KYRGYZSTAN ~ Thank God for Kyrgyzstan (Dec 1 2011)

World's #2 Most Beautiful Country.  Ancient Hunting Festival.  
Nomadic Traditions.  Peaceful Election 2011.  
Back to Turkmenistan.

Muslim cemetery near Chaek

Though no one call spell or pronounce it[1], thank god I got to see Kyrgyzstan.  Otherwise I might have thought all former Soviet republics were as repressive and closed as Turkmenistan.  If one could combine the energy, openness and eager potential of Kyrgyzstan with the wealth and natural resources of Turkmenistan, one would have quite the up and coming country.

Richer than Lesotho, shabbier than Turkmenistan, Kyrgyzstan is a poor “second world” cousin.  Low salaries.  Few jobs.  Sidewalks up-heaved.  The tree-lined streets in Bishkek thronged with ex-pats, but most of them are from NGOs trying to “do good” – bring in micro-finance, health care, try to improve agriculture, decontaminate the earth.  Or foreigners come to teach in the universities.  There were universities and technical schools at every turn, including philanthropist George Soros’ dream, American University of Central Asia, created to introduce civic participation and democracy to youth in the 'stans'.

#2 Most Beautiful Country in the World:  The country is spectacularly beautiful, #2 of all I’ve seen in the world, coming in close after Norway.  A stunning mountain range of Tien Shen Mountains, stretching all the way from China to Kazakhstan, snow covered all year, including glaciers, gorges, canyons, cliffs.  The country is a scrapbook of past earthquakes:  even though it might have been millions of years ago, one easily imagines the earth pushing up fiercely, tearing ridges of little hills, bigger hills behind them, then erupting into violent, dramatic mountains. 

Few people.  Huge spaces between scrubby, scraggly villages, with crumbling Soviet architecture.  Women in the capital so fashionable, with sharp, coiffed hair cuts and high heeled boots running up to their thighs.  But in the villages all women in scarves, many old peasant babushkas, older men wearing distinctive high, white hats called kalpak.  Youth absent, gone to the city or to Russia.

Dream job:  Working in the Peace Corps office was a dream job.  First off, I was so busy.  Could happily find urgent things to do for 12-hour days.  The staff was delightful, Volunteers eager to reflect about the culture and their work.  I hadn’t realized till I got there how constrained I’d felt in Turkmenistan. The cloud lifted as I entered Bishkek, and descended again as soon as I returned.  Sigh – so it goes.

I had a couple amazing experiences.  One was to attend a Hunting Festival.  In the pre-Soviet days, rural people kept falcons or eagles.  It is said  one falcon could bring back enough food – rabbits, lambs, even wolves – to feed several extended families.  The art of falconry passed from father to son, and families today can name 6 generations of falconers. 

 

But during Soviet times this tradition was frowned upon – nomads were forced into collective farms, hunting outlawed, and any game had to be turned over to the “state.”

Ancient hunting festival:  So the magnificent Hunting Festival I witnessed was only in its 6^th year of re-emergence.  It was of falconers by falconers for falconers – no admission charged, hundreds of people, mostly men, gathered on a wide, open plain.  A couple old women selling tea and the ever-present plov (rice pilaf) from blackened, boiling caldrons.  A hundred golden eagles and sharp-eyed falcons were paraded in, then eager, high stepping dogs.  Each eagle and falcon got a chance to pursue a half-dead rabbit, dragged on a rope by a man on horseback.

Next archery:  first boys then grown men shot at a deer-shape, drawn on a billboard, with points given for the proximity to the heart.  Young men showed off their handsome horses in a sophisticated canter, then, with fierce yells, whipped them into a galloping race,  twice around a 2 K ring.  After that, the dog fights started, and finally, the grand finale, two dogs against a chained wolf.  I dreaded seeing this:  one immediately wants the wolf to win.  And she did.  She was penned to a stake.  Pair after pair of dogs was released, running toward her, barking ferociously.  But they fairly screeched to a halt when they came within range of her menacing and growling form.  If they ventured nearer, she snapped viciously, and they yelped, turned tail and ran back to their masters, the crowd laughing uproariously.  Poor wolf, dispirited, dehydrated, disdainful of stupid dogs.

The cold, windy day was reminiscent of a festival one might have attended 100 or 200 years ago.  Love of sport.  No Coca Cola stands or blaring music.  Relief: one outhouse, hamdulah (thank you, Allah.)

  

In the last letter,  I wrote about a similar glorious day, where I was privileged to see no less than 80 herds of sheep, goats, cows -- and amazingly, hundreds of horses -- plodding, ambling or galloping right down the middle of the mountain highway.  It was a day of first autumn snows, and nomadic herders were bringing their animals down from high pastures to their wintering places, nearer towns.

The fact that nomadic traditions have re-surfaced, suppressed for 70 years, is a magnificent testament to the human spirit, and an ancient way of living off the land.  Stalin is estimated to have killed 1.2 million nomads in neighboring Kazakhstan alone, forcing them to farm collectively, and killing, imprisoning, or exiling persons perceived as community leaders or young activists.  Families were torn apart, impoverished, and a rich lifestyle of traditional foods, natural medicines, music, songs, hunting, marriage and funeral customs, and deep knowledge of domestic animals  and mountain wildlife frontally attacked.

Unlike in Norway, these traditions, barely hanging on, are not yet fully appreciated.  One glimpses the left over pieces in museums and at a few festivals, but for the most part, and of necessity, Kyrgyzstan pushes itself toward modernity, welcoming gold mines and IT companies, mourning the downward spiral of its schools, factories, and universities since the 1991 departure of many Russians, and overwhelmed by the pollution and radioactive waste left behind by the Soviets.

Inheritance of poison soil:  The Peace Corps medical team circulates a long list of villages where Volunteers cannot be placed, due to contamination.  But obviously, Kyrgyz people live in these villages.  In Bishkek, every block had several pharmacies. “Why are there so many pharmacies?” I asked.  “Because we get sick a lot,” my Kyrgyz tutor answered.

Peaceful election:  Kyrgyzstan’s Presidential election on Oct 30 2011 went well enough.  The Bishkek bars were filled with people from many countries who flew in as observers.  It was called the first peaceful, transparent Presidential election in the entirety of the Newly Independent States.  An insider named Atambayev won 60% of the vote.  One weekend I had visited the ancient (3,000 year old) city of Osh, in the south.  There I heard virulent arguments by Kyrgyz people reviling their hated Uzbek neighbors, whose homes they had torched a year ago, so I appreciated the relative, if uneasy calm.

Me on snowy Chui Ave.

In all, for 2.5 months I thrived and was happy, worked hard, embraced the language, made new friends, and marveled at the spectacular mountains and vast plains. But the election passed, and I was lassoed back to Turkmenistan.

Back in Turkmenistan:  Turkmenistan has its own gifts, nonetheless.  I am glad to meet staff, Volunteers, and ex-pat friends again, and content to hunker down to work in my big, old fashioned office.  In my suitcase I carried back unread books by Kyrgyzstan’s most famous novelist, Chyngiyz Aytamov (1928-2008, Jamilya, The Day Lasts More than 100 Years) and recordings of music of Central Asia, given to me as I departed by a new Lebanese-Canadian friend, Rawane.

Another country on the map, a country with a name not even in my vocabulary, opened its doors, revealed its secrets, and is now stamped with marvelous memories of remarkable people – Ainura, Aimina, Annya, Bycket, Leila, Mr. and Mrs. Lee,  Maria, three Marats, Nurgyz, Ryan, Said, Saltanat, Seth, Usubaly……  All this time, there they were!  How could I have guessed!

Sent to friends and family Dec 1, 2011 as Public Letter #7. 

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[1] Kyrgyzstan – PRON:  KEER-gizz-stahn