Postcards from Stanland

by David H. Mould

  The mild climate, hot mineral springs, and clear waters made the lake popular for convalescents. The Russian explorer Nikolai Mikhailovich Przhevalsky, returning from his fourth expedition (1883–85) to Mongolia, China, Tibet, and the Tian Shan, traveled along the north shore of the lake. Three years later, he was in Bishkek (then Pishpek) outfitting for another expedition. While on a hunt along the Chuy River, he ignored the standard traveler’s advice “Don’t drink the water (or at least boil it first)” and came down with typhus. He was sent to a military hospital at Karakol and died on October 20 at the age of forty-nine. At his request, he was buried by the lake in his explorer’s clothes, his grave crowned with a bronze eagle. The tsar ordered Karakol to be renamed Przhevalsk in his honor. Przhevalsky’s grave, a memorial park, and museum are located a few miles outside Karakol on an inlet, which also bears his name. The honoring of the explorer is ironic, considering his contempt for the Asian peoples he encountered on his expeditions. As Meyer points out, he was not alone among nineteenth-century explorers, soldiers, and missionaries in believing he was on a mission to fast-track the natives toward civilized society. In an 1877 report, Przhevalsky wrote: “Our military conquests in Asia bring glory not only to Russia; they are also victories for the good of mankind. Carbine bullets and rifled cannon bear those elements of civilization which would otherwise be very long in coming to the petrified realms of the Inner Asian khans.”1

  The Mikhailovka inlet was selected by the Soviets for another type of exploration. The depth of the lake and its remoteness (away from the cameras of US spy planes) made it a good location for the Soviet navy to test high-precision torpedoes. You could fire one off into the lake, kill a few fish, and then recover it for further study. A military research complex grew up, with cranes, docks, warehouses, and naval cutters. In 1991, President Akayev turned down a Russian request to continue military research, ordering that the site be converted to civilian use, but no funds were available. In 2008, Kyrgyzstan agreed to lease the area to the Russian navy for about $4.5 million a year.

  Of course, the Soviet industrial workers who spent their vacations at resorts and sanatorii (health spas) had no idea that secret torpedo experiments were going on just down the road. They were enjoying the clean air, beaches, hot springs, mountain walks, and sporting activities. Some sanatorii doubled as medical facilities. After independence, the influx of tourists abruptly ended, and some state-owned resorts, without visitors or maintenance budgets, closed. In the first wave of privatization, some were sold to entrepreneurs whose political or family connections enabled them to snap up prime lakeside property at fire-sale prices; nevertheless, the new owners often lacked the capital to invest or modernize, and the resorts went into a not-so-genteel decline. The tourist industry has since revived, with an increase in domestic, Kazakh, and Russian tourists and Westerners on trekking trips, and the resorts are again attracting investors.

  On the southern shore, away from the beaches, resorts, and health spas, lies an economic asset more significant than tourism—Central Asia’s largest gold mine and the second-largest operation in the world (after Yanacocha in Peru). The Kumtor mine, operated by Centerra Gold, a Canadian company, began production in 1997. Initial government hopes that gold would boost the flagging economy were disappointed as world prices declined in the 1990s, but as prices rose the mine’s economic impact increased. Kumtor accounts for 12 percent of Kyrgyzstan’s GDP, 40 percent of industrial output, more than 50 percent of exports, and more than 10 percent of the national budget. It has a workforce of 2,600, most of them from the local area, and wages starting at $1,500 a month are more than seven times the national average.

  As in all mining operations, economic benefits are weighed against environmental costs. In 1998, soon after the mine opened, a truck carrying sodium cyanide used in the gold extraction process crashed into the River Barskoon, which flows into the lake. Of the 20 tons of chemical, 1.8 tons were found to have seeped into the river. Environmental groups claimed four people died and at least eight hundred were taken to hospital suffering from skin rashes and chemical burns. Fish and cattle were found dead along the lakeshore. Farmers lost income, because consumers would not buy their produce for fear of contamination. The government rejected the claims of death and sickness, saying the cyanide leakage was not substantial enough to harm the environment. In 2006, more than three thousand local residents, working round the clock, blocked the main road leading to the mine to protest the lack of compensation. Opposition politicians called on the government to nationalize the mine and impose stricter environmental, health, and safety standards. Instead, the government renegotiated the contract and took a 33 percent stake in the parent company. Most of the compensation claims have still not been settled.

