Greetings from Bishkek. I’ve made it to Kyrgyzstan’s capital and most populous city.
With a little over a million people, Bishkek is the face of young, cosmopolitan Kyrgyzstan. In contrast to the rural, agrarian countryside, Bishkek is full of cafes, pubs, shopping malls, and more traffic in the last ten minutes than we’ve seen in the last ten days. But all of it has a very Soviet feel, with grey concrete buildings and apartment blocks. Bishkek is sometimes described as an open-air museum that’s a relic of Soviet days, which I suppose gives it a special kind of, if not charm, then at least distinction.
Today was mostly a transit day. I’m also not feeling so hot, since my stomach has been acting up these past couple of days. So there’s not a lot to tell in this entry. But here are the highlights, in brief:
Pictures in rocks
First stop this morning was the Cholpon-Ata Petroglyphs Museum. The word ‘museum’ is used very loosely here; it’s basically just a giant abandoned lot with rocks, many of which have rock art drawings on them, mostly of animals like goats, snow leopards and sheep. Extensive analysis hasn’t been done, but the drawings are estimated to date from between the 8th century BC and the 3rd century AD.
Unfortunately, the petroglyphs have not been properly protected or conserved; they’re just lying in a field, open to the elements. Worse, there’s no security there, so teenagers or other vandals have broken in, left all kinds of litter and debris, and have defaced many of the rocks with graffiti. There doesn’t seem to be much effort underway to do anything about it; the government likely has other priorities, and there doesn’t seem to be any private or international investment. Too bad, since at this rate, the petrogylphs likely won’t survive much longer.
A not-so-big tower
For lunch, we stopped off at a supermarket and had a picnic lunch right near Burana Tower. This tower, seemingly unimposing at only 20m high, is actually one of Kyrgyzstan’s better-known landmarks, such as they are in a country not exactly known for landmarks. Burana Tower was a minaret constructed by the Karakhanid empire in the 10th century to denote one of its four capital cities, Balasagun. There isn’t much left of Balasagun today; the minaret stands at half its original height due to earthquake damage, and there are a few rocks and gravestones, but that’s pretty much it.
We checked out the small museum of artefacts and browsed the gift shop a bit. Some people climbed to the top of the tower, but, given how I was feeling, I opted just to go as high as the first landing.
Capital city
From there, it was a short drive to Bishkek, passing very close to the Kazakhstan border. Due to some strange border quirk, we actually technically passed through Kazakhstan for a moment while going over a bridge. I waved silently to Borat as we crossed.
We arrived in Bishkek mid-afternoon and checked into our rather charming and — thankfully, given the heat — air-conditioned hotel.
After a nap and a shower, we headed out for dinner at a nearby restaurant with a nice rooftop terrasse. Most everyone had some local specialties. Not wanting to tempt fate, I opted instead for chicken noodle soup. After dinner, we had a few rounds of cards in the hotel before turning in for the night.
More from Bishkek tomorrow!