Karakol, Kyrgyzstan and environs

yurt in Djety Oguz meadow

After the Czarist conquest of Central Asia in the mid-1800's, and even more following the Bolshevik revolution, Russians were moved to the Central Asian area of the Russian empire.  In part, this was to get rid of potential or real dissidents who might threaten the regime and also to begin to "Russianize" the far-away parts of the empire.

Karakol's Russian Orthodox church

Karakol was one such remote place where Russians moved to work in factories (particularly a torpedo factory far from any bodies of water with ships that could use them), farm and teach the Kyrgyz tribesmen and women the Russian language and culture.  One important aim of Soviet policy was to free women from the strictures of Muslim sharia law and purdah, where they were kept in their homes and/or fully veiled if they ventured outside.  Women were to be freed to work for the benefit of the Soviet Union and to be educated to further help the fatherland.  This effort met with considerable success so that now, in Kyrgyzstan, as well as other former Soviet Central Asian Republics, you see very few women veiled or even wearing the chador.

Kyrgyz Muslim woman on her cell phone

The Russians built tiny houses, painted white with blue windows, because they were easier to heat during Karakol's freezing winters.  They also built a charming Russian Orthodox church which still serves the small Russian population.  We visited during a Sunday service and were able to listen to women chanting hymns and prayers and to watch the regally-attired priest bearing wine and bread emerge from a sacred altar room behind the main altar.  Everyone else was plainly and somewhat poorly dressed.  In Russian Orthodox churches, the congregation stands throughout the service, except for very old women and young mothers with babies. The floors of the church are bare wood and there are very few places to sit, so when the time comes to pray on one's knees, the parishioners kneel on the hard floor.  Most of the congregants were older women; very few men.

Chinese Uigher mosque

Chinese Uigher Muslims from western China also came to Karakol and built their own mosque. They remain in the area today.  Most Kyrgyz are Muslims but many don't follow Muslim practices.

Outside Karakol, herding families take their cattle, sheep, goats and horses to the mountain valleys in the summer, living in their yurts, which they haul to their assigned meadows in SUV's and pick-ups. We had lunch in a yurt in the Djety Oguz Gorge, part of a rather basic yurt hotel.  Our hike up the beautiful valley was a real highlight of our time in Kyrgyzstan.

Most of the herding families had moved back to their winter villages where they live in homes as the nights are getting cold and the grass, short.

mountains beyond Djety Oguz Gorge

fall color