  Kumtor maintains an aggressive public relations effort, emphasizing its contributions to the national and local economies. It claims 95 percent of its full-time employees are Kyrgyz citizens and that it is hiring locals to replace foreign managers. On its website, a carefully selected group of employees—from mining engineers, welders, and mechanics to cooks and accountants—talk about how the mine has changed their lives, and the fortunes of their families and communities. They grumble about the politicians in Bishkek who want to overregulate the mine. In 2013, a state commission fined the company almost $500 million, accusing it of corruption, unpaid taxes, and environmental degradation. Parliament called for the current lease agreement, concluded under the Bakiyev regime, to be negotiated. Centerra says the agreement is legitimate and that it has invested $1.2 billion in the mine, extending its life to 2026. “It’s a fraud,” Kumtor’s boss Michael Fischer told the Economist. “They should be spending their time trying to find another Kumtor rather than shaking down the one they’ve got.”2

  The Road to Karakol

  From Bishkek, the road to Karakol runs east along the Chuy Valley, which forms the northern border with Kazakhstan. East of Tokmak, the road rises into the Chuy River gorge and across the mountains to Balykchy, the main town and bus terminus on the western shore of the lake. Along the riverbank in the mountains are memorials marked simply “1916,” a reminder of the short-lived rebellion by Kyrgyz and Kazakhs against the requisition of supply cattle, cotton, and food and the conscription of men into labor battalions. The revolt was brutally suppressed, with Russian troops razing villages. In the middle of the harsh winter, an estimated 50,000 fled across the mountains, hoping to reach the Chinese border. Some were killed, but many more starved or froze to death and were buried along the roadside.

  Like most journeys outside the main cities in Kyrgyzstan, the trip to Karakol is best made between May and November; in winter and spring, the road is often closed because of snowdrifts, flooding, and avalanches. We made the elementary error of taking the first bus leaving the avtovokzal, thinking it would arrive ahead of later departures. It pays to visually inspect the vehicle before boarding. Bus drivers were responsible for maintaining their vehicles, and it was common to see a bus stopped with the hood up while the driver fixed some problem. We got on board a dented blue PAZ-672 of uncertain vintage. The 672 model from the Pavlovskiy Avtobusniy Zavod (Pavlovo Bus Factory) was one of the workhorse Soviet-era buses, used for both city and long-haul transport. The PAZ “no worries, no hassles” service contract (if there ever was one) definitely expired with the fall of the Soviet Union, leaving city governments and bus operators scrambling for spare parts. Many bus stations in Central Asia in the 1990s had unofficial scrap yards, where old buses were broken up for spare parts. Fortunately, there were lots of old 672s growing weeds, and, at a pinch, a part from its precursor, the PAZ-652, might work.

  Our bus would probably have made it on a city run, but it was not up to the 250 miles to Karakol. It gasped and wheezed its way out of Bishkek, but on the first ascent out of the Chuy Valley, it pulled over with the radiator steaming. The driver’s assistant jumped out carrying a large gas can, scrambled down the slope to the river, and came back half an hour later to refill
the radiator. From that point on, we stopped every thirty or forty minutes for radiator maintenance, with the assistant filling up at roadside pumps, large puddles, and—when we eventually reached it—the lake. The scheduled six-hour trip turned into a nine-hour trip, but everyone on board was remarkably good-natured about the whole affair.

  Although it’s the administrative and commercial center of northeastern Kyrgyzstan with a population of 80,000, Karakol in the mid-1990s still had the atmosphere of a country town. Even on market days, the traffic was light and some people got around by horse and cart. Children slid down the smooth stone step railing and played on the small square outside the oblast administration building; locals drank tea and played cards at the Santa Barbara restaurant, a long low building with a shocking-pink paint job that was supposed to make you imagine you were in Southern California. The town’s sleepy charm owed much to the fact that it’s on the way to nowhere in particular. Here, the lake road loops west again to run along the southern shore toward Barksoon, eventually linking back to the Bishkek road at Balykchy. A road runs east and then south, dead-ending at the thirty-seven-mile-long Inylcheck glacier in the Central Tian Shan; you can’t go much further east without getting serious about jeeps and mountain guides. This makes Karakol an excellent base for trekkers, mountaineers, and skiers, but it’s also well worth exploring for its own treasures.

  MAP 5.1 From Bishkek to Issyk Kul and Karakol (map by Brian Edward Balsley, GISP)

  In the older part of town, along streets lined with poplar and birch, are simple houses built in the Russian colonial era—some plain, some with attractive gingerbread trim. Most are single story, but there are a few larger, two-story homes built by merchants and professionals. The wooden Russian Orthodox cathedral was completed in 1895 but was closed by the Soviets in the 1930s; the five onion domes were destroyed, and the building was used as an officers’ club. It was later restored, and services are held regularly. Eight mosques were also destroyed in the 1930s as Stalin’s government sought to suppress Islam in the region. Only the Dungan (Chinese Muslim) mosque, a remarkable building constructed without nails by Chinese workers in 1910, remains. Maybe it escaped the Soviet bureaucrats’ ire because it looks more like a Buddhist temple than a mosque.

