In Pictures: Faces of Kyrgyzstan

There are many good reasons to travel to Kyrgyzstan, a former Soviet republic tucked away in the mountains of Central Asia.  One reason, at least if you are like me, is that you will finally master the spelling of its name.  Some will want to venture for more important reasons, however, which may include romping around in the nation's splendid alpine scenery.  Forty percent of the country is at an elevation greater than 10,000 feet, and its highest peak, Pik Pobedy, soars to 24,406 feet.

Most visitors will also speak of Kyrgyzstan's hospitable people.  The people, of course, are a nation's most important resource.  And for me, they were also the highlight of my six-day visit.

After hitchhiking all day from the Chinese city of Kashgar, I arrived at the Kyrgyz border just before sunset and made my way through immigration.  Next, I secured a seat in a Russian jeep traveling from the border to the city of Osh.  The price seemed a bit steep - $25 - but I was just happy that I hadn't gotten stranded for the night in the bitterly cold, sparsely populated desert-like terrain of western China. 

At 3:00 a.m. the jeep stopped for the night at a roadhouse in Sapu Korgan village.  When we arrived, these ladies (except for the driver's wife, who jumped into the middle of the picture) were busy cooking in the kitchen for the customers who would be passing through after sunrise.  Outside the temperature was around 10 degrees Farenheit.  Inside it was maybe 20 degrees.

At 7:00 a.m. we continued on to Osh, arriving before noon.  Kyrgyzstan's second largest city, Osh had what my guidebook called "a kind of demographic schizophrenia."  Forty percent of its residents are ethnic Uzbeks, not Kyrgyz.  To oversimplify the historical reasons for this, one can point a finger toward Stalin, who royally gerrymandered the borders of the central Asian republics in order to divide up ethnic groups so that they would be incapable of effectively opposing the Soviet state.  (Really, to see some of the world's craziest borders, take a close-up look at a Central Asian map.)

In Osh, however, I thought little of Stalin and borders and percentiles because the city's cafes were all that mattered.  I spent most of my days and nights in the cafes, slurping borsch, coffee, and tea, or tearing into lamb, beef, and fish.  The bread was among the world's tastiest, and the staff was remarkably friendly.

Staff outside my favorite cafe

Yes indeed, merely writing the previous paragraph and posting the cafe pictures has had a Pavlov effect on me:  I'm salivating for the food again.

When I wasn't in the cafe I was either in the streets or in the city's parks.

Unless, of course, I was in the market.  The only thing I bought in the marker were three Snickers bars and a box of Iranian dates.  But I spent hours watching the people.

In the center of the city is a rocky hill called Mt. Sulayman.  A 25-minute climbs takes you to the top, where I met this young girl who wanted to try out a few words of English.

She introduced me to her mom and sister...

and then her mom introduced me to some other folks...

A short distance aways was this ethnically Uzbek couple.  They kindly refrained from kissing for several minutes to pose for a photo.  They also taught me the Uzbek word for thank you - rakhmat.

In one park I came upon the city's Afghan War Memorial.  The Soviet Union's experience in Afghanistan has been compared to the U.S. experience in Vietnam.  While the Soviet losses in Afghanistan (15,000 killed) were considerably less than U.S. losses in Vietnam (58,000 killed), both wars ended in failure because neither army could achieve a decisive victory against its opponent.  And not being able to win decisively, both armies were forced to endure a slow bloodletting that could not be indefinitely sustained.

So, like the Vietnam war for the U.S., the Afghan war for the citizens of the former Soviet Union is often a painful subject.  At this memorial, I met two Soviet army veterans who had come to look at the names of those who had died from Osh while in Afghanistan.  (Their hats indicate that they are ethnic Kyrgyz.)

For one who normally loves to travel, I must confess that the cafes and parks of Osh lulled me into a blissfully lethargic state.   But I did make one overnight trip to the city of Jalalabad, two hours away, to visit an American Peace Corps volunteer.  The two pictures below were taken on the taxi ride back to Osh.  The next day, I left the country, crossing the border into Uzbekistan.

Finally, the author's self-portrait, which was taken from the reflection in a jeep window...