Lake News 5

The next morning I made my way to a bigger road, and rolled down the hill towards the Kyrgyz capital city of Bishkek. Well, it wasn't all a roll, there were some hills to climb too, but not too many.

Doin' a refurb

A faded Kyrgyz flag, with the word Kyrgyzstan in Cyrillic script below it.

Have you done your homework by the way, and learnt how to spell Kyrgyzstan?

Ok, close your eyes right now and try to spell it.

Strange word, innit?

This is what it looks like in Kyrgyz script:

Кыргызстан

K = K

Ы = Y

Р = R

Г = G

Ы = Y

З = Z

C = S

T = T

A = A

H = N

Easy.

Extra points if you can write it in Kyrgyz.

Abandoned village buildings

A hugely long fence, all of which is made from the walls of shipping or freight containers. Containers are commonly used around here as building material, I've noticed.

Another Kyrgyz hero, don't ask me who though, sorry. It's pretty much always men though, surprise surprise.

Lunch stop at an abandoned bus shelter

Lepishka, tomato and kurt, which is called qurut here, the delicious dried sour salty cheese.

Visionaries always appear to be looking at something.

The three largest Central Asian cities, all on one sign. Bishkek (capital of Kyrgyzstan), Almaty (cultural and economic capital of Kazakhstan, and its largest city), and Tashkent (capital of Uzbekistan).

Tokmak

I rolled into this interesting town in mid afternoon. It was probably only about 28 degrees, but compared to where I'd just come from it felt blisteringly hot. You get that, when you've been at higher and cooler altitudes for awhile.

I found a little guesthouse in the back streets, run by Diliya and her daughter Sara. They're the sweetest people ever. As soon as I arrived Diliya gave me copious amounts of cold drinks, and fed me. She told me to go and settle in, and shower or whatever, and then said to bring my laundry to her and she'd be happy to wash it for me. For free. Of course I protested, but she insisted.

Yay. A shower! Such a great thing when you've been camping for a few days. We had rivers and lakes of course, but there's nothing quite like hot running water for removing grit.

My guest house street, in a very nondescript burb.

Diliya (sitting) with her daughter Sara and the three grandkids, Adam the banana man, Amal and Marian. The kids were the cutest ever.

Pretty much the busiest street in town. There was a cafe that always had Russian families and hip Russian speaking young people hanging out.

The supermarket hub. This must be a little bit more of a conservative Muslim town. A noticeable number of women were wearing the hijab, a higher proportion than I've seen anywhere in my Central Asian journeying so far.

In Moderation

Just from my observation, however, it appears to me that Kazakhstan, and to a lesser extent Kyrgyzstan, are actually the most moderate Muslim countries I've ever visited so far. And I've visited many.

When I say moderate I'm really talking about my perceptions about the extent to which Muslim clerics appear to influence wider society, and definitely in terms of what women are wearing on the streets, the fact that they're everywhere (and not locked away at home like in some Muslim countries), and that women are out working and doing basically everything men are doing.

I assume all of this is mainly because of the 130 years of Russian rule of this area, from the mid 1860s to 1991.

When Christian Tsarist Russia first took control of Central Asia, their approach to Islam was mixed. In some regions Islam was partially repressed by the new rulers, and in others it was mildly tolerated.

After the revolution in Russia in 1917, when atheism became the official policy of the new Communist government, the new Soviet rulers initially took a pragmatic approach to Islam, tolerating religious practices, and focusing on higher priority social issues such as building health, education and other infrastructure.

But from 1926 onwards the Soviet rulers began an era of repression of Islam

in Central Asia. They forcibly closed private religious schools, and funded state ones instead. Between 1927 and 1929 the state ran a campaign to close down mosques, and this was often carried out in a violent and random way, according to the whims of various regional or local officials. Many imams were killed, and mosques razed to the ground. Religious teachings and doctrines could no longer be published and discussed in the public sphere.

But rather than extinguish Islamic beliefs or practices, the net effect of these Soviet policies was simply to drive them underground, so Islamic teachings and practices became much more family and home-based. Islam was already regarded as much more than just a religious practice here anyway, it was an integral part of the culture and identity of the people, and therefore repression couldn't work in the long term.

When Soviet President Mikhail Gorbachev introduced his policy of glasnost, or 'openness,' in 1988, Islam underwent a rapid public revival in Central Asia, with many new mosques built, literature published, and new private religious schools opened. This continued after independence from the Soviets.

However, newly formed independent Central Asian governments were wary of Islam, in a political sense, because of the experience in Tajikistan, where a five year civil war commenced in 1992, between government troops and a coalition of opposition forces led by a radical Islamic group called the Islamic Renaissance Party. The takeover of Afghanistan by the Taliban in 1996 also had them fearing the worst.

The Tajik government ended up incorporating opposition groups into its own government, but other Central Asian republics took a different approach, persecuting and repressing any Islamic groups that had aspirations to become involved in the political process.

After the 9/11 attacks in New York, the US improved ties with Central Asian governments, and used bases here to launch attacks in Afghanistan. The US still provides weapons and funding to try to stop the spread of radical Islamic political groups in the whole region.

But mainstream moderate Islamic religious practices and beliefs remain strong here, and an integral part of Central Asian society.

Tokmak Mosque

Central Asia is a tertiary education hub. There are a jaw-dropping 430 universities in the region, providing education to 1.8 million students.

South Asian students (from India, Pakistan, Bangladesh and Sri Lanka) are an important component of the higher education sector here, with, for example, an estimated 17,000 Indians studying in Kyrgyzstan, and another 5,000 in Kazakhstan.

I've met a bunch of them already, as some have been staying in my hostels, or are friends of hostel residents.

While this is a small proportion of the estimated 750,000 Indians who are currently studying abroad, it's still an important part of the sector here. A good Pakistani friend Naveed has explained to me that everyone who fails to get grades sufficient for university entrance in the US, Australia, Canada, Europe, or in their home countries, ends up here. Himself included, he said.

I met a super interesting couple at the guest house, English Alex and Hungarian Fanni, and we all went out to eat at this fancy place, Sakura. It was pricey (relatively), and absolutely delicious.

The conversation was super interesting too. They've been on a long world trip, which has included South America, Central Asia and India, where they entered a race to drive a tuk tuk from Trivandrum in Kerala all the way up to Shimla, in the mountainous north, a line which runs pretty much due north, for a distance of around 3,000km.

And they had to do it in 2 weeks.

They finished the race, but didn't win it.

But just imagine, driving a tuk tuk in India for 2 weeks, for an average of over 200 clicks a day. And tuk tuks don't go very fast either. Especially up hills.

Sounds totally trippy to me.

Local (unused) ferris wheel.

This ride was flying around though.

He's bearey sorry, but she appears unmoved. The bear's arm gesture is common here, and in all Islamic countries actually. It's a sign of respect and sincerity, indicating that whatever feelings are being expressed are sincere, and come from the heart.

I like it, and have been doing it for years myself, in case you've ever noticed.

Yay! A woman! Baken Kydykayeva is a famous Kyrgyz actor.

To The Little Smoke

After a wonderful day of pretty much complete rest it's now time for me to cycle to the Kyrgyz capital of Bishkek.

The city hosts about a million people, meaning that one in seven people in the country live there.

I know absolutely nothing about the place whatsoever.

As usual.

Which probably makes two of us, unless you happen to be one of the rare creatures I know who have actually been there.

More Central Asian wonders await, it's exciting.

And then, breaking news, I'm going for a holiday from my holiday.

How lucky am I!❤️

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