THE Spektator №13 November 2010

Your monthly guide to what’s happening in and around Bishkek

Eagle
Eyes
Plus:
Journeys in the
Forbidden Range
The State of
Kyrgyz Asylums
... and much more!

. .
Tourist Map What’s On Restaurant Guide
 Focus

ContentsThe Spektator Magazine

White Walled Worlds
Alice Janvrin visits Kyrgyzstan’s psychiat-
ric hospitals and mental institutions, find-
ing rays of hope at the end of a gloomy
tunnel.
14

Founder: Tom Wellings Eagle Eyes 16

Managing Editor: Chris Rickleton
(editor@thespektator.co.uk)
Staff writers: Dennis Keen (den-
niskeen@thespektator.co.uk), Robert
Marks (robertmarks@thespektator.
co.uk), Natalya Wells, Evan Harris,
Patrick Barrow, Pavel Kropotkin
Anthony Butts (anthonybutts@
thespektator.co.uk),
Guest Contributor: Alice Janvrin
Falconry in Kyrgyzstan has been given a
shot in the arm due to the initiatives of a
hunter from the sleepy village of Bokon-
baeva. Dennis Keen heads to the shores
of Lake Issyk Kul to witness the revival of
one of the country’s timeless traditions.
This Month
News and Views
The new parliament convenes, Mayor
4
Myrzakmatov is still stirring the pot in Osh
and Bishkek’s city dump is out of control.

Design: Alena Krivyh Sticking to your Own

Advertising Manager: Irina Kasymova
(email: advertise@thespektator.co.uk)
The Spektator’s resident anthropologist
8
and general know-it-all Winston Olsen
considers the genetic implications of the
‘Butun Kyrgyzstan phenomenon’.

Out & About

Residents at the World’s End 10
What drives a man to alpinism? The upper
reaches of Kyrgyzstan’s Tien Shan are a
mountaineer’s heaven, while the Djangart
section of the range is a special paradise
preserved for the sport’s most ambitious
fundamentalists.

The Guide
Restaurants, Bars, Clubs
All the best bars and clubs in town.
22

www.thespektator.co.uk
City Map
Don’t get lost.
25
Want to contribute as a freelance
writer? Please contact:
What’s On
The pick of the entertainment listings.
26

ON THE COVER: ‘Feeding Time’ (Dennis Keen)

The Spektator Magazine is available at locations throughout Bishkek, including: (Travel Agencies) Adventure Seller, Ak-Sai Travel, Carlson Wagonlit, Celestial Mountains, Ecotour, Glavtour,Kyrgyz Concept,
Kyrgyz Travel, Muza, NoviNomad (Bars & Restaurants) Cowboy, Hollywood, Metro, New York Pizza, No1, 2x2, Boulevard, Coffeehouse, Doka, Fatboy’s, Four Seasons, Live Bar, Lounge Bar,
Meri, Navigator, Stary Edgar’s Veranda, Adriatico, Cyclone, Dolce Vita, Santa Maria, Golden Bull (Casinos) Europa, Golden Dragon, XO (Hotels) Dostuk, Hyatt, Golden Dragon, Holiday, Alpi-

Spektator
nist (Embassies and Organisations) The UN building, The American base, The German Embassy, The Dutch Consulate, CAMP Ala-too, NCCR, The Bishkek Opera & Ballet Society.
THE

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 4 This Month
With Joomart Saparbaev, A New Generation Enters Kyrgyz Politics
DAISY SINDELAR

BISHKEK, November 10 (Eurasianet.org)

According to tradition, the first session of the
new Kyrgyz parliament was chaired by its oldest
member, 65-year-old Tashpolot Baltabaev of the
Ata-Meken (Fatherland) Socialist Party.
But as lawmakers assembled for the historic
first seating of the country’s newly empowered
Zhogorku Kenesh, many eyes were on its young-
est members - including Baltabaev’s party col-
league, 25-year-old Joomart Saparbaev.
In a cynical season of gray-haired power-
jockeying in Kyrgyzstan, Saparbaev’s prominent
placement high on the Ata-Meken list was a
signal that parties are looking to their younger
members for new appeal.
“When I was put down as fifth on our party
list, I heard a lot of crazy things from our party
bosses, from different politicians from different
political parties,” says Saparbaev, cheerful and
confident in a crisp gray suit on a recent night
in Bishkek. “They said it was kind of an insane
experiment to put me so high on the list. But it
happened. Our party leaders understand that
we need young blood, we need new ideas. We
need the next generation.”
Ata-Meken is not the only party to promote
its younger members. Rival parties like Respub-
lika and Ata-Jurt - which are among the five
parties to enter the new parliament - have also
sought to bring fresh faces to parliament, pro-
moting some candidates as young as 22.
Members of the new parliament show their if it’s impossible, maybe you could do this. But tor on Kyrgyz issues when the Tulip Revolution
ID documents during the landmark first session not right at that moment, right after the revolu- suddenly catapulted his country into U.S. me-
in Bishkek. tion. Kulov didn’t even try; he just tried to get rid dia headlines. Now, he likes to think, there are
Saparbaev, however, argues that his politi- of all his problems. This is how our social activi- a lot of people in south-central Minnesota who
cal credentials outweigh the rest. He is already ties started. This is how we started fighting the know more than the average American about
a six-year member of Ata-Meken, the party led Bakiev regime.” Kyrgyzstan.
by Omurbek Tekebaev that is seen as the critical His activism grew even more determined Since returning home, Saparbaev says he’s
force behind Kyrgyzstan’s shift to a parliamen- following his country’s 2007 parliamentary had several opportunities to leave his country
tary democracy. elections, when claims of massive vote rigging for good. But the young lawmaker, who is mar-
In that time, he spent three years heading prompted Saparbaev and thousands of student ried with a 4-month-old daughter, says he’s de-
the party’s youth wing, spearheading efforts activists to stage regular public protests under termined to stay in Kyrgyzstan and fight for the
to make Ata-Meken the first political party in the slogan “I don’t believe.” nascent parliamentary system, created in the
Central Asia to join the Socialist International, Saparbaev was ultimately thrown in jail, wake of the country’s latest political overhaul,
a worldwide grouping of social-democratic, so- albeit briefly, for his opposition activities - a the April revolt that ousted Bakiev.
cialist, and labor parties. chapter he calls “more fun than dangerous.” But “It’s my ambition to create a real political
“Sometimes they listen to me,” he says of his the adventure cemented his opposition to the system,” he says. “A system that doesn’t depend
party elders, smiling. Bakiev regime and his fidelity to Ata-Meken, in- on only one leader.”
dependent Kyrgyzstan’s oldest major political Speaking just minutes after today’s first par-
Taking On Bakiev
party and the only group that he says puts ideol- liament session, Saparbaev admitted to feeling
During that time, Saparbaev was also active in ogy before clan loyalty. slightly overwhelmed by what he called the “gi-
youth movements that successfully fought an gantic responsibility” of tackling the economic
attempt by Felix Kulov, then the country’s new Representing Kyrgyzstan and political challenges ahead - including the
prime minister, to add Kyrgyzstan to the list of Saparbaev, who grew up the youngest of two very basic task of keeping Kyrgyzstan’s new par-
countries seeking debt relief from the Interna- sons in a small village outside Bishkek, had no liamentary democracy on track despite massive
tional Monetary Fund and World Bank. automatic entree into the world of Kyrgyz poli- resistance from fellow parliamentary parties,
Such a move, Saparbaev believed, had been tics. At a time when his fellow high-school stu- like Ata-Jurt and Ar-Namys, that favor a return to
devastating for other impoverished countries dents were obsessing over “business and mon- a presidential system.
and would have spelled certain doom for Kyr- ey,” he became a self-taught political thinker, “It’s a big moment. It’s not getting the man-
gyzstan, which was just emerging from the 2005 devouring Machiavelli and Henry Kissinger at date I’m excited about. I’m excited by what’s go-
Tulip Revolution and the rise of President Kur- his local library, before moving to the capital to ing to happen in there,” he said. “We have Ata-Ju-
manbek Bakiev and his allies like Kulov. study political science. rt ex-Bakiev people. How are we going to work
“We had a new government that, in trying From there, he spent a formative year at with them? The nature of parliament is to find
to get into this program, was trying to rid it- Minnesota State University-Mankato, where a compromise, and I’m just so interested to find
self of its responsibilities,” he said. “I mean, why he volunteered with the Democratic Party and out how we’re going to compromise with these
wouldn’t you try to fix it yourself first? And then, found himself serving as an impromptu instruc- guys that we were fighting against. We’ll see.”

