I spent much of 2018 without a permanent address, traveling often for work and otherwise spending the rest of my time up and down the West Coast in Canada, the US and Mexico. 2018 was a very chaotic period of my life, and it seemed like a perfectly sensible choice at the time to spontaneously travel to Kyrgyzstan during Thanksgiving, and celebrate the American holiday alone in Almaty’s sister city, Bishkek. I had always been very curious about it. So I packed up my entire home, which was a suitcase and a backpack full of electronics and began my journey.
This trip started in Mexico, where I had landed for a month or two. I had an interview in Washington DC for an exciting new professional opportunity the next day. My plan was to taxi to the border, walk across to the US, board a flight in San Diego, interview for a job in Washington DC and go on to Kyrgyzstan. You know, a perfectly normal two days for me in 2018.
Of course, as luck would have it, I sustained a concussion from an inopportune fall down a flight of stairs in Tijuana (as luck would have it, that was the second time that year I fell down a flight of stairs and suffered a concussion). I don’t really remember re-entering the US that night and cannot account for a few hours of my life, including the basic first aid somebody had apparently administered to me. Looking through my phone, however, I had apparently been texting people as I waited at the border and was able to reconstruct the story. I can only wonder what my interaction with US customs was.
Nonetheless, I did manage to get to DC, and though I was still recovering from a minor concussion I was able to successfully fumble through the interview. While I waited around for a phone call with the outcome, I shipped off to Kyrgyzstan to eat horse meat and drink fermented mare’s milk and cheap vodka and walk around a lot. Mercifully, my concussion had recovered well enough by the time the plane landed in Kyrgyzstan, and customs was a cinch. Looking back, I should have probably seen a doctor instead of shipping off to a country where I have no access to medical care, but like I said, it was a very chaotic time in my life.
Here are some photos I took.
The Capital of Kyrgyzstan
Bishkek, the capital of Kyrgyzstan, is a fairly typical small central Asian city. It is undergoing a massive boom in construction, so gleaming glass structures sit alongside aging, Soviet-era concrete apartment blocks. It is an increasingly international city much like others in the region, and though it wears its nomadic cultural roots and Soviet history on its sleeve, you can see a lot of foreign investment and a promising future for the capital.
-
- Victory Square, which sits in a public square at the heart of the city. Like public memorials in many other former Soviet holdings, this is dedicated to the defeat of Nazi Germany and the tremendous suffering citizens of the Soviet Union experienced during World War 2, when a full 15% of the entire Soviet population died as a direct result of warfare. You can see new construction in the background, a typical sight around the city.
-
- Decorative lights strung in front of the parliamentary building of Kyrgyzstan. This photo was taken in 2018. As of this writing in November 2020, Kyrgyzstan has faced massive social unrest; after a disputed election, protesters stormed and took over this building in October of 2020.
-
- The same austere parliamentary building by day.
-
- This photo is unexceptional but does demonstrate that the heart of downtown Bishkek is quite lively and modern--and expensive.
-
- Metro Pub was the only decent nightclub I was able to spot in the city. The staff was patient with me as I struggled to order in broken Russian, but nobody was really very interested in talking to me, so I didn't make any friends. In such places in Central Asia I don't really attract much attention because I probably just pass as a local ethnic Russian and not a foreign tourist--as long as I don't open my mouth.
-
- Hotel Dostuk, where I stayed during my time there. It is I believe the oldest hotel in the city and far from the best, but it was an interesting piece of history to stay in a hotel built during the time of and with the sensibilities of the USSR.
-
- Like any other Central Asian city I have been to, during winter and especially at night the smog in Bishkek is terrible. These are the growing pains of a developing country where it is so often very cold, and the urban poor turn to cheap, heavily polluting fuels to stay warm.
-
- A memorial recognizing the siege of Leningrad, obviously one of many Soviet memorials in the city. Though Leningrad is in Russia, at the time of World War II the USSR was one country, obviously, and so it is not so unusual to see a memorial like this. The memorial is dedicated to the 4 million people that died in an extended siege of the city that lasted nearly three years in the 1940s, making it the worst siege in human history. Due to the systematic starvation of its citizens, some historians describe it as an act of genocide.
-
- A statue at the Leningrad Blockade Memorial. In Kyrgyz it reads, "Conservation, Protection, Assistance" I believe, but I know not a word of Kyrgyz and used a translator. Like most over Soviet World War II memorials, the structure communicates only the pain of sacrifice the citizens of the USSR faced during the war, when about 20 million of them died. I have always found it interesting that public memorials of the era rarely celebrate victory or depict the might of the army that ultimately captured Berlin; the art focuses almost exclusively on how horrific the northern front was and how much people suffered.
-
- At a tourist camp at the edge of the city, you can enjoy a meal in a traditional yurt. Like Kazakhstan, Mongolia and other countries of the region, Kyrgyzstan has its ancient history rooted in nomadic life.
-
- As I often do when traveling, I got a tattoo while I was in Bishkek. This bear is supposed to represent my best friend, who I asked one day, "if you were an animal, what kind of animal would you be?" He replied: "I would be a bear." And so this is my way of tattooing his name on my body. The quite wrinkly shirt I am wearing I purchased at local mall for about $3 USD. Like I said, my hotel was quite basic and did not even have an iron.
What I Ate
Being a modern international city, Bishkek has available more or less all of the foods that you would expect to find in any modern world capital. This is with one exception: horse, the region’s specialty, which as always I was very much looking forward to eating.
-
- As an international city, of course there is Korean food available here. This restaurant, Chicken star, was recommended to me by several locals and I even ate there twice.
-
- This dried shredded meat is a staple in Central Asian cuisine and is put in all sorts of dishes. It somewhat like a very dry barbacoa. In this case it is put into a savory milky soup, though that is hardly the only way to have it.
-
- At Obama Bar and Grill, any visiting American gets free beer. This was in 2018, during the heart of the Trump administration--I can say with some certainty that there was not the same reverence for Obama's successor among Kyrgyzstani citizens. The menu was a grab bag of every stereotypically American food you could think of; burgers, hot dogs and the like. I had here a perfectly serviceable American-style pizza.
-
- Speaking of beer, no matter where you are in the world, you are near an Irish pub. In keeping with tradition I made sure to visit one here.
-
- There are several upscale newer cocktail bars throughout the city that cater to a younger crowd. They are quite expensive however.
-
- A heaping serving of beshbarmak which I had at a Navat, a local chain mostly aimed towards tourists that serves traditional Kyrgyz food. Beshbarmak literally means "five fingers" in several languages, describing how you are supposed to eat it: with your hands. In this case it is made with horse meat. This was my Thanksgiving dinner. Beshbarmak is something that is not normally eaten alone, and is usually made at home for major celebrations. A little poetic to eat it alone in a tourist restaurant during American Thanksgiving on the other side of the world, but I enjoyed it all the same.
The Countryside
I spent a bit of time on the road, hiring a local driver to show me around the countryside. He was a middle-aged Russian man with strong feelings about Vladimir Putin and a stereotypically Russian fatalistic outlook on life, but he was a good dude and I’d recommend his services (I can refer him if anyone contacts me to ask). He taught me a few new Russian phrases as we drove.
-
- Kyrgyzstan has a gorgeous countryside, with mountains that seem to go on forever. It is not that famous in the west as a hiking or skiing destination, though it is famous for it locally. Both Almaty and Bishkek's economies enjoy a large amount of outdoor recreational tourism.
-
- I hired a driver to take me out to Ala-Archa national park which, since it was the winter, I had entirely to myself. Upon driving me out here he simply said, "I wait here", and I ventured out into the wilderness for several hours. Without any cell phone service and not a park ranger in sight, I am glad he was still there when I returned.
-
- It seemed every place I stopped had a dog or two; I am not sure whether this good boy hanging out at an empty national park was a stray or not, but he was friendly enough.
