Travelling in Kyrgyzstan – Part 1

I headed out to explore the city. There were wide streets and boulevards and old Soviet architecture, which gives the feeling of the might of the former country. There were also large parks that are always lively and are places where people go to cool down and get some walk. Band music blared from the speakers. There was also no lack of kvass sellers – kvass is a refreshing non-alcoholic drink made using yeast – and then there’s also tan – a kind of carbonated yogurt. The park was also full of vendors that were selling all kinds of paintings. In the cities, each citizen can speak Russian in addition to Kyrgyz, and the signs on buildings are also written in Russian. Along with large statues and monuments, one can also find plaques in parks, which glorify the heroes of World War II.

I arrived at the city’s main square, adorned by a large horseman and a giant Kyrgyz flag, guarded by two soldiers. The place is quite busy even in the evening hours, as that’s when it gets a bit cooler and families with children come outside. You can hear children having fun even at around 10 p.m. and all the benches in the park in front of the square are full.

Bishkek also has quite a busy nightlife, as it has lots of bars and restaurants. I visited one with a more famous name, Coyote Ugly, which was named after the eponymous film, but it was mostly empty, since the prices were pretty high for Kyrgyzstan. There were practically no people, apart from a few Russian businessmen and a few girls who threw a birthday celebration.

You can also see many Arab-looking people and Indians. They come here because college is much cheaper than in their own country.

Travelling to Issyk-Kul Lake, which means “warm lake” in Kyrgyz

It’s the second largest salt lake in the world and the second largest mountain lake, second only to Lake Titicaca in Peru. It lies at an altitude of around 1,609 metres. The lake is about 180 kilometres long and 70 kilometres wide and 668 metres deep at its deepest point (the average depth is about 300 metres). The lakes surface is about 6,200 square kilometres. The lake never freezes, despite being surrounded by high mountains.

It was mid-June and the tourist season hadn’t even fully started, since most Kyrgyz travel to the lake between early July and end of August. I had two options when it came to transport – the first was the marshrutka or van, and the second one was a group taxi, which was a few euros more expensive – so, basically a car shared by five people who then split up the costs. I opted for the latter option, so I didn’t have to wait for the marshrutka to get filled up by passengers.

The journey was fairly long (it took us a whole day) and the terrain was rugged, but it offered lots of beautiful views, valleys, mountains, pastures, mountain passes, rivers and grazing horses. There were no large cities along the way, only small villages and hamlets. There was also not much traffic, so, after a whole day’s journey, we arrived in a once very famous tourist centre of Issyk-Kul – the village of Bosteri.

The village of Bosteri – the pinnacle of lake tourism

In the village, a large health resort complex was built as early as the Soviet era and it included a hotel complex and small houses dotting the lakeside, but the complex was never renovated, so it still looks now as it did back then. The water there is said to have medicinal properties, as there are lots of thermal springs by the lake – this is probably where the name Issyk-Kul or “warm lake” comes from.

The village itself, though, looks fairly simple. There’s a main paved road going through it and it has a single traffic light, while more or less only cart tracks or sandy dirt roads go towards the lake. The village has a few food shops, some improvised restaurants, a bakery selling traditional bread made in clay ovens, and a chemist’s. You can see from the photos what the police station looks like – it’s a single container with the Milicija sign on it, translated into Militia.

There’s an amusement park on the lakeshore with a giant Ferris wheel and a few bars and restaurants that just opened in early June. I met the owner of a fairly large bar on the lakefront who gave me a few drinks that were on the house. He told me he was chief of police, but owned a bar as a side job. I thought to myself how he got such as large plot of land on the lakefront, since it’s a known fact for the police to be quite corrupted here. Still, he seemed like an okay guy and even gave me his phone number, so I could give him a call whenever I would find myself in trouble and he’d handle it.

The next day, I decided to explore the surroundings of the lake a bit and headed to the mountains, but more about that in the next issue of Globetrotter.