Impressions of Osh and Bishkek
Kyrgyzstan
September 29th – October 3rd, 2007
By Dan Murdoch

OSH is famous for its bazaar, though I wasn’t that impressed. My favourite stall
sold a single roller blade, four wind-dial telephones, a selection of second hand electricity sockets, various ratchets, one faucet, two plates, a cashiers tray, a wing mirror, one large cooking pot and assorted nuts, bolts and screws.
The man’s entire business.

Cobblers lined the rusting bridge repairing tatty shoes over a dirty river.
From the thick crowd an old man held my hand tight: “Manchester United?” he asked.
“Yes.”
“Aha,” he celebrated this victory of communication long and hard before expanding: “Anglia Ruski tree nil”
“Yes, we beat the Russians.”
“Aha,” another victory cry, he still wouldn’t release my hand, “Chelsea?”
“No, Chelsea are boring, Chelsea eta scoochnaya.”
“Aha,” he loved that one and squeezed my hand tightly. The conversation was typical of my travels. Pretty much everywhere I have been in the world, except the United States, people speak the international language of football.
“Beckham, America?”
Even here, in this strange outpost of civilisation, Beckham’s move the states is big news.

Many of the city’s buildings still bear communist murals depicting strong boned, clean shaven men in factory overalls and bright eyed independent women in jeans in front of ploughed field and assembly lines. At least Sovietism was a victory for women’s rights.
A fantastic variety of hats top the streets. Little skull caps, clinging to the back of the head, sharp cut fedoras in pale blue with embroidered ribbons, the sweeping Pamir hat looking impossibly balanced and ready to topple.

We visited Salaman mountain- where all your dreams come true. According to legend Mohammed came through here and camped for the night. At the spot where he slept the ground rose up to form a mountain in the exact shape of his reclined body.
The mountain is etched with lover’s graffiti, messages entirely suitable of a geological miracle, such as “Samir loves Ruia”.
If you take a dried thistle from the mountain’s soil you can cleanse your home of evil spirits, and by tying a strip of ribbon to a tree your dreams will come true in a week. You slide down a few metres of smoothed rock seven times to cure back problems and place your hand in a hole three times to have a wish granted. Pilgrims crawl into a tiny crevice to pray to Allah, and joggers exercise on the undulating path. The foot of the hill is a sprawling cemetery of people wishing to forever lie where the Prophet once rested.
From the top Osh stretches out across the wide river valley, a beautiful respite from the mountains. It looked greener than from the ground, a neat grid of tree lined roads, few buildings breaking the two-storey skyline.


In Kyrgyzstan one of our main sponsors, the pharmaceutical giant Richter, has a base. So here they have been helping us out with visas, transport and accommodation.
The country is divided into north and south by a range of snowy mountains. The north is the more Russified, and has always held the reigns of power from the capital, Bishkek. The south is more conservative and more Muslim, and, in 2003 revolted, beginning in the cities of Osh and Jahalabad.
I asked one of our Richter contacts how things had changed since then.
“In 2003,” she told me, “People wanted a change- the president had put all the power in his family and people were not happy. After that many people left Kyrgyzstan. It was a difficult time. But now things are safe. People are calm and friendly, they have smiles.
”On October 21 we vote on a new constitution and that should help make the country more democratic.”
But when I arrived in Bishkek and asked the same question, I got a different answer: “Things are worse since 2003,” the Richter lady told me. She said she was Russian, but was born in Kyrgyzstan, to Kyrgyz parents, and had lived and worked here all her life. “There is less money. The country is going nowhere. There is no money here. Not like Kazakhstan or Russia. Kyrgyz people do not make anything. They just buy and sell things in the bazaar.
“The culture of our people is not great. They do not wash their hands before they eat, they eat from the same plate. I cannot understand it.”
We were driving through the city and she paused to point: “That is our White House,” she explained, gesturing at a crumbling concrete edifice surrounded by limp fountains.
What about the new constitution?
“Bah,” she scoffed, “three weeks until the vote and still we have not been allowed to see the document. Why do you think that is? No, there will be no more rights for us. The leaders don’t care about democracy.”
Is there corruption?
“Oh yes, of course. Everywhere. People have so little money. If they are in a position with power then they use it to make money for themselves. I think corruption is in the blood of our people.”
Strong words, but I didn’t take them to heart. A wannabe Russian living in the city.

We had been looking forward to the accommodation Richter had promised to provide in Bishkek, but when we started pulling into a down-trodden ill-paved courtyard my heart sank.
We got out of the car, and a thick breeze scooped up rafts of dust, sand and litter and swung them into shawled faces of poor old ladies. This is not what I was hoping for. Our apartment had the demoralising ambiance of a prison block, even the cockroaches looked embarrassed to be seen there. Then the cherry: no showers. The simplest of pleasures, but we were desperate for a hot shower, it had been days. But we would have to go to a public washroom across the street.

Ends
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