-
- The second of two good boys that followed me around as I hiked.
-
- A bird sitting in a tree.
-
- Being Central Asia, there are of course herds of horses all over the countryside. Though it was winter, it was still only November, so there was still enough open grass to graze on.
-
- There is an intersection where American and Central Asian culture share a common convention: cowboys. Many of the superficial and actual characteristics of the nomadic culture of the region, which persists today, remind me of the imagery of the American cowboys that, in a romantic view of American history, were resourceful tough guys that tamed the wild west atop their horses. Of course, that history is not the reality and really only exists in fanciful fiction, and the real history of development of the American west is bloody and cruel. In Central Asia, however, it is alive and well to this day; if you want to see real cowboys, you should look not to the American west but to life in Central Asia today.
-
- Though Bishkek itself is a modern city, Kyrgyzstan is on average an extremely poor country, with nearly a third of its GDP dependent on remittances from workers in foreign countries (for example, Kyrgyzstani laborers in Russia). The villages on the countryside are markedly more humble than the capital.
-
- One of many abandoned structures that dot the countryside, which date back to the Soviet era. Though things are improving in Kyrgyzstan in recent years, the economy declined precipitously with the fall of the Soviet Union, as Kyrgyzstan did not have the good fortune of some its neighbors like Russia and Kazakhstan to have vast reserves of natural resources to prop up the economy. Once the Soviet Union fell, Kyrgyzstan could no longer benefit from a collective economy, reaching a low point in 1999 where its GDP barely surpassed a billion USD. These days, the GDP is nearly eight times its low point in 1999. I have a Kyrgyz friend who left the country a very long time ago and has not returned for many years; she said that the Bishkek I described is not the one she remembers.
-
- Burana Tower, a 1000 year-old tower in Kyrgyzstan and a world heritage site. It is one of the oldest standing structures in Central Asia and I believe the oldest in Kyrgyzstan, and is all that remains of the ancient city of Balasagun.
-
- The view from the top. Burana Tower is situated on a bit of steppe, ringed by mountains on every side.
The mountains are endless throughout the countryside; you are surrounded by them no matter where you go. Unlike the rocky mountain region of the United States, however, Kyrgyzstan’s mountain ranges are broken up by long swaths of steppe, making the terrain a little more navigable.
Visitors are free to climb to the top of Burana Tower, which I appreciated as a tourist but I have mixed feelings about. For one, it is a quite treacherous climb through the dark with more or less no safety mechanisms whatsoever (and it is much worse going down than up). One false step means a long, probably fatal tumble into the darkness below, with hardly even a handrail to protect you. Also, with all of the heavy foot traffic, the structure is badly in decline, long grooves driven into its steps from thousands of tourists over the years. And at the top, this ancient structure is littered with graffiti. The view from the top is spectacular however.
In Closing
I really enjoyed my time; it was relaxing, interesting and dynamic. Other than the moment I got assaulted by drunk nationalists as I exited a karaoke club at 2:00 AM, I found Bishkek to be an interesting city full of kind people, fun things to do, and the Kyrgyzstan countryside very beautiful.
I really enjoyed my time; it was relaxing, interesting and dynamic.
After my trip to Kyrgyzstan I returned to Washington DC, summoned for a second interview. A few days later I was thrilled to learn that I landed the job and that is where I am employed now, and couldn’t be happier in that regard. I recall during the interview being asked if I was local; I thought about the question for a moment, and then said “yes”. That’s the moment I decided to rent an apartment.
And that was it–an end to the chaos I had lived through for most of 2018. I view this trip as that period’s send-off. I even have still have an apartment, which is a good thing to have as I write this in November 2020, the 8th month of a seemingly never-ending pandemic in the United States that is not likely conducive to nomadic life.
It has also been over two years since I’ve sustained a serious head injury, but I will remain for the rest of my days ever-vigilant of my arch-nemesis: stairs.