I went to Turkey exactly 10 years ago tomorrow. Now here I am sitting in the airport in Istanbul waiting for my last flight. It is a great airport, and I’m enjoying some excellent Turkish cuisine. I love all of the tomatoes and eggplant dishes in Turkey. On the way home, I’m spending one night here.
July 8
An epic hero of Kyrgyzstan in front of the philharmonic building.
Parliament building close up.
These guards were marching in perfect step from the flag. We were not sure if they were just marching or changing guards and a new point.
Traditional Kyrgyzstan women’s wedding clothing.
Beautiful felt tapestries. We will be visiting a workshop for felt later this week.
One of the war hero’s uniforms from WWII, which Russia and the former Soviet states call the Great Patriotic War.
An area showing clothing and material culture.
The main hall of the museum. It included three floors and a basement.
A few blocks from the museum, this is meant to show solidarity, and it does look very communist.
I enjoyed a sea buckthorn lemonade. This berry is very popular as an herbal tea or in other things. Unusual and refreshing.
July 9 Bishkek and off to a Village
We began the day at the bizarre, wandering through various foods, spices, meats, clothing, souvenirs, etc.
I love walking through these markets and feel the way they entice all the senses. Also, it offers a perspective on foodways and other aspects of culture.
The meat butchery smelled foul, but it was fascinating. I have never seen one this large and busy.
Tongue!
This region is famous for its beautiful stamped bread. We will see a lot more of this.
We then walked around Bishkek, learning about buildings, squares and monuments from our guide, Ilyas. He is a lot of fun and said that this group of all women is the dream tour he has been waiting for, ha ha.
This monument shows the friendship between the Kyrgyz people and the Russians. It looks very Russian.
This one shows one of what Ilyas called a revolution. There have been three of them, though I’m not convinced about how revolutionary they were from listening to Ilyas. I would say they were at least resistances. This monument shows the pushing against the dark and old and having the light at your back.
On our walk, we also visited a memorial to WWII or the Great Patriotic War in Russia and these parts. This woman represents Kyrgyz mothers who were ready with their bowls to feed orphans of the 150,000 sent to fight, most never returning.
The Central Mosque or what is called the White Mosque was next on our trip. Apparently, Turkey helped fund it, and it looks a bit like a smaller Blue Mosque (Sultanhamat) on the outside. It was built in what was the central part of Bishkek during Soviet times, though not now. It was just finished in 2017. We went in for several minutes and enjoyed watching what appeared to be a young madrassa (Islamic school) for boys. You can see that it is stunning, and I feel a sense of peace in them.
For lunch we traveled to a Dungan home. These are Chinese Muslims who live in the area, and it is popular for visitors to enjoy and traditional meal with them. They grow everything in their gardens and hand pull the noodles, and it was a fantastic meal, I loved the Chinese chives, which are a mild oniony/garlicky flavor.
We drove on to the Tian Shen mountains where we had a house stay in a small village. The owner of this arranged an extra experience for us, for which we paid extra, to watch some horse games. This was a highlight.
The young men showed us a wrestling game first where the object is to pull your opponent off their horse, by grabbing the other’s sash.
Then they showed us how they would pick up coins wrapped in little cloth packets from the ground. Then they showed us a traditional activity where a young man will try to snatch a young woman from her horse. This is a pre marriage ritual done to show that he is prepared to be a good husband because of his strong horsemanship. The horse culture is very important here. In this case, as a demonstration, the young man just hugged and kissed the girl. She was a lovely young lady of 16 who spoke a little English. She is one of the daughters of the owner of the guest house we stayed at. She helped serve us the wonderful dinner and breakfast we enjoyed at the house.
The last game is very popular here and has strong, actual teams. The players put on blue or red jerseys to denote their team. A headless and footless just killed goat will be dropped in the center of the playing field, and then the teams compete to grab the goat from the ground and take it to the end goal on one side or the other. They try to get it from each other and take it to their own goal. One of the players on the blue team was especially good at this game and scored most of the goals, but the red team did score a couple of goals. We loved this spectacle. In case you are wondering, the goat will then be cooked and eaten, as it will be well tenderized and the meat not wasted. You can see that the horses became quite sweaty and tired, as did the players.
We then stayed at the guest house, which had lovely, clean rooms decorated with the traditional felt made in this region. We really loved this visit. I brought some huckleberry taffy to share with the family.
An evening walk close to where I stayed.
Favorite group shots of the day
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