November 2010 The Spektator www.thespektator.co.uk

 5 This Month
Felix Kulov: A trip to Moscow doesn’t mean a meeting in the Kremlin
DAVID TRILLING AND NATASHA YEFIMOV
BISHKEK, November 12 (Eurasianet.org) the fuel supplies. And I believe this has damaged day, we have a weak president, a strong prime min-
Though he was no friend of the former regime, the United States’ reputation in the eyes of the Kyr- ister and government, and a strong parliament. We
veteran politician Felix Kulov has also been critical gyz public. Everyone’s heard about the size of bribes want there to be a strong president, strong prime
of Kyrgyzstan’s interim government since it seized for high-placed officials from the families of the two minister and strong parliament. We don’t want to
power in April. The chairman and face of the Ar- [former] presidents, but at the same time everyone grant the president enormous powers. The only
Namys (Dignity) party, Kulov ran for parliament on sees that the US administration is trying to hush this additional powers we want to give the president
a law and order platform and criticized the new whole thing up. are determining domestic and foreign policy; that
constitution approved in June, saying the country EurasiaNet: Should Kyrgyzstan challenge the he be accountable for ensuring the country’s secu-
needs a strong, centralized leadership. award? And if so, who should get it instead? rity; and also create an independent judiciary. And
When Kulov, 62, flew to Moscow shortly after [he should] not interfere in the government’s work
Kulov: We know that certain political forces have
the polls, the trip prompted widespread specula- on the economy. The president’s powers would be
a vested interest in continuing the [fuel-supply]
tion the Kremlin had selected him as its favorite enhanced just a bit, while the former presidents
arrangements that existed before in order to have
for prime minister, a position he held after 2005’s weren’t accountable for anything and at the same
money that will then be used for political battles
so-called Tulip Revolution and one that has been time had unlimited power. Of course, we don’t want
against their political opponents. Anyone deeply
strengthened by the new constitution. authorities like that.
involved in these arrangements will defend them
Yet as parties close to the interim government by any means necessary in order to avoid crimi- EurasiaNet: You campaigned on a law and order
discuss forming a ruling coalition, the charismatic nal prosecution. This will be a hotbed of political platform. Has the trial of the Alfa troops accused of
Kulov – a former KGB officer, interior minister and instability. So I believe there should be maximum unlawfully killing protesters during the April 7 upris-
Bishkek mayor – now looks set to lead the country’s transparency and public hearings, which result in ing hurt the morale of the security forces? And has
opposition. concrete conclusions about who should handle low morale affected their functioning during this
Kulov spoke with EurasiaNet’s David Trilling and these supplies. But without official results of investi- year’s instability?
Natasha Yefimov in his Bishkek office on November gations into corruption under the two former presi- Kulov: To some extent, it has. […] The most fright-
12. This interview has been edited for length. dents, it’s impossible to say that the [fuel-supply] ening thing is that the people [of Kyrgyzstan] no
EurasiaNet: Yesterday, President Roza Otunbayeva arrangements will be clean. longer fear anything or anyone, not the law, not an-
appointed the Social Democratic Party (SDPK), Since there have been no official investigation ything. They believe mob rule now ranks supreme.
headed by Almazbek Atambayev, to form a majority results yet, and since this [new contract] is being That’s the most frightening thing – for the state, for
coalition. Most likely, that will leave you in a minor- done without public hearings, I think the govern- democracy.
ity. Do you think she is right to appoint what was ment will have to challenge it. At any rate, in parlia- EurasiaNet: What role has Moscow played in the
formerly her own party – a party that came in sec- ment, the issue will definitely be raised. coalition building in Kyrgyzstan?
ond in the October 10 polls – as the coalition leader? EurasiaNet: Many have suggested that Moscow
Kulov: Absolutely none. And Moscow can’t facili-
Kulov: The proposal that she give first dibs in form- would like to see the Manas base closed. Is Moscow tate this process in any way. It’s unrealistic. In terms
ing the government [to SDPK] came from me per- worried about an American presence in the region of Moscow’s influence, I think its role in this gets
sonally – primarily to uphold the authority of our and would it really want to close the Manas base, greatly exaggerated. How can Moscow determine
president. She’s in a tough situation, where she has when it’s used for fighting terrorism in Afghanistan, or make peace between people with rocky personal
to choose from among several factions, whom to a threat to Russia? relationships? If someone’s been insulted by some-
appoint, and so for her not to experience difficulties, Kulov: I’ve met with representatives of various [Rus- one else, is Moscow really going to say, “But you’ve
I proposed that she nominate her allies. sian] security-related bodies – in the past, as prime got to form a coalition with him”? It’s unrealistic for
However, we cannot say with 100 percent cer- minister, and as head of the party – and I’ve never Moscow to influence anything. We know each other
tainty that Mr. Atambayev will be able to form the heard anyone say outright that the base should be better than any advice Moscow can give.
[ruling] coalition. Because creating a coalition is al- closed. Moreover, Russia has allowed transit of car-
EurasiaNet: You said you went to Moscow for per-
ways a complicated, painful process when positions go to our base. Personally, I believe the status of the
sonal reasons after the elections, but it’s no secret
and platforms have to be sorted out and aligned. base should be more transparent than it is today. you have met with very highly placed officials in
EurasiaNet: Could you say specifically what might Take, for example, the Russian base in Kant, which the past. Did you have a chance to meet with them
be standing in his way? simultaneously fulfills the function of defending again? If so, what did you discuss? How did you and
Kulov: There are always personal reasons. When the our airspace: Every plane that lands at that base and two other party leaders -- Respublika’s Omurbek
question of who gets what position crops up, it’s not takes off from there is met and accompanied by Babanov and top vote-getter Ata-Jurt’s Myktybek
always possible to reach agreement. You know that our border guards and customs officers. What gets Abdyldayev -- end up on the same flight?
a minimum of three factions must make up the coa- brought to or taken out from the American base Kulov: I’ve really got nothing to hide. It was a per-
lition and each faction stakes its own claims, has its we don’t know. Kyrgyzstan has no customs or bor- sonal trip, to see my friend who was recovering from
own desires. It’s hard enough to do with two; with der officials there. So various rumors crop up, from an operation. A trip to Moscow doesn’t necessarily
three it’s even harder. So will they manage to reach al-Qaeda prisoners being brought there to drug mean a meeting in the Kremlin. […] Someone else
an agreement within the two-week time frame? It’s smuggling – in short, all sorts of rumors that we can was on that flight with me. I don’t remember who.
not 100 percent certain. neither deny nor confirm. The Americans, naturally,
Oh yes! It was Mr. Abdyldayev. He was going to visit
don’t pay much attention to Kyrgyz press reports.
EurasiaNet: Last week, the Pentagon announced it his spouse’s relatives. They live in Moscow. His wife is
EurasiaNet: Kyrgyzstan voted for a parliamentary Russian. And the reason we all flew at the same time
will continue to use the same controversial compa-
system in June’s referendum. You say you want to is very simple: Up until then, we had all been busy.
ny to supply fuel to US troops at the Manas Transit
return to a presidential system. However, the past Once the election campaign ended, we got some
Center despite an ongoing Kyrgyz government in-
two presidents turned into greedy tyrants. Why do free time. That’s it. Unfortunately, there’s no other
vestigation into possible improper business practic-
you think a third time could be any different? way except through Moscow. I always raise this is-
es concerning fuel operations there. How does this
bode for the future relationship between Bishkek Kulov: We support a presidential-parliamentary sys- sue! We need direct flights to Europe. Talking about
and Washington? And what do you see as the ideal tem of government. Our aim is not to give the presi- investment when investors from Europe can’t fly here
solution? dent absolute power; our aim is that the president is nonsensical. Now I’m going to Kiev through Almaty
have rights equal to his duties, including responsi- and I’ll be returning through Moscow. And then eve-
Kulov: There’s been a lot of scandal surrounding bility for security in the country. Put it this way: To- ryone will ask, “What were you doing in Moscow?”

www.thespektator.co.uk November 2010 The Spektator

 6 This Month
Bishkek Confronts a Waste Management Dilemma
CHRIS RICKLETON
BISHKEK, November 9 (Eurasianet.org)
Blurred by smoke and putrid steam, eagles and
flocks of ravens hover overhead and swoop down
to feast on colonies of rats. On the ground, a solitary
pig roots through household debris, its snout bur-
ied in discarded plastic and rotting cardboard. This
unappealing ecosystem in Kyrgyzstan is not merely
home to wild animals: the Bishkek municipal dump,
deemed a health hazard by ecologists, is also work
site for human scavengers, mostly economic mi-
grants from rural parts of Kyrgyzstan.
Single parent Aizat Isabekova and her four chil-
dren one day recently could be seen sifting through
the discarded bits of food and dead animals look-
ing for plastic bottles to recycle. A migrant from
southern Jalal-Abad Province, she has been living
on the outskirts of Bishkek in informal accommoda-
tion for over two years. “You get used to it,” she says
of the plumes of smoke that rise out of the rubbish
mounds even in winter. “I can’t find work this profit-
able in the city.”
With the help of her children, who do not at-
tend school because as a migrant she does not
have the necessary documents to register them in
Bishkek, Isabekova says she can bring in more than
500 soms (USD 11) a day. She sells plastic bottles for
30 tiyin to middlemen who resell them for 50 tiyin
(one US cent) to vendors who wash and fill them
with homemade dairy products and condiments.
Kemal, 43, and his wife Nurgul, 40, both of
whom refused to provide a surname, have resided
at the dump’s nearby novostroiki – new settlements
– since migrating to Bishkek eight years ago. Kemal
says his seven children live with their grandparents
at home in Osh Province, where they go to school.
“They don’t need to know how their parents earn a
living,” he said.
Nevertheless, the couple admitted there are
advantages to working at the dump. As she sort-
ed through a bag of “perfectly good” discarded
clothes, Nurgul said she used to work at a sausage
factory but quit because scavenging for recyclables
was more profitable. “What you can find here, you
can sell. You don’t have to wait for a salary. Also, it
is warm enough at the dump. Even in January and
February, there’s no snow on the ground here.”
This phenomenon concerns ecologists. Dmitri
Vytoshkin, a program coordinator at BIOM, a lo-
cal environmental non-profit, explained why the
dump “smokes” even in deep winter.
The fumes “are the result of a chemical reaction.
The sun heats the mass of waste up, and the layers
of plastic and glass prevent that heat from escap-
ing. Without any oxygen, the waste beneath the
surface neither burns [fully] nor decomposes, but
smolders all year round,” he said. Vytoshkin estimat-
ed that temperatures at the bottom of the rubbish
mounds were between 60-70 degrees centigrade.
The problem is festering.
According to Gulnara Ibraeva, an expert from the
Social Technologies Agency, a Bishkek-based NGO
researching social and gender issues, the dump
has expanded from 10 hectares to over 25 hectares
over the last eight years, and is now encroaching on
the city limits. “The site has grown out of control.
As many as 500 people work there now. Munici-
November 2010 The Spektator
Above A lorry brings fresh pickings to the municipal dump (David Trilling for EurasiaNet.org)
pal authorities arrive periodically with heavy-duty
packing machines to try and consolidate the waste,
but young men working at the dump chase them
away. Even the police are afraid of them,” Ibraeva
told EurasiaNet.org.
Many trash sorters have organized themselves
into militant brigades in order to defend territory
and economic interests. Explaining why a pitchfork-
wielding man chased two EurasiaNet.org corre-
spondents from the site, Kemal said; “People don’t
want their relatives to know that they work here.
It can be seen as a disgrace. Perhaps he thinks you
want to show Kyrgyz people in a bad light.”
Environmentalists are eager to find a solution,
but realize they may have to choose between the
lesser of two evils. In the last five years, Italian and
Japanese investors have made separate offers to
build a waste-incineration plant. The government
announced at one point that both bids were suc-
cessful, but so far there has been no more move-
ment toward construction of such a plant. More
Mayor of Kyrgyz City Criticizes Home Reconstruction Plan
OSH, November 4 (RFE/RL)
The controversial mayor of the southern Kyrgyz
city of Osh, Melis Myrzakmatov, says homes
damaged or destroyed in interethnic clashes in
mid-June are being rebuilt without his consent,
RFE/RL’s Kyrgyz Service reports.
Myrzakmatov told journalists on November
4 that the majority of the Osh city homes dam-
aged in June are situated in “complicated” areas
from a seismological point of view. He said he
and his associates have been raising that issue
since construction of the new houses started, but
“no one took those concerns into consideration.”
Myrzakmatov added that some areas in-
habited mainly by ethnic Uzbeks have been re-
constructed in the same way they were before
the riots during which they were burned down.
“Nobody burnt each of the houses in the
Uzbek districts, they were just built in such a
way that if one of the houses is set on fire all the
other houses [nearby] will catch fire easily, and
recently, a domestic initiative to solve the problem
by the end of 2010 has been delayed by ongoing
political uncertainty.
Vytoshkin is one of many observers who feel
the dump is an environmental time bomb. “Natu-
rally, waste incineration factories [produce] their
own negative environmental consequences; any
plant would have to be in compliance with interna-
tional standards,” he said. “But the alternative – no
system of waste management at all – is worse. Here,
livestock carcasses are dumped in the same place
as household waste. No one knows what diseases
these animals might have.”
While efforts to take decisive action have lost
political momentum, Nurgul and her husband re-
main firmly opposed to any plans that might insti-
tutionalize waste management in the city. “What
we do here might be dirty, but it is honest,” she said.
“Why does the government want to prevent me
from making a living? I don’t interfere with them,
why should they interfere with us?”
some of the new houses are being built in the
same way,” he said.
Myrzakmatov added that all Osh residents
whose new homes are not ready by winter will
be given shelter in local sanatoriums and hotels.
Myrzakmatov is considered controversial
due to his connections with ousted President
Kurmanbek Bakiev, who appointed him to his
post, and his severe criticism of interim govern-
ment officials in Bishkek.
The interim government tried to remove
him as mayor earlier this summer, but after pro-
tests by locals, he remained in office. He took an
extended vacation and was not seen at his office
for several weeks after an August meeting with
President Roza Otunbaeva in Bishkek.
Osh was shaken by deadly clashes between
ethnic Uzbeks and Kyrgyz in mid-June. More
than 400 people died and hundreds were in-
jured in the fighting in Osh and the neighboring
Jalal-Abad region.
www.thespektator.co.uk
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 8 This Month
Sticking
to your
Own
WINSTON OLSEN
H
AVING ATTENDED a series of protests
held by the nationalist political party
‘Butun Kyrgyzstan’ (One Kyrgyzstan),
I was alerted to the striking results of
‘sticking to your own’. Missing out on
entry into parliament by a whisker, Butun’s sup-
porters were in restive mood, yet I found myself
less concerned by this than by the evidently detri-
mental effects of generations of inbreeding.
Kyrgyzstan is a small country (population un-
der 5,000,000), of which the titular nationality, the
Kyrgyz, comprise roughly 70%. That 70%, in turn,
is riven by internal divisions predicated on politics,
regional kinship patterns and some of the most
daunting, isolating mountain passes in the world.
Naturally, as a nomadic people who gradually
drifted South from the Yenisei in southern Siberia,
the Kyrgyz have their own rich genetic heritage.
Due to patterns of conquest and confluence, a
DNA sample of the average Kyrgyz a hundred
years ago may well have revealed notable reces-
sive genes belonging to groups such as the Chu-
vash and the Uighurs, as well as a dominant Mon-
gol base attributable to names that time forgot;
Naimans, Khitans and Keraits, amongst hundreds
of other more or less distinct groups.
Nevertheless, research in Albania has shown
that in small countries subject to significant tribal
and geographical divisions (Albania’s predomi-
nant division is also North/South), the result of a
transition from nomadic to sedentary patterns
of existence ultimately results in one thing: Gene
pool stagnation.
This can manifest itself in physical character-
istics; eyes of unusual colour (an almost luminous
shade of green is typical amongst inbred people),
misshapen ears, stunted growth, or behavioural
defects and dangerously below average Intelli-
gent Quotients (IQs).
In the Soviet period, the institution of the
kolkhoz (collective farm) actually helped cement
certain endogamous trends, as did the enforced
absence of pre-Soviet traditions such as bride-
knapping. Despite the ideological emphasis on a
’union of peoples’, cross-cultural marriages were
relatively rare in most parts of Soviet Central Asia,
November 2010 The Spektator
Above ”If your surname is ‘Butun’ clap your hands!” (archive)
a non-tendency that independence and nascent
nationalism have since strengthened.
In the ancient and medieval world, of course,
gene pool stagnation was much more of a prob-
lem than it is today. It affected not only poor villag-
ers, whose lack of socioeconomic and actual mo-
bility denied them the opportunity to breed with
people beyond their own tightly-knit communi-
ties, but monarchs, who actively chose inbreed-
ing as a means of conserving their accumulated
wealth rather than squandering it on ‘outsiders‘.
Over time, these tightly concentric patterns of
reproduction displayed negative consequences.
Royal families, like those of their ordinary subjects,
produced an alarming number of simpletons. This
in turn had damning implications for social and
material progress - an inbred nation produces little
in the way of inventors, philosophers and entre-
preneurs. The medieval period as a whole was one
of long, fruitless grind.
In those darker times, genetic overhaul was
eventually ensured by war. War, with its twin atroc-
ities of rape and population displacement helped
break up ’genetic communities’ and introduce ran-
dom patterns into stagnant pools. Nowadays, that
function is provided in a more benign and civilized
fashion by the ‘scattergun effect’ of the city.
Writing in 1992 for his classic travelogue ‘The
Lost Heart of Asia’, Colin Thubron noted: ‘A rural in-
vasion of Kirghiz was infiltrating the suburbs and
crowding the shops [of Bishkek]…some of them
looked like pantomime peasants…But within a
generation they could refine to a tenuous urban-
ity, and these other Kirghiz too were all about, run-
ning small businesses in the liberalised economy,
percolating the civil service...’
Cities provide rural migrants not only with an
opportunity to earn more money than they could
do in their home villages, but also a more socially
and genetically competitive environment that of-
fers a chance of producing stronger offspring. In
Kyrgyzstan, only Bishkek and possibly Osh con-
tain populations large enough and cosmopolitan
enough to produce a genuine scattergun effect.
Certainly, for instance, families with one par-
ent from southern Kyrgyzstan and another parent
from northern Kyrgyzstan are more likely to have
formed in Bishkek than anywhere else. In a city of
a million, cultural pressures on young men and
women to marry into a certain kinship group meet
a powerful counter in terms of the sheer range of
different potential reproductive partners in the vi-
cinity.
Towns such as Talas and Naryn, by contrast, are
better understood as large villages whose lack of
economic opportunity results in almost no inward
migration and thus no disruption of intra-commu-
nity breeding patterns. The startling outcome of
this could be seen on April 7th and 8th, when ‘the
country visited the city’; the biological advantages
of urban life, as well as the socioeconomic ones,
cruelly displayed.
As the ethnic group which controls the levers
of power in domestic society, there are few imme-
diate incentives for Kyrgyz to ‘marry out‘. Moreover,
kinship groups or ‘clans’ are powerful associations
which can make the distance between an unem-
ployed peasant in the country and an influential
political figure in the city relatively small. Yet in the
long term, ‘sticking to your own’, at least in the in
the narrowest sense, has damaging consequences.
Conversely, inter-ethnic unions often result in off-
spring that are more than the sum of their parts.
One need only look at the example of the United
States of America, a ‘migrant hybrid’ with a near-
absent ‘native’ population, to see that successful,
prosperous societies are often those that are sexu-
ally as well as politically more inclusive.
Still, Kyrgyz folks are happy enough to ac-
knowledge and mock their own reproductive
nepotism. One local anecdote a Bishkek friend
told me runs thus: The farmer father of a young
man has told him that the time has come for him
to get married. “What about Gulnara?” the father
asks hopefully. “She is strong and able - she will
milk well.” But the young man refuses the sugges-
tion. “Or Aizat, perhaps? She is very pretty.” But the
young man says he finds Aizat boring. “You know,
papa,” he says, “there is a boy in the next village, his
name is Sergei...” But the young man’s father cuts
him off abruptly, disgusted. “Son, how can you
even think of that? Sergei is Russian!”
www.thespektator.co.uk
 10 Out & About
Residents
Climber and journalist Jamie Maddison set
out to document the audacious attempt of
a mountaineering team to ‘christen’ one of
the peaks in the little-climbed Djangart re-
gion of the Tien-Shan. The following is his
account of how three of his companions
braved a challenging ascent to the top of
a mountain now known as Peak Howard-
Bury (4766m).
Above Base camp in the Djangart valley is
stunningly beautiful, but frightfully boring
after a time (both photos Jamie Maddison)
Right Climbers Mathew Traver (UK) Dan Clarke
(US) and Mike Royer (US) returned from the
end of the world victorious
November 2010 The Spektator
at the World’s End
A
JAMIE MADDISON
MYRIAD OF STONES slip away un-
der foot. Up above, the track, broken
and washed out, winds its way around
more sets of switchbacks, fading out
of sight behind yet another rise in the
still distant huddle. The wind is bitter, and tears
mercilessly through a thin T-shirt, my sole layer of
protection thrown on carelessly earlier in the day
when the weather was perfect, and the distance
to the valley’s pass a mere happy guess. Now the
sun is setting, dragging the temperature down
with it. The trail has turned out to be much longer
and steeper than expected, and, at four thousand
metres and completely unacclimatized, I struggle
deeply for breath. Looking back down the sweep-
ing moraine lined on either side by sheets of once
dazzling white snow, now slowly turning grey in
the dim evening light, the blurred image of my
climbing partner, Dan, can just be made out lying
on a rock several hundred meters away; he’s ob-
viously in a similar state, completely and utterly
exhausted.
I had flown into Bishkek a week earlier to re-
port upon a joint Anglo-American mountaineering
expedition aiming to climb several new peaks in a
remote area of the Tien Shan called the Djangart.
The Djangart, part of the Kokshaal-Too (literally the
‘Forbidden Range’; an area of mountains that was a
closed military zone until the late 1990s), forms part
of the ridge line along Kyrgyzstan’s southern border
with China. The area had received little previous at-
tention, with less than three visits ever being made
to the region by mountaineers. Although slightly
lower in elevation than its popular neighbour, the
Western Kokshaal-Too, the Djangart still boasts
more than a dozen mountains over 5,000 metres, a
significant height for any aspiring alpinist to tackle.
At the time, all but one of these peaks remained un-
climbed, something that the team hoped to rectify
with their own visit to the region.
The journey out was harsh. Confined to a Rus-
sian ex-military truck which, by the look of it had
probably seen action in Afghanistan, we quickly
became bored with the absolute lack of things
to do. Watching the ever-changing scenery was
our hobby, trying to avoid receiving a concussion
every time the truck catapulted us airborne as it
passed over a bump in the road. Time dragged on
despairingly slowly. Upon reaching camp on the
first night Matthew Traver and myself, repulsed
by the further effort erecting a tent would exact,
simply dragged our sleeping bags underneath
the truck and spent the night there; stars peep-
ing through the gaps in the engine overhead, ac-
companied later by the gentle drip of fine early
morning rain as we slept.
The scenery altered from the deep blues of
Lake Issyk Kul, to the luscious green alpine val-
leys around Barskoon and later, the dried, dead
steppe of the Kara-Say area. The roads deteriorat-
ed the further east we went and Sasha, our driver,
was constantly forced to divert in and around the
glacial torrents, which poured off the sides of the
encasing mountains. It was with much relief, and
severely bruised bones that we approached the
final checkpoint, military camp Ak-Shyyrak. This
last outpost of humanity, situated firmly in the
restricted zone between China and Kyrgyzstan’s
high Tien-Shan border, was once a sizeable Soviet
mining town. Now, since the closure of the mines,
less than twenty families remain; keeping lone-
some vigil over the few comings and goings that
this area of the border receives. Permits in order,
we were allowed to proceed, up the Kaichi valley
and to the end of the first phase of our laborious
journey. Tomorrow we would head up, over the
pass and finally into the Djangart.
Back on my feet, I stumble onward. After what
seems like a never-ending passage of time, the
top of the pass finally comes into view. It really is
www.thespektator.co.uk
 Out & About 11

Doing Djangart
a depressing place; a barren wasteland, populat- The initial start, although technically easy,
ed by a scattering of abandoned concrete pipes, was nevertheless a frustrating chore due to deep the
remnants of a long obsolete mining exploration. snow and unhelpful weather conditions. Matt
The wind picks up, whittling its way over this gap was to take the lead in this and made steady
in the mountains. Shivering violently, I dive into a progress over the first two hundred metres, up Firstly, trips such as this are not for the
tube, jamming my rucksack into one end in a vain gradually increasing snow slopes. As the ground weekend adventurer. They can take hundreds
attempt to block out the frightening cold. Sitting, behind them began to drop away, so the diffi- of hours’ worth of preparation and organisa-
huddled in a ball inside this little concrete coffin; I culties faced by the team began to increase. “By tion, and can cost thousands of dollars in ex-
do nothing but wait for my climbing partner Dan. now, snow was tumbling off the higher slopes; penditure. If however, you are really dedicated
After an age, he finally appears, not, it has to be never enough to take you down but enough to to exploring areas such as the Djangart (and
said, in the best of states, hyperventilating from keep you on your toes,” Mike was to tell me later. have the mountaineering proficiency to do so
too rapid a rise after too “Sloughing snow is actu- safely) then your first step should be to touch
little acclimatisation. “Sloughing snow is actually ally a welcome sign, as it base with an organiser. Our expedition used
Enough’s enough, and means it isn’t accumulat- the company ITMC Tien-Shan (http://www.
we beat a hasty retreat a welcome sign, as it means it ing to unload as a larger, itmc.centralasia.kg/) and they were nothing
down the other side of isn’t accumulating to unload as potentially lethal ava- short of fantastic; providing us with transport,
the pass into this new lanche later.” communications equipment, accommodation
valley, the Djangart, a larger, potentially lethal ava- The onslaught of in Bishkek and dollops of advice. Such compa-
spread out before us, steeper sections forced nies can help plan an expedition around your
beautifully bathed in
lanche later” Mike Royer the group to take out given ideas, time constraints and budget.
the golden glow of a dying sun. their second rope to begin belayed climbing. On Once the structure of the trip is arranged
The day lasts more than a hundred years, as easy ground a team of mountaineers can often you can get down to the task of organising
the famous Kyrgyz author Chinghiz Aitmatov get away with ascending on a single line, tied small details, such as procuring food and
so eloquently put it. Nearly a week later and I’d on to each person. As the group climbs, pieces equipment. The bazaars are an excellent
come to well and truly know the meaning of that of protection are placed between them. In the place to stock up on cheap provisions for the
phrase. Sitting alone in a sodden tent in the mid- event of a fall that protection stops the moun- expedition, just remember to buy a modest
dle of the rain swept unknown, devoid of all but taineers from sliding off the face of the mountain, amount of vodka and cigarettes to ease cross-
a single book. Time stretched out, lengthening to and then the world itself. The technique is called ings though the border permit checkpoints.
ridiculous and previously unfathomable propor- simulclimbing, and is by far the fastest means If in need of more specialized equipment,
tions. And yet, whilst I sat and railed against the of ascent, albeit less equipment-heavy and thus mountaineering shops such as Red Fox (So-
slow passage of days, they were advancing in- riskier than other techniques. If, however, the vietskaya/Kulatova) usually have enough to
credibly swiftly for climbers Mathew Traver (UK) ascent becomes too severe, then a second rope meet the needs of most mountaineers.
Dan Clarke (US) and Mike Royer (US) who, high must be used; one climber leading upward on Lastly, if you want a bit of extra help around
up in the valley above me, were preparing to both ropes whilst the other belays him from an base camp, then you might wish to consider
make their first attempt at one of the surround- anchored position. Lead climbing, as this second hiring someone . Taking on local interns from
ing unclimbed peaks. A rocky pyramid of a moun- technique is known, is a safer, but much slower the Alpine Fund charity (http://www.alpine-
tain, they later found out (having lost their topo- form of upward progression. fund.org/) is not only cheaper than the guides
graphical maps at the time) that this was Pt 4766, It was at this point, grey-white slopes spreading provided by the logistics companies, it is also
a prominent peak sitting at one of the central gently away to the glacier far beneath them, and ex- a great way of helping out Kyrgyzstan’s under-
dividing points for the Djangartynbashi glacier. panses of steeper, just off-vertical ice towering privileged and orphaned youths.

www.thespektator.co.uk November 2010 The Spektator

 12 Out & About
Above Peak Howard-Bury, an eminent, yet
previously unclimbed peak in the Djangart
section of the Tien-Shan range (all photos
Mike Royer)
Centre Matt Traver plots a lonely path in the
couloir. Speed is synonymous with safety in
the mountains, but too quick an ascent can
lead to poor acclimatisation and exhaustion
Right Snow drifts off the mountain face on the
ascent to Peak Howard-Bury
November 2010 The Spektator
high above, that the group began to lead climb.
“Dan led the first pitch, but didn’t get very far be-
fore the green rope ran out,” Mike recounts. “We
thought it seemed a bit odd, but maybe the scale
of the face screwed with our perception of dis-
tance, a common issue on exposed mountains.
Often two half ropes aren’t exactly the same
length as well, so with little concern I just ran off
to the next belay.” But as Matt took his turn for
the lead after, Dan realised something was quite
wrong indeed: “I was re-stacking the ropes so
Matt could have an easier belay, but all of a sud-
den I got to the end of the green rope. There was
masses of other rope, but none of the green; it
must have been perhaps as much as twenty me-
tres short.”
In the mountains speed is tantamount to
safety; the less time one spends on the face,
the less likely avalanches, rock fall, falling ice or
lethal storms are to hit you. The rope, which the
group later deduced was probably cut by the lo-
cal horseman seeking a thicker cord for lashing
our equipment to their horses on the journey
over the pass, was now roughly a third as short.
This meant that in their current style of ascent
they would only be able climb two thirds as far
on each pitch, increasing time spent on the
mountain to dangerous proportions. Mike then
suggested the much riskier option of all three si-
mulclimbing over the now difficult ground using
only the one rope. Devoid of any other options
they had no choice but to employ this risky style.
On the trio progressed, a single slender
thread now tracing between them as they tack-
led the ever more challenging obstacles that lay
in front. Then, as the sun was setting, the ridge
line that marked the end of difficulties and the
path to the summit, finally came into view. “Eager
to finish, I placed my last screw and yelled down
that I was going to gun it for the ridge,” Mike re-
members. “But, after Matt expressed his concern,
I relented and traversed to the other side of the
couloir (mountain gulley). I threw in a sketchy
nut, pounded in a marginal piton (metal spike),
and shoved my shoulder into a corner of the wall
that arched over the couloir.” Mike then belayed
Matt and Dan up to that frigid stance.
That one last difficulty surmounted, nothing
remained but the trio’s final rush for the summit,
witnessed only by the masses of storm clouds
that had begun to gather overhead. Mike was
the first to reach the top: “Suddenly I was there;
scrambling over the final few metres, I just threw
my arms up and let up a shout.” Relieved and
quite exhausted, he proceeded to belay Matt and
Dan up to the summit. The storm crashed around
the peak, but they had done it! The mountain,
formally Pik 4766 (designated according to its
elevation above sea level) became Peak Howard-
Bury, named after an early British explorer who
had visited the region in 1913. It was the second
mountain in the entire area to be climbed - the
first being Peak Letaveta (5280m) summited in
2008 by a Russian expedition - and the first peak
to be summited by Western mountaineers in the
region. At an alpine grade of Difficile +, the seven
hundred metre line ranks as hard as many of the
super classic routes of the European Alps.
Back in the lonely rain-swept valley, I was to
wait another full day before the battered three
made their return to base camp. They collapsed
into the main tent, exhausted, sunburnt and stink-
ing to high heaven. Yet, their smiles blunted any
concerns of mine over their physical well-being;
they joked freely about the adventures just ex-
perienced, content that all their efforts, planning
and hard graft had finally come to fruition. Over
the next two weeks the team was to climb a fur-
ther two new mountains in this area of unknown
beauty and intrigue. Heading home early, I left
these pioneers planning their next and final sum-
mit, happy in life, residents at the world’s end.
www.thespektator.co.uk
 16 Focus
White
Walled
Worlds
Western perceptions of Soviet mental
health institutions arrived through the
filter of terrifying accounts provided
by literary dissidents and Gorbachev-
era rights activists. Alice Janvrin, who
visited several psychiatric hospitals in
Kyrgyzstan, found that conditions are
slowly improving, but that much work
still remains to be done.
Above The linoleum floor of a newly renovat-
ed ward gleams for the cameras (all photos
Alice Janvrin)
Above Right Patients at one of Kyrgyzstan’s
largest psychiatric facilities enjoy an amble in
the sun
For donations, please contact Mental Health and So-
ciety at mhealth@inbox.ru.
November 2010 The Spektator
ALICE JANVRIN
I
MAGINE YOURSELF expatriated to Bishkek
after the violence you have witnessed in your
native city of Osh or Jalalabad. It is not surpris-
ing that you are anxious. This anxiety may in-
crease as time goes on; you relive your experi-
ences over and over again and avoid any situation
which may remind you of your trauma. You have
got Post Traumatic Stress Disorder, which eventu-
ally prevents you from leading a normal life, going
to work, providing for your family, paying rent, and
even undertaking the most basic activities such as
washing or any sort of social interaction. Eventually
your neighbours find out about your condition but
instead of sympathising, they discuss you behind
your back and criticise and avoid your family.
The plight of mental health in Kyrgyzstan is not
an easy one to bear. Once you develop a mental dis-
order, the options are limited. The first point of call
might be the Neuropsychiatric Dispensary, situated
in the heart of Bishkek. Once you walk through the
large doors up the stairs, a commission made up
of different doctors decides your fate. If you need
rest and medical attention, you will be allowed to
attend the day clinic on a first floor ward.
The rooms there are bright and clean, the lino-
leum on the floor has been refurbished recently, and
there are plants and quiet rooms for you to sleep
in and doctors and nurses to attend to your needs.
However, if your case is more severe, you might be
sent to a closed ward to spend an average of forty-
five days. These wards consist of large rooms on the
ground floor, with bars at the windows and a lonely
line of beds as the sole furnishings. The conditions
for men seem worse than those for women; no mat-
tresses on the bed, a thin eiderdown, a television
which blares neglected and dozens of men, young
and old, suffering from schizophrenia, dementia
and various types of depressions skulking around
looking bedraggled and gloomy, shorn of activity
and purpose.
In contrast, the closed wards for women appear
better off; real mattresses on beds, a piano where
manic women play hyperactive tunes and evidence
of art therapy: sculptures made of beads, sewing
and knitting. Patients in these wards are allowed
outside to walk around a fenced off area in the
hospital’s grounds, but are otherwise kept indoors
where family members are allowed to visit twice
a day. The stigma attached to having a mentally ill
relative is a hard burden to bear and it is reported
that families often refuse to pick up the patients
once their treatment in the hospital is over. If this
is the case, patients can be sent to institutions, or
“neurological asylums”.
These asylums are situated behind high walls,
secluded from the outside world. The reason for
this isolation dates back to Soviet times, when, in re-
sponse to an international outcry against the Soviet
Union’s many political prisoners, the regime certi-
fied many such prisoners “insane” and transferred
them from the gulag to mental asylums.
Many investigations, notably over the course
of research for the report on ‘The Budget of Men-
tal Healthcare’ by Bishkek-based non-profit Men-
tal Health and Society, have exposed the far from
pretty conditions in such institutions. Living in of-
ten decrepit conditions, patients barely get access
to medical help, despite the fact that they are the
most susceptible to physical diseases and death
via tuberculosis, epilepsy or worsening “diarrhoea“.
Institutions are frequently understaffed, doctors
are often elderly, and nurses work 24 hour shifts
and oversee too many patients for it to be humanly
possible to do an adequate job; furthermore, they
are untrained in psychiatric medicine, and, having
been exposed only to out-dated modes of practise,
they provide care that ignores the legal, social and
medical rights of their patients. Reports of patient-
beating are not rare occurrences. Social workers
educated in the Humanities University of Bishkek
www.thespektator.co.uk