  FIGURE 5.1 Traditional Russian house, Karakol

  FIGURE 5.2 Russian Orthodox cathedral, Karakol

  FIGURE 5.3 Chinese Dungan mosque, Karakol

  FIGURE 5.4 Bus shelter near Karakol

  As was the case with other towns and cities, the name changed with the prevailing political winds. The name Przhevalsk survived the 1917 revolution. The Bolsheviks figured that an intrepid explorer (even one with imperialist tendencies) was a suitable addition to the historical gallery of heroes of the USSR. The locals never liked it much—after all, Przhevalsky’s only civic contribution had been to die there—so they protested, and in 1921 the name was restored to Karakol. Stalin changed it back to Przhevalsk in 1939 to celebrate the centenary of the explorer’s birth. At independence in 1991, it became Karakol again.

  Its heart is not the central square with its modest Lenin statue but the bazaar. In summer it is a blaze of colors, a feast of aromas. Although Kyrgyzstan’s northern neighbor pitches the “apples are from Kazakhstan” line, the orchards around Issyk Kul, with a similar climate and soil, produce excellent apples and pears. As in other bazaars, the most tawdry section is the fashion aisle—cheap, imported clothes from Pakistan, Bangladesh, and Thailand with misspelled, sewn-in “designer labels.” The Chinese rip-offs of consumer electronics even reproduced fonts. Look closely: it’s not a Panasonic; it’s a Panascanic. We found more to see at the Sunday morning animal market, where people came in from the country to trade sheep, cattle, and horses. It was a wonderful seething mass of humanity, animals, and carts.

  The Hotel Karakol, one of only two in town, had definitely seen better days. There was no hot water, and the rooms, though clean, were dark and drab. However, the staff was friendly and, at $6 a night, we could hardly complain. The main challenge was getting something to eat. Snacks were sold on the street and at the bazaar, but most restaurants opened only for lunch. Twice we ended up at a bar near the hotel, eating whatever they had available. In the mid-1990s, foreign visitors were still a curiosity, so people wanted to talk with us. The second night Stephanie drove the crowd wild by attempting to teach the Electric Slide to a Turkish disco number. We were immediately invited to dance and had to pass the can-the-Americans-hold-the-vodka test.

  The Rocky Road to Osh

  A month later, Stephanie and I were back at the avtovokzal to plan for a longer trip. After the stop-and-start nine-hour bus journey to Karakol, we figured we would make better time in a marshrutka, even a crowded one. Unfortunately, no marshrutkas were going as far as we needed to go—to Osh, a trip of 375 miles. They went only as far as Toktogul, the main town on the country’s largest reservoir. We would have to stay overnight, probably in a down-market version of the Hotel Karakol, then try to pick up another marshrutka heading south in the morning.

  The trip was part business, part pleasure. After months of delays, mostly caused by lost paperwork and poor communication in Washington, the Osh Media Resource Center was finally up and running; furniture and computers had been installed, audio and video equipment was on the way, and classes had begun. I needed to spend a few days working with the manager Renat, who for over nine months had had not much more to manage than an empty room. I needed to set up the schedule for training programs, renew local media contacts, and work on equipment and technical issues. Then Stephanie and I planned to get a taste of the culture of Kyrgyzstan by attending the Osh Harvest Festival, which for now I’ll describe as a cross between an old-style state fair, a Western rodeo, Wrestlemania, and a Highland games with a no-holes-barred polo game.

  We had decided to travel overland rather than fly, not only to save money but to see rural Kyrgyzstan and its mountain ranges before winter arrived. Most people we talked to thought it was a bad idea. It was a long, hazardous journey and there were bandits on the road. In spring, the road was often blocked by rockslides, in winter, by snowdrifts. There are three mountain passes, the highest rising to almost 11,000 feet. In 1996, it was still a two-lane road all the way, but for long stretches deteriorated into what in the United States would be classified as a county (maybe even a township) road, full of ruts and potholes. The government was always talking about improving the road, but nothing was done. With a clear run, the trip took at least twelve hours; we ended up needing fourteen, and we’d heard of nightmare twenty-two-hour trips. Yet this was the main north-south artery in the country, connecting the two major population centers in the Chuy and Fergana valleys.

  The Bishkek travel agencies were willing to take us but at an exorbitant price—$450 one way for a jeep or four-wheel drive vehicle. We figured we could find a cheaper ride with someone who had driven to Bishkek and needed to get home. That’s how I found myself at the avtovokzal, along with Salavan, an Osh native, looking for cars with Osh and Djalalabad license plates. I’d asked Salavan to interpret and do the bargaining, knowing he would get a better price than I could. On a side street, we found the unofficial collecting point for passengers and goods heading south—a small group of cars, their drivers squatting on the dirt sidewalk. The cars were all about the same size (Soviet-era compact), so I picked the largest and strongest-looking driver; I figured that if there really were bandits out there, our odds would be better traveling with him. Jorobev was a Kyrgyz in his early forties with the build of a football linