Rest Assured 3

Kyrgyz National Museum

Like most ex-Soviet republics, Kyrgyzstan has its own substantial collection of grand public buildings.

The National Museum is one of them, and hosts a magnificent collection of artifacts, clothing, jewellery, paintings and photographs, from all periods of Kyrgyz history.

Turo highly recommended the museum to me, and, given what I'd learnt about his tastes over the past couple of days, I was keen to visit the place.

There's a smorgasbord of history in there.

More tools than you can poke a Stone Age pick at.

In case you're interested, the Stone Age is divided into three periods, going from oldest to most recent - the Palaeolithic, the Mesolithic, and the Neolithic. The names are derived from Greek words lithos (stone), palaios (old), meso (middle), and you know what neo means, from all those nasty neo Nazis.

This is the tooth and tusk of a mammoth. Man, it must've been mammoth.

Rock carvings from 4 millenia ago.

Kyrgyzstan's early history was dominated by various nomadic tribes, the remains of which have been discovered in various places. Face reconstructions from skulls reveal quite interesting facial structures.

The area had battles with many different kingdoms over the centuries, including the Chinese, the Mongols and the Dzungar Khanate, a kingdom that originated in present day Inner Mongolia in China.

The Kyrgyz army resisted the Dzungars, with Kazakh help, and eventually the Chinese Qing dynasty, who were also battling the Dzungars, defeated them, with the support of Uyghur troops. The Chinese then controlled Kyrgyzstan, but the Kyrgyz came to agreements with the Qing dynasty to maintain partial autonomy.

Statue from the Inner Tien Shan, around the 8th century.

Ancient map of the world, with Issyk-Kul at the centre.

Bone repository from the 9th Century, from Zoroastrian burial rituals. Zoroastrianism is an ancient Persian religion, and is one of the world's oldest monotheistic religions (ie. they believe in only one God). There's only about 50,000 followers of the religion left in the world these days, and they're mainly in Iran.

Eighth Century Buddhas.

Me being a figment of Buddha's imagination

Beautifully glazed 14th Century bowl

Kyrgyz warrior singlet from the 18th Century

Hard hat, 17th Century

By the mid 1800s, the Khokand Khanate, which sprung from the Fergana Valley in southwest Kyrgyzstan, and from Uzbekistan, had conquered much of western Kyrgyzstan. This period was also one of expansion of the Russian Empire, and the Tsarist kingdom eventually controlled all of current Kyrgyzstan, and ruled for the next 130 years, until independence in 1991.