are proficient in theoretical knowledge, but have no
practical experience. When we visited, conditions in
Iskra Institution proved a positive surprise; yet the
general absence of patients and the fact that we
were only shown the recently renovated wards
begs the question: What are the other wards like?
Corruption in this sector is rife since the posi-
tion of director in psychiatric hospitals is generally
sought for its monetary rewards and accompany-
ing political influence. Horror stories appear alarm-
ingly regularly, such as one concerning a former
director who embezzled the food money and fed
his patients cattle feed. When exposed through a
press conference set up by human rights activists,
he accused the activists of stealing the food in order
to incriminate him.
The government gave the Askri Institution,
situated near Tok-Mok, five million Kyrgyz soms
for refurbishment in 2006 – to this day, there is no
evidence of any improvement. Reports of patients
used as slaves in both hospitals and institutions
are not irregular, for example one hospital set up
a ‘Labor Therapy Workshop‘, using funds from the
food budget in order to make bread. This bread was
then sold, the profit from which disappeared down
the black hole of healthcare corruption. Whenever
capital is invested, institution officials tend to put
it towards repair work (often using patients as free
labour) rather than medicine. Families are often re-
quired to provide giant bribes to secure adequate
conditions for their relatives.
However, as bleak as the picture appears, it is
improving. Human rights activists and NGOs are ap-
pealing to the government to improve the system.
Article 38 of the 1999 Psychiatric Care Law, requires
the government to provide a service overseeing the
protection of human rights in the healthcare sector.
Although such a specific service was never set up,
ten years of harsh battle by human rights activists,
amongst whom the bulldozing Burul Makenbaeva,
www.thespektator.co.uk
leader of Mental Health and Society, resulted in the
creation of the Ombudsmen of the Kyrgyz Republic
in October 2009. This organisation was installed all
over the country to oversee the protection of hu-
man rights and provide advocacy and legal repre-
sentation for clients in the education, penal, legal
and medical sectors.
The Ombudsmen has a clear presence in the
Neuropsychiatric Dispensary of Bishkek: members
of staff visit each ward every week, and know in-
dividual patients personally. There are letter boxes
fixed to the wall of wards where patients can post
anonymous requests or criticisms of the care they
receive – it was reported that recently the posts
‘Horror stories appear alarm-
ingly regularly, such as one con-
cerning a former director who
embezzled the food money and
fed his patients cattle feed’
were mostly thank you letters. This organisation
also successfully fired a doctor who hit a patient in
Iskra Institution, near Tok-Mok, and another patient
there reported that “beatings were less frequent”
since new management came into place in Febru-
ary. By law, directors of all institutions and hospitals
are obliged to work with this human rights organi-
sation.
Other NGOs, local and international, are
present throughout the country to help people
affected by mental health. For instance, homes for
disabled children such as the German Nadezhda
(Hope) centre, are an alternative to children’s in-
stitutions and provide a family atmosphere where
children are cared for and may have access to edu-
cation. However, such homes are often expensive
Focus 17
and do not provide a solution for the majority of
disabled children who end up in institutions where
their physical disabilities often become psychiatric
as a result of neglect.
Mental Health and Society set up the first
outpatient mental health clinic in Kyrgyzstan. It
welcomes around forty clients suffering mainly
from schizophrenia but also various types of de-
pression and other mental health disorders. Pro-
viding a warm and welcoming environment, this
centre is a source of support and therapy without
stigmatisation. It offers different types of reha-
bilitation activities, from individual therapy to
family therapy, group art therapy and education
sessions.
Many success stories come out of this centre,
for instance one lady, who once suffered from
severe bipolar disorder, attended the centre for
two years. Today, she speaks good English, writes
poetry, draws and has held down a job for the last
six months. She defies social stigma by proving
that, despite a mental disorder, she can function
successfully in the working world of Bishkek. Ti-
legen, now an assistant at the centre, is another
positive result for this programme. Once suffering
from schizophrenia, he now provides essential
help to clients by manning the office and finding
jobs for patients who are well enough to work.
Reform in the Kyrgyz mental health system
must start at governmental level – yet jumping
through the corruption hoops is no easy busi-
ness. It remains uncertain whether or not recent
political changes in the country will provide a
government more responsive than those which
preceded it. Nevertheless, following a catalogue
of politically turbulent events that climaxed with
the June events in southern Kyrgyzstan, psycho-
logical health and mental healthcare in the coun-
try should be high on the new administration’s
list of priorities.
November 2010 The Spektator
 18 Focus
Eagle
Eyes
Fulbright scholar Dennis Keen came
to Kyrgyzstan in search of eagles. Find-
ing that the nation’s age-old tradition of
hunting with birds of prey was well on
the mend, the main catalyst and obsta-
cle in his research revealed itself as be-
ing one and the same; the High Priest of
Falconry in Kyrgyzstan, an uncompro-
mising sage named Sary.
Top Falcons are the most common hunting had been a part of Kyrgyz culture for centuries,
birds. Eagles are harder to come by and harder it had dwindled to a solitary pursuit enjoyed
to tame (all photos Dennis Keen)
Right Nothing beats watching the eagles on a mountains, and make it into a public spectacle?
Saturday afternoon
November 2010 The Spektator
T
T
DENNIS KEEN
HE DRIVE to Issyk Kul is supposed to be
scenic, but the cliffs, rivers and moun-
tain passes had all been blotted out by a
whirring white void. My translator Abay
told me “S pervym snegom!”, the Russian
congratulation on the first snow of the year. We
were headed to the sleepy side of the lake - the
southern side - where a little town called Bokon-
baevo had emerged as the centre of Kyrgyz fal-
conry. There would be a hunting festival in the
hills above the town that weekend and a small
hunting museum hid in its dusty streets. All of
this was the result of one man, a man with a
plan; a man named Almaz Akunov.
Almaz met us in the centre of town and
drove us to a homestay that he had arranged.
When I met him the previous weekend he had
been cold and dismissive, unsure of my inten-
tions and disappointed that the “Request for
Financial Aid” he had sent me last fall had been
met with months of no reply. Now that we were
in his hometown, and it was clear we were there
for research, he brightened up considerably.
Driving his jeep over potholes and into river-
beds, Almaz took us up into the mountains and
told us of his vision. Ten years ago, he said, fal-
conry in Kyrgyzstan had been in a sorry state.
Though the tradition of hunting with eagles
by only a handful of hunters. What if we could
take this lonely hobby of a man, his bird and the
There could be competitions with judges and
point systems, held in the open for all to see. A
few years ago Almaz organized his first hunting
festival, and started a new hunting tradition that
would draw dozens of interested people from
all over Kyrgyzstan, and even an American boy
from across the sea.
With the sun long gone and the chill of the
night setting in, we arrived at our home for the
night. It was a house of adobe that had appeared
unannounced out of the darkness, and I had lost
all sense of where we were. The mystery of the
place was deepened by its legendary caretaker,
the master to Almaz’s apprentice. His name was
Sary, and he was 81 years old. He first learned to
hunt under Stalin in 1943. He was the high priest
of Kyrgyz eagle hunting, a living encyclopedia of
the traditional knowledge that had been hand-
ed down through his family for generations.
Now he was living in the mountains with his
grandson, himself a master hunter. They invited
us in. We would be their honoured guests.
His family was gathered around a low table,
anxious to meet this strange man from a distant
land. A Russian movie was playing on the television,
and in the corner a falcon was perched over a can-
vas, covered in shit. It eyed me nervously and flew
towards the door, flailing against the leash that tied
it to the ground. With the nonchalance borne from
sixty eight years of taming raptors, Sary waited for
the bird to calm down and gently stroked its head.
It closed its eyes slowly, comically relaxed. His fam-
ily set the table with bread and jam, and the family
matron, his grandson’s wife, pushed a bowl my way.
“Chai eech,” she said – drink tea.
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After the customary bread and apples, Sary
asked us if we had any questions for him. I took
out my recorder and he opened up his mind. It
was astounding. He told us about the dangers
of catching eagles from cliffs, how to tell a good
falcon by the blue on its beak, how to catch
pigeons in the night and set them in traps for
raptors. He showed us an instrument he had
made himself for grabbing the snagged bird.
He had learned to make it from his grandfather,
who was born in the 19th century. He unloaded
these insights as if in a reflex, the mere surface of
a vast, deep lake of information I would have the
fortune of skimming.
Friday morning, I woke up to Abay gently
nudging my shoulder, grinning madly. “Dennis,
look!” He held his sheets balled up in his fist, and
something was inside, scratching. I was semi-
conscious. This might not be happening. Abay
flicked the lump of sheets at the end of his hand
and, sure enough, something inside rustled
about. “I woke up and felt something tickling my
shoulder, so I grabbed it. Look!” He opened up
the sheets and out poked a little mouse head,
whiskers twitching. “Falcon food!”
We bundled up and went out into the morn-
ing to show Sary our find. He smiled and untied
his bird. Kneeling on the ground, Abay kept the
mouse in his handkerchief, and Sary unhooded
the falcon. Abay opened the cloth and the crit-
ter darted out. With a quick flap of its wings the
falcon was on the chase. Both animals moved so
fast I wasn’t sure what had happened. I looked
in its talons and saw that they were empty. The
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mouse must have crawled to temporary safety
under the house.
After a little breakfast (bread and tea again),
Sary had to head to a celebration, or toi, in an-
other town on the lake. A relative was getting
circumcised, and as the eldest member of the
family his presence was requisite. Without our
subject to interrogate, Abay and I went for a
walk down the road. Shepherds waved us on our
way to Issyk Kul’s teal swell, and then we were
‘Sary claimed his family had
kept the dragon’s ear in a chest for
years, but gave it to another fam-
ily to use as a good luck charm
during a pregnancy. They are still
seeking its return’
in no man’s land, a desert buffer before the lake.
Abay told me to taste the air. It felt familiar. Here
we were in the middle of Asia, and we had come
across a saline sea. A tree stood starkly against
the sky, and rain clouds drifted towards us from
the other side of the lake.
On the way back, I sang softly to myself as
Abay smoked a cigarette. A flock of sparrows
swarmed a bush, and I made a film of it with my
camera. A man was watching his sheep in the
field adjacent, and called out to ask what I was
doing. “Just filming the birds,” Abay answered
Focus 19
for me. The shepherd shook his head, amused.
Behind us rumbled a tractor, and as we stepped
out of the way, Abay looked at me and shouted
“Country taxi!” Before I really understood what
that meant, he hopped on the back and dragged
me in after him. We hitched a ride all the way
back to Sary’s. Three boys were crammed behind
the wheel, and they looked at us from the rear
window, laughing.
Back at Sary’s ranch, grandson Rustam tied
up a donkey and retrieved a felt bag from a shed.
He was headed up into the hills to check some
traps he had set, and asked if we’d like to join
him. We stumbled up rocks to a ridge overlook-
ing the house, where a strangely serene-seem-
ing pigeon had been tied up as bait. Around
him they had perched four sticks from which
a homemade net, or tor had been strung. They
hoped that a fly-by raptor would see the bird
and carelessly get snagged in the surrounding
strings as it dove down to catch its dinner. It
seemed an improbable hypothesis, but they had
apparently already caught countless birds this
way. On this occasion, they lacked for luck and
the sacrificial bird remained unscathed. Look-
ing across a gorge with his binoculars, Rustam
announced that the other traps he had set in
the surrounding hills were just as falconless. We
headed back, defeated.
As the sun was setting, a car careened into the
courtyard, and out came a group of very inebri-
ated men. Sary was among them, buoyed by drink
and his role as an overseer of ceremonies. Once
in the main room of the house he plopped
November 2010 The Spektator
 20 Focus
down in the corner and stroked his beard glee-
fully. Sary’s son came in too, and decided to tell
us everything we already knew about falconry.
He wasn’t a hunter himself, and Sary told him
to shut up. Old men here are called ak sakals,
or white beards, and their authority is absolute.
Sary’s son stumbled out of the room. I figured
our chances for collecting more material that
evening had vanished, but our hunter insisted
he was up for it, so after eating more plov we
headed to a quiet room in the other building to
ask our questions.
Abay conducted the interview in Kyrgyz,
and I sat nodding encouragement at moments
that seemed appropriate. Soon, though, it
seemed Sary was growing combative, and Abay
rubbed his temples in frustration. I didn’t really
know what was going on, because the back-
and-forth continued without translation. After a
while, my assistant explained. Sary had worked
with other Westerners before, and he wasn’t
sure he could trust us. It seemed that they had
come and picked his brain and left with their
pickings, never to return. It bothered him that
he was such a source of knowledge, but all the
knowledge he dished out left the country in the
researcher’s notebook. The Kyrgyz people don’t
even know about this tradition, he said, and you
plan to take everything you learn from me and
bring it to California? I felt ashamed, scolded by
the white-beard.
I paused and spoke with Abay for a few mo-
ments, and from that brief exchange came a
series of revelations. I had told him I wanted to
write a book about Kyrgyz eagle hunting, but we
decided it would be impractical to write a prim-
November 2010 The Spektator
er on a Kyrgyz tradition in a language most Kyr-
gyz couldn’t even understand. What if we could
instead publish a book of Sary’s knowledge in
his own language? What if we could take every-
thing he had learned from oral tradition, passed
down from his father and generations before,
and make it available to anybody who was in-
terested? Sary liked the idea of his name in print,
his sagely reputation enshrined. He told us he
feared he would die soon, and felt like he need-
ed to leave something of himself behind. To-
gether we could write his story, and Abay could
help put it all together in Kyrgyz. I was thrilled
‘The bird’s bones were crushed;
it’s head hung limp. The boy took
the bird in his hands and ran off,
crying. Onlookers recorded the
tragedy with camera phones’
at the prospect of this new project. Then Sary
said he would be honoured if I would be his first
Western apprentice, so he could pass the tradi-
tion on across nations. A delirious handshake
spanned oceans and continents. Everything was
coming together.
The morning of the festival I woke up to a
snowy surprise. The ground and the hills that
had stood barren and brown the day before now
shone brilliant white. Abay was worried that the
snow might cancel the eagle festival, but I was en-
joying the scenery so much that it hardly mattered
to me. I wandered around the orchard, enrapt.
One of Sary’s great-grandsons, Shamil, ap-
peared from nowhere with a dead pheasant and
a rabbit in hand, a smirk of pride on his face to
match. It was breakfast time for his hawk. Tying
a rope to the pheasant’s legs, Shamil threw it on
the ground and stood at a distance. Sary stood
across the yard with the hawk, and when he un-
hooded it, his grandson pulled the rope and the
lifeless carcass sprung across the yard. Seeing
it’s bright colours move through the snow, the
hawk pounced. Next it was the rabbit’s turn, and
it’s head was soon on the snow, severed. Sary
picked up the rabbit’s foot and fed it to his bird
like a drumstick.
Before heading off for the big event, we
went back into the hills with Rustam to check
the pigeon traps. There was no good news.
One pigeon had been mauled through the net
by a fox, and the other was simply gone. We
did come across a half-dead rabbit snagged in
a metal trap, one of a handful that Rustam had
set earlier in the week. He took a proud photo
and shoved it in his canvas bag. As we walked
from trap to trap, he would point out various
tracks in the snow. That one’s a rabbit, that one’s
a fox, that’s from this morning, that’s from last
night. He had memorized the exact location of
the traps, even though they were hidden under
the snow.
At the festival, Sary held court. The other
hunters gathered around him, holding out their
birds for appraisal. No matter how old or expe-
rienced, they waited their turn to hear the mas-
ter’s assessment. With barely a glance he could
discern the age, health, and type of the eagle.
He would point to spots on their tail feathers
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and tell them they were eating too much liver,
or count the bumps on their claws to determine
their age. Abay and I followed him around with
our recorder. Afterwards I bought him lagman
for lunch, and at intervals he would depart with
his smoking buddy Abay, the young man and
the sage, sharing a vice.
In one rather informal event, Sary stood on
stage and took turns rating the hunters’ cos-
tumes, equipment, and bird management skills.
In another event, the hunters scaled a hill over-
looking the valley and threw their birds one-
by-one into the air. Down below a horseman
galloped with a dead fox dragging behind. The
eagles spied their prey instantly, flying at it with
impressive force. If I had ever harboured any
doubt over the predatory powers of these birds,
then they had already been dispelled graphi-
cally by an incident earlier on in the day. One of
the birds had been left without a leash and had
sprung on Shamil’s falcon, perched nearby. The
bird’s bones were crushed; it’s head hung limp.
The boy took the bird in his hands and ran off,
crying. Onlookers recorded the tragedy with
camera phones.
After the festivities, we stopped in at Al-
maz‘s house. We had been invited to a feast, but
the eating didn’t come until later, much later.
For hours we sat on the floor, all eyes on Sary.
I counted eighteen people in the room, all fac-
ing the old man, the ak sakal, the white beard.
He told a story about how his father fought
with Przhevalsky, a commander in the Russian
Imperial army. Przhevalsky gave him some sort
of sedative to calm his nerves and then he shot
a dragon. Sary claimed his family had kept the
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dragon’s ear in a chest for years, but gave it to an-
other family to use as a good luck charm during a
pregnancy. They are still seeking its return. I told
Abay dragons didn’t exist. He just shrugged.
Sary’s stories slowly dried up and the room fell
quiet. When the food came, I hardly felt like eating.
It didn’t help that the beshbarkmak was nearly in-
edible. Maybe my teeth aren’t sharp enough, but I
chewed the same piece of fat for five minutes be-
fore surreptitiously spitting it out and hiding it in
the bowl of broth that was provided with my meal.
It was nearly all fat, and the meaty parts were dry
and flavourless. My face and hands were covered
in grease. I felt uncomfortable. There were subtle
cues to pass things to elders and eat the meat a
certain way, all of which I missed. Some of the oth-
er guests looked at me with obvious displeasure.
Later, I offended even more. When we were
getting ready to depart for Bishkek, I gave Sary a
gift which I had brought all the way from Califor-
nia with a hunter in mind, a felt banner with the
University of California seal. I knew they liked wall
hangings, and I thought they’d be impressed by it’s
academic eminence. Sary didn’t even smile. Walk-
ing to the car, Abay wasn’t happy either. “Dennis,
I have to be honest, he was very angry. You gave
him a flag? He expected more.” Now I was angry
too. “Well what does he want from me? I already
paid his family more than they make in a month!
I’m writing his fricking life story! Why does every-
thing here come down to what will the rich Ameri-
can give me?”
We piled into the car. The optimism of the
previous night had evaporated. Me and the old
man were at loggerheads again, and our related
projects were hanging in the balance.
Focus 21
Above Flying an eagle - more fun than flying
a kite
Left Rating hawks and their owners is just
one of a number of ceremonial functions that
Sary’s local renown bestows upon him
How to Catch an Eagle
Would you like your very own berkut? There are
several methods you can use to snag your un-
suspecting bird of prey.
Cliff jumping: Not for the faint of heart.
Find your nearest cliff-side aerie, and strap a
rope around your waist. Your friends lower you
down to the nest, where you grab a young ea-
glet and stuff it in a bag. Meanwhile, your bud-
dies shoot off blanks to scare away the mama
eagle whose baby you’re stealing so heartlessly.
Pigeon baiting: Catch a pigeon. Tie it up.
Around it, prop up a net on some poles. Leave
the pigeon some water, and come back twice
a day. Hopefully an eagle will fly by, see your
prize, and get tangled in your trap. You’re more
likely to catch a falcon, but hey, those are pretty
cool too.
Chase it down: Apparently this works,
but nobody we know has ever tried it. Get on
a horse, and find an eagle who has just had
lunch. It should be totally stuffed, fat and lazy.
Chase it. According to those in the know, the
eagle will eventually get tired, lay on its back,
and stick its talons out at you. Try not to freak
out, and lash it with a piece of soft felt. Now you
have your very own eagle. Congratulations!
November 2010 The Spektator
 THE GUIDE
22

