or three generations ago.  They look Chinese and their mosque has a Chinese curved roof and wood filigree eaves, but their culture is also Muslim.

We also stopped by a community store featuring seabuckthorne jam and felt and silk products.  

A Japanese group has assisted the nonprofit organization running the store in developing local products, such as  seabuckthorne jam and juice, as well as taking craft products from local craftsmen on consignment.  I bought a cream-colored, knitted wool hat and scarf, as well as a silk scarf trimmed with felt for the Christmas table.  

We watched the sun set over the Tien Shan mountains in the distance.  As the crow flies, we were less than 100 miles from China, but to actually reach China, we would have to travel a couple of hundred miles farther, to one of the two or three high mountain passes.