Bishkek life
Bars
Chuchuara Hoga (117, Chui) International
and
With this Chinese restaurant, a little out of the way
and rarely visited by tourists, you really feel you 12 Chimneys (TeplIkluchy village)

restaurants are getting the real deal. Request a хого (your own
personal Chinese boiling-pot) and randomly select
Wooden cabin located by a rushing stream thirty min-
utes out of town. The overpriced food is more than
compensated for by the chilled atmosphere and wild
There’s a fine line between ‘bar’ and ‘restaurant’ in a variety of unusual Chinese delicacies to throw in.
surroundings. Hotel accommodation also available.
Bishkek. Places more suitable for drinking sessions Beware, the ‘spicy’ sauce, although delicious, may
leave delicate stomachs in some distress several Head south on Almatinskaya and keep going. $$$$
are marked with a star *
hours later - consider the ‘not-spicy’ sauce as a suit-
Price Guide (main course and a garnish) able alternative $$ Bacardi* (Togolok Moldo 17/1)
$ - Expect change from 150 som Elite lounge bar affair with separate rooms for din-
$$ - A little over 250 should do the trick Frunze ing, dancing and whiling the night away smoking
$$$ - Expect to pay in the region of 350 (Chui/Pravda) hukkah pipes. Urban grooves played at a reason-
$$$$ - A crisp 500 (or more) needed in this joint Free semechki is one of many reasons to check out able volume and a full menu that includes a range
this lively hangout, rammed with Chinese at lunch of tasty platters. $$$$
American and dinner time. The menu is encyclopediac in
terms of scope, but if you’re feeling bewildered, Barcode* (Toktogul/Sovietskaya, inside ‘Moto’)
Cowboy* (Toktogul/Orozbekova) just point to something tasty-looking on a neigh- A hip, clean interior, fast wi-fi and an affordable
Bishkek’s all-American restaurant-cum-dance bouring table like we did. $$ business lunch have made Barcode something of
club has now gone a little more up-market, but a hotspot since it opened in early 2010. The place
Peking Duck I & II comes to life at night when 3 DJs compete for your
wild nights are still to be had. Dig in to a kilo of
(Soviet/Druzhba & Chui/Tog. Mol.) affections with an array of banging tunes. $$
chicken wings and then hit the dance floor. $$$
Huge portions to feed even the biggest of glut-
tons and an English language menu that provides Blonder Pub* (Pravda/Kulatova)
Hollywood*(Druzhba/Sovietskaya)
plenty of amusing translations. $$ Blonder Pub is the new brewery-restaurant to try
As you would probably guess, decorated with
out. Cavernous yet cosy inside, there’s decent blues
movie posters, photos of cinema icons and a Shaolin (Zhibek Zholu/Prospect Mir)
every night, live Premiership Football, Eurogrub
bunch of American kitsch. Hollywood is popu- This tidy looking restaurant sticks out for its sheer
and a good selection of ales. In regard to the latter
lar with a younger crowd and is usually packed range of oriental dishes and its large, round tables
we recommend ‘Irish Red’. $$$$
from mid-evening onwards. A fun place for a few that make it ideal for extended gatherings. $$
drinks before heading off to the clubs. $$ Buddha Bar (Sovietskaya/Akhunbayeva)
New York Pizza (177, Kievskaya)
Dungan Buddha bar offers a taste of the East inside a tastefully
constructed zen log cabin. The sushi is excellent, and
Decorated with pictures of the Big Apple and Hui Min (Relocated to the Hotel Dostuk) for those on a budget, the stir-fry noodle dishes make
serving a fine selection of steaks and other A former favourite, we have been told that Hui Min an excellent lunch. Recommended! $$$$
American-themed dishes, NYP is sure to get New has now relocated to the Hotel Dostuk. Apparently
Yorkers thinking of home. For home delivery the menu has been revamped and the prices in- Captain Nemo’s (14, Togolok Moldo)
ring (0312) 909909. $$$ creased. The Spektator will be checking it out soon. Small nautically themed restaurant with a selection
We hope they still serve the special Dungan tea, as of evocatively named dishes including ‘Fish from the
Obama (Erkindik/Toktogul) ship’s boy’ and ‘Tongue from the boatswain’s wife’.
The owners claim that the inspiration for the title it’s rather good. Cosy wooden interior and porthole style windows
came from the first letters in each of their sur- create an underwater log cabin experience. Spirits,
names - pull the other one guys, the bloke is all Georgian cocktails and a good business lunch. $$$
over the walls. The pizza, like the presidency, has Mimino (27, Kievskaya)
Ceska* (115, Alamatinskaya)
certainly been over-hyped, but the chicken plat- Mimino is nice, cosy and serves up bowl-fulls of steam-
Cousin to Blonder Pub, this Bros Co. ‘theme bar’ is
ter and the cheese burgers are a treat. Big por- ing, hearty Georgian fare with pomegranate seeds
a-plenty. We recommend the kjadjapuri, khinkali and worth checking out for its fantastic tiramisu cake
tions. $$$ alone. Every third beer is free but don’t get too ex-
anything that’s served in a pot. Watch out for Uncle Joe
at the door. $$$$ cited - they come in 0.4l glasses. $$$
Armenian German Coffee House (9, Manas & Togolok Moldo/Ryskulova)
Treat yourself to some of the finest coffee and
Landau (Manas/Gorky) cakes Bishkek has to offer at the imaginatively
Fancy something a little different? If you can tol- Steinbrau* (5, Gerzena)
named ‘Coffee House’, a cosy boutique café with a
erate the arthritic service, Landau isn’t a bad spot Don your beer drinking trousers and head down
European flavour. Curl up and read a book, or just
for a pork steak or some other Armenian culinary to Bishkek’s take on a Bavarian-style beer hall. They
drop in for a caffeine hit and a chocolate fix. $$$
goodies. Also, treat yourself to some decent Arme- brew their own stuff - such a relief from the insipid
nian conjac whilst your here, you’ll never go near bilge that’s normally sold as lager. Compliment your Cosmo Bar* (Sovietska/Moskovskaya)
Bishkek conjac again. Ever. $$$ pint with a plate of German sausage with sauerkraut. Board the sweet smelling elevator, ascend to the
$$$ top-floor Cosmo Bar and splash the cash with your
fellow free-spending cosmonauts. Elegant interior,
Chinese Uighur plush sofas, fancy drinks and pretty waitresses.
Huzzah! $$$$
Ak-Bata (108, Ibraimova) Karavan (Almatinkskoya/Chui) Crostini (191, Abdrahmanova)
This place must serve up pretty authentic dishes Excellent little stolvya (canteen) full of the timeless Situated inside the Hyatt, this is a joint to be re-
as it’s always full of Chinese playing mah-jong and regional favourites. Being an Uighur restaurant its gero served for a business lunch or marriage proposal
waving their chopsticks about. Smoky and stuffy, lagman or lagman pa Uighurski particularly stand out. only. Chef Taner Erdemir serves up mouth-water-
but in a nice way. $ No smoking, sit, eat and leave. $ ing international cusine, but at a price. $$$$$

November 2010 The Spektator www.thespektator.co.uk

 Bars, Restaurants & Clubs 23
Dillinger* (Gorky/Tynystanova) Navigator (103, Moskovskaya) Cyclone (136, Chui)
Glamorous VIP complex including a restaurant, bar A pricy, but pleasant place to while away an after- Smart Italian restaurant with plush interior, efficient,
and casino. A decedantly decorated and perculiarly noon. Sit in the bar area over a beer or lounge in the polite serving staff and a warm atmosphere to al-
endearing homage to the notorious bank robber - airy non-smoking conservatory. Attentive service leviate Bishkek’s winter chills. Pasta dishes stand out
we’re sure he would appreciate it. $$$$ among a menu of traditional Italian favourites. $$$
and a refreshing selection of salads, a good place
Fatboy’s* (Chui/Tynystanova) for a light, healthy lunch when fat and grease are Dolce Vita (116a, Akhunbaeva)
Civilized, friendly cafe bang in the middle of town and getting you down. $$$$ Cosy Italian restaurant with smiling waitresses serv-
a popular ex-pat meeting point. Sensible spot for con- ing excellent pizza. Also serves salads and European
versation, but if you’re alone there’s a mini-library to pe- Stary Edgar’s* (15, Panfilova) cuisine. Small terrace outside for summertime din-
ruse (although literary classics are thin on the ground). The concrete monstrosity of the Russian Theatre con- ing. $$
Check out the American pancakes for breakfast, top ceals one of Bishkek’s finest attempts at a cosy base-
marks. $$$ ment bar. Friendly staff, a decent menu and a collection Japanese
of old bits and bobs decorating the walls make Edgar’s
Four Seasons (116a, Tynystanova) an attractive alternative to the city’s mainstream cafés.
One of the poshest places to eat out in Bishkek. El- A blues band plays most nights and a pianist adds a ro- Aoyama (93, Toktogula)
egant, yet modern interior and polite service. Great Elegant sushi joint frequented by serious looking
mantic ambience on some Sunday evenings. $$$ suited-types concluding their latest dodgy deals.
place to splash out on a special occasion or just for
the hell of it. $$$$ The food’s excellent though - if you can scrape to-
U Mazaya (Behind ‘Zaks’ on Sovietskaya) gether enough soms. $$$$
Foyer (27, Erkindik ) Possibly Central Asia’s only rabbit themed restaurant.
Watari (Shevchenko, Frunze)
Foyer is an excellent place to enjoy an evening cock- Descend into this underground warren and tuck in. A small Japanese-owned restaurant that serves su-
tail or check your inbox with a cup of coffee. Free Also check out the fairy-light adorned flagship sister- shi as well as dishes with a more indian flavour. The
Wi-Fi, good deserts and blues on Tuesdays. $$$ rabbit-restaurant in Asenbai micro region. $$$
refined atmosphere makes it ideal for a business
meeting or just a sophisticated night out $$$
Griffon (Microregion 7) Vavilon (Microregion 7)
A cosy log-cabin affair with a large meat-roasting Finely presented dishes, reasonably priced beer (60
central fireplace. On one disturbing occasion the som) genuinely friendly and attentive service and live Korean
waiting staff were about as plesant as a bunch of music from 8-ish on most evenings. Definitely worth
chavs, but hopefully that was a passing phase. $$$ Petel (52, Zhykeeva Pudovkin)
the trek out to the suburbs ( tell your taxi driver to turn
Operating in the back room of a Korean family’s
left at the yuzhniy vorota and head towards Asenbai house, this is Korean style home-cooking at its most
Jam* (179, Toktogula)
An underground oasis of cool. Jam is a cafe with a for about 1.5km) $$$ personal. Closed on Sunday. Ring: 0543 922539 $$
full menu, kalians (shisha pipes) and a lounge bar Vis-a-Vis (26, Logvinenko)
atmosphere, open till 3am . $$$$ Look for the yellow awning between Kiev and Chui. Santa Maria (217, Chui)
This place is a new honey pot for ex pats. Steak is Plush Korean restaurant offering Eastern favourites,
Jumanji (Behind the circus) including exciting Korean barbecues where you get
always advisable when eating at an appendix to a
It’s strange. This place is decorated with fake jungle to cook your own dinner, plus an extensive Euro-
foliage and is based on a crap kids’ film yet still sort butcher’s, and the sirloin here is exceptional. Also, en-
pean menu. $$$
of works. You also get to roll a pair of Jumanji dice joy English breakfasts, chips that aren’t cold and local
before you order for the chance to win a special se- dark ale Chuiski on tap. Recommended! $$$
Lebanese
cret prize - we like this. $$$
Beirut (Shevchenko/Frunze)
Live Bar* (Kulatova/Pravda)
Indian Now in a new location, Beirut continues to serve en-
Twenty-four hour sports bar with live music at The Host (Sovietskaya, opposite the Hyatt) ticing Lebanese goodies including falaffle, humus,
weekends. Plenty of leather couches provide the A varied and interesting menu including fine Indian and tasty little meat pie things. $$$
ideal place to sip cocktails whilst watching the food make this place a real treat. On midweek days
Champions league at three in the morning. $$$$ there are also several excellent business lunch deals
offering a soup, salad, main course and dessert for Moldovan
Lounge Bar* (338a, Frunze) 250-350 som. A real stand out and a Spektator fa-
One of our favourite places to drink in the Summer- vourite! $$$$ Moldova Restaurant (Kievskaya/Turusbekova)
time, when we can afford it. Outdoor balcony-cum- If it’s been a while since you last went out for a
terrace high above the street with slouch-couches Italian Moldovan, this wooden paneled, sturdy-tabled ea-
and fine views of the circus - which you can some- tery may be the answer to your prayers. Also, the
times smell in hot weather. Nice. $$$ Adriatico (219, Chui) Moldovan Embassy is next door should you care
Reportedly suffering following the departure of to learn more about the world’s favourite budget-
Metro* (133, Chui) its Italian chef, Walter, although we have been told wine exporting country. $$$
In the impressive location of a former theatre, Metro that the soup is still excellent. $$$$
remains the première drinking hole for ex-pats. A Regional/Central Asian
high ceiling, a long bar and friendly staff compli- Bella Italia (Kievskaya/K.Akiev)
ment a good Tex-Mex menu and a wide selection Adriatico’s former Italian chef, Walter, has moved Arabica* (Mederova/Tynastanova)
of drinks. Metro is one of the best bets for catch- homes and is now serving a practically identical range This formerly sophisticated laid back shisha pipe)
ing sporting events on TV, although thanks to the of dishes at this spot just behind October cinema. bar has moved to a new location and, by the looks
hideously late kickoff times for Champions League Enjoy the best pizza in town, gnocci and other typi- of the bath in the toilets, may still be under devel-
football matches, don’t count on the staff waiting up cal Italian numbers, tasty business lunches from 200 opment. Three floors, VIP rooms, kaliyans aplenty.
unless it’s a big one. $$$ soms. $$$$ $$$

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www.thespektator.co.uk November 2010 The Spektator

 24 Bars, Restaurants & Clubs
Arzu-II (Sovietskaya/Lev Tolstoy bridge) Zaporyzhia (9, Prospect Mira) Apple (28, Manas)
Twenty-four hour joint that’s a godsend for those Recently opened, Zaporyzhia is a cossack fla- Fat, old, lecherous foreigners not welcome, this
who get cravings for lagman or manti at four in voured restauraunt in a varnish-scented log cab- place is for a younger cooler crowd. Multiple bars,
the morning. Sometimes smoking isn’t allowed, in. Hearty rustic dishes and a homely atmosphere. large dance floor, friendly atmosphere. Thursday
sometimes it is, however the food and prices are The medovukha is recommended! $$$ usually a big night. (Entrance charge 100-300 som)
constantly pretty good. Comfy booth style seats to
dig yourself into after a heavy night. $$ Turkish Arbat (9, Karl Marks)
Ajar (On Erkindik between Moskovskaya, Toktogula) Tel. 512094; 512087
Arzu-I (Togolok Moldo, next to the stadium) Smart ‘elite’ club popular with a slightly older
Offers a hearty selection of Kyrgyz and European Technically an ‘Azerbaijanian’, but don’t let this fact crowd. Strip bar and restaurant in same building.
dishes and a homely atmosphere. There’s also a ruin the best value kebabs in town. The menu is (Entrance charge 200/350 som midweek, 350/450
great outdoor terrace and national favorouit Arpa limited and if your Russian is too, just say ‘kebab’ and som Fri/Sat. Strip bar 700 som)
on draught. $$ something cheap and tasty will arrive. $
City Club (85/1, Zhukeyeva-Pudovkina)
Derevyashka* (Ryskulova, behind Dvorets Sporta) Carlson (166, Sovietskaya) Tel. 511513; 510581
Atmospheric drinking cabin that serves a range A good outdoor terrace and some hearty food, but So exclusive it makes the Spektator crowd feel like
of Central Asian and Russian cuisine, as well as an the Karaoke style crooners who provide evening cheap scum bags, City Club is one of the posh-
impressive array of pivo. Well worth it on football entertainment are an acquired taste. $$ est clubs in town. Get past the ‘face control’ (ugly
nights, when the locals are rather rowdy. $ people beware) and spend your evening with gang-
Huzur (Kievskaya/Togoluk Moldo,)
Faiza (Jibek Jolu/Prospect Mira) Convivial proprietor Ali claims to have Steven Ger- ster types, lecherous diplomats, Kazakh business-
Possibly the best place to munch traditional grub rard’s 2005 Champion’s League winning Liverpool men and a posse of young rich kids who all seem to
in town. Their fried pelmeni and manti are so good shirt. If you don’t believe that, belive in free lipyosh- have studied in London. (Entrance charge: girls 200/
that they have often run out by supper-time. Save ka and good, affordable Turkish cuisine. $$ boys 300, Fri/Sat girls 300/boys 500
an appetite and go early. $$ Golden Bull (Chui/Togolok Moldo)
Konak (Sovietskaya/Gorkova)
Forel (Vorentsovka village) This Turkish joint used to be ‘Restaurant Camelot’ Tel. 620131
Twenty minutes outside of Bishkek, Forel is a fish- hence the incongruous suits of armour in the back A Bishkek institution. Full of ex-pats and tourists liter-
based ‘relaxation centre’ set amongst babbling room, and the rather crappy castle facade. However, ally every night of the week. Long bar, friendly staff,
streams and offering fine veiws of the mountains. Fish the food is often great, the salads are large and fresh, cheapish beer, everyone’s happy. (Entrance charge
your own trout out of a pool and have it deep fat fried and the staff are always pleasant. Recommended! [girls/boys] free/400 midweek, 150/400 Fri/Sat. ‘For-
for your pleasure. Only salads, bread, tea and juice are (And now open 24 hours a day) $$ eigners’ free.)
sold on site but you are welcome to bring any booze
Retro Metro (24, Mira)
Night
or garnish you desire, it’s also possible to rent a BBQ.
www.retrometro.kg
To get there take a taxi to Vorentsovka village and, if

your taxi driver doesn’t know the exact location, ask a
friendly villager. Trout is 800som/kilo $$$
Jalalabad (Togolok Moldo/Kievskaya)
Basically the cheapest food (that won’t give you gut
rot) in the centre of town. While it should stand out
for its fresh lagman, Jalalabad is sometimes over-
looked. Probably at its best in summer, when the
shashlyk masters flanking the entrance offer their
creations straight to guests sitting at Eastern-style
tables – cross your legs and see how long you can
last before cramp sets in. $
Advertise with
Clubs
Bright, happy, 80’s kitsch bar, the DJ spins his rec-
ords from inside the front of a VW camper van. One
of the most popular places for post-2am partying.
(Entrance charge: 200/300 som midweek, 350/450
There are some Bishkek old-hands who say that som Fri/Sat. Reserve for 200 som)
things aren’t what they used to be when it comes to
nightlife in Bishkek. They talk of legendary nights of Live Music
carnage, vomit, and debauchery - delights that con-
temporary Bishkek struggles to offer. Promzona (16, Cholpon-Atinskaya)
Not so, we say. Take your pick from the list below and www.promzona.kg
we’re sure there’s still enough carnage, vomit and Promzona’s far-flung location sadly means a taxi
debauchery in town to keep everyone happy. ride or a long walk home are in order at the end
of a night. Nevertheless, this trendy live music
venue has a lot going for it: good bands, an exten-
Diskoklubs
sive menu, and a hip industrial interior featuring,

the Spektator
Rates from 2000 som per page.
Email:
advertise@thespektator.co.uk
Russian/Ukrainian
Pirogoff-Vodkin (Kievskaya/Togolok Moldo)
Classy restaurant with a turn of the 20th century the week. (Entrance ‘foreigners’ free)
atmosphere serving Russian specialities. Have your
tea in a giant samovar. $$$
Khutoryanka (Sovietskaya/Lev Tolstoy bridge)
Unassuming, to put it mildly, on the outside, this
place is a revelation on the inside. Delicious food,
reasonable service, Ukrainian brass band music
on the cd player. We love it! $$$
Taras Bulba (Near the Yuzhniy Vorota on Sovietskaya)
Like all the Ukrainian restaurants we’ve tried in
Bishkek, Taras Bulba serves great food. We liked the
potato pancakes with caviar, the delicious soups
and fresh salads. $$$
Heaven (Frunze/Pravda - in the Hotel Dostuk) strangely, a wind tunnel fan, make this one of the
As Heaven is found inside a hotel it is surprisingly best nights out in Bishkek. Tuesday is Jazz night.
unseedy. In fact it stands out for being a bastion of Rock or blues bands normally play at the week-
the well-dressed (if one is generous). Turn up in tatty ends. (Music charge 200-350 som)
jeans and a t-shirt and you may feel a little out of Tequila Blues (Turesbekova/Engels)
place; then again, you may not give a shit. Tables by A possible misnomer, the tequila is just fine but
the dancefloor cost 1000 som but include drinks up the blues is non-existent. Russian studenty types
to this value. (Entrance charge 200-400 som) mosh away the nights to Rock bands in an at-
mospheric underground bunker. (Music charge
Fire & Ice (Tynystanova/Erkindik) 150 som)
A slightly grittier version of Golden Bull. Again, for-
eigners can often get in for free. Popular throughout Sweet Sixties (Molodaya Gvardia/Kievskaya)
Live cover bands most nights. Full menu, popular
with a younger crowd. $$
Gvozd (Western side of the Philharmonia)
Foreigners for free, urban grooves and acceptable Zeppelin (43, Chui)
prices at the bar. ‘Gvozd’ means ‘nail’ in Russian, but Zeppelin is in the same vein as the old Tequila
you’ve probably got a better chance at the Golden Blues but not quite so spit and sawdust. On the
Bull. Its almost like the crowd from Pharaoh have mi- nights we’ve visited, there’s been a line up of young
grated. (Entrance ‘foreigners’ free) rock or punk bands strutting their stuff, heavier
beats seem to go down best with the young Rus-
Platinum (East side of the Philharmonia) sian crowd. Full restaurant menu.
(Entrance charge 100-150 som)
Take a seat at the snazzy 360 degree bar and do bat-
tle with some of Kyrgyzstan’s most convivial ‘elite’ for Live music also common at Stary Edgar’s, Beatles
gold-digging temptresses. (Entrance charge 400- Bar, Foyer and Blonder Pub (see ‘restaurants’)

November 2010 The Spektator www.thespektator.co.uk

 Map 25
vardia a Gvardia
Mol o d aya G Moloday

Jibek
Jo lu
Kievskaya
THE MOUNTAINS

Chui
Engelsa
Lva Tolstogo

Toktogula
1 2 13
23 ve.
Manas a
ve.
Manas a4 5

Ryskulova

Jumabe
ve.
Manas a

Kievskaya
Moskovskaya

Isanova

k
6 11

T. Abdymom
Isanova 8 Koenkozo
va
Isanova 7
12 Dvorets
Sporta
9 10

unov stadium
oldo
Togolok M

Jibe
Michael Frunze
Spartak

k Jo
Chui
Toktogula

k o 14
Logvinen
Moskovskaya

va
Orozbeko
15
Juma

Baeto
16
Lva Tolstog

va
Orozbeko a
Razzakov
Bokonbaeva

bek

va
18 a
Razzakov
17 Erkind
Abdym

Erkindik
Tugolbay

Michae
omuno
o

19 21
l Frunze

a ova
Fatianov Tynystan
va

ova
Tynystan 20 AYA
SOVETSK
AYA
Circus

26 27 SOVETSK
Chui

AYA
Kievskaya

SOVETSK aeva 24
22
Shopoko
va
A. Usenb
Toktogula

25
Lva

va
Shopoko
Pravda
a
Elebaev
Tol

Pravda
s

lya
Gogo
tog

Ogonbae
Moskov
o

North
Bokonb

lya
Gogo
va

www.thespektator.co.uk November 2010 The Spektator

 26 What’s On
Pumpkin Mania
Until 30th November
Cafe Tyubiteyka, 31 Turusbekova/Moscow
A fest for the pumpkin fanatic and a perfect
way to see out the fall. Up to 20 separate dishes
of this lesser-eaten autumn vegetable will be
available at an appealing little cafe up the road
from Metro.
Grand Candy Conspiracy
21st November
Children’s game, Raritet, Pushkin 78
We’re not really sure what this is but it sounds
like a cracking idea in a city that is short of
them. Turn up at Raritet book shop near the Ala-
Too square at 11.00am to find out.
November Dates
Until 31st November
Art Exhibition, Semen Chuikov Museum
Display of Vladimir Butorin’s paintings in the Se-
men Chuikov house/museum. The exhibition is in
honour of the 108th anniversary of Semen Chuik-
ov’s birth. The late Chuikov was a popular painter
in Kyrgyzstan during the Soviet period.
26-27th November
Zepellin is on fire! Zeppelin Club, 43, Chui
Several (relatively) high profile bands will hit the
stage at Zeppelin club. Emil Munbaev and Danil
Surov of Metric Trap fame will be playing, as will
a band named in honour of director and sexual
deviant Roman Polanski. Call 0312 365 849 for
details.
27th-28th November
Swimming gala, Dolphin swimming pool
Athletes from both Bishkek and Kara-Balta will be
competing in this high stakes splash down. 150
will compete in total.
For more listings visit 312.kg. To find out where
places are visit gde.kg.
Into December
11th December
Secrets of Christmas
Classical Concert
Philharmonia 6.30 pm
American Roger Macmerrin arrives in town
with a choir from Kiev for what promises to be
the cultural highlight of the festive season. An
excellent production guaranteed to get you in
the yuletide mood.
TUK Dates for Nov-Dec Entertainment Directory
20th and 21st November The Puppet Theatre
Hike to Suysamyr valley paragliding base. Sovietskaya/Michurina
Overnight cross country ski and snowshoe trip to Performances on Sundays at 11:00am.
Suysamir-Too valley. Transport and organization
(including consultation and guide) per head is Russian Drama Theatre
650 som (550 som for TUK members. Tynystanova, 122 (Situated in Oak Park)
Tel.: 662032, 621571
20th November
White water rafting in Chui/Issyk Kul region
Hours: Mon-Sun, 10:00-18:00
Tickets 30-100 som
Day trip to Ala Archa gorge. Hike to the Ak Say Local and international plays in Russian.
waterfall and visit the International Memorial to
Kyrgyz Alpinists. Walk near Mt. Korona. Different
The Conservatory
levels of complexity from absolute beginners to
Jantosheva, 115
the medium intensity. Distance: 12 km. Transport
Tel: 479542
and organization per head is 220 som (200 som
Concerts by students and professors.
for TUK members).
27th November Kyrgyz State Philharmonic
Trekking in Takir Tor gorge (snowshoe trip) Chui Prospect, 253
One day trip to the Takir Tor gorge. Hiking to Tel: 212262, 212235
the marine lake. Non categorical trip – different Hours: 17:00-19:00 in summer
levels of complexity from absolute beginners to Tickets: 70-100 som (sometimes much more for
medium intensity. Distance: 18 km. Transport and special performances)
organization is 210 som (180 som for TUK mem- There are two concert halls featuring classical,
bers). traditional Kyrgyz, and pop concerts and a variety
of shows.
28th November
Hiking around Issyk Ata gorge Opera Ballet Theatre
One day trip to Issyk-Ata gorge. Trek along the Sovietskaya/Abdymununova
left bank of Issyk Ata river to Botvеу mt (4008 m.). Tel: 66 15 48
Open air picnic. Return back along the right bank Hours: 17:00-19:00
of the river via a local waterfall. Different levels of Tickets: 150-600 som
complexity from absolute beginners to medium Tickets for performances sell out very quickly and
intensity. Distance: 14 km. Transport and organi- it is necessary to book a seat in advance.
zation is 210 som per head (180 som for TUK
members).
5th December Live updates
Trekking around Sokuluk gorge
One day trip to the Sokuluk gorge. Hike to lo- For all the Bishkek opera, ballet and concert listings,
cal waterfall and picnic in the open air. See Peak check our frequently updated What’s On listings at:
Shpil. Return to Bishkek. Different levels of com- www.thespektator.co.uk
plexity – from absolute beginners to medium
intensity.
End of the Year Awards
11th December
Ski Season begins at base Too-Ashuy For our December issue the Spektator plans to run a short,
750 soms (transport, instructor) not including two page piece highlighting the man/woman of the year
equipment hire. Visit our office to book. in Kyrgyz political life and also the villain of the year. We
encourage you to participate in this exercise by sending
Groups meet the Thursday before the weekend of your votes to editor@thespektator.co.uk. If you want to
departure. Call (0312) 906 115 or email us at trek@ expand the theme, send us your bar/restaurant/anything
elcat.kg. Website: www.trek-kyrgyzstan.com of the year accompanied by a review (approx 800 words)

Trekking Union of Kyrgyzstan

Kyrgyz Republic, Bishkek, Chui av. 4A, Office A4
Tel.: +996 (312) 90 61 15, 90 61 39
e-mail: trek@elcat.kg,
website: www.trek-kyrgyzstan.com, www.tuk.kg

Map: Location guide 7. Beta Stores Supermarket 14. New York Pizza 21. Stary Edgars
1. Tequila Blues 8. Derevyashka 15. Cowboy 22. TSUM Department Store
2. Metro Bar (American Pub) 9. Cyclone 16. National Museum 23. Jam
3. Watari 10. Coffee House (II) 17. Navigator 24. Mimino
4. Zaporyzhian Nights 11. Adriatico 18. Sky Bar 25. Arabica
5. Coffe House (I) 12. Santa Maria 19. Foyer 26. Konak
6. 2x2 Bar 13. Faiza 20. Fatboy’s 27. VEFA shopping Centre

November 2010 The Spektator www.thespektator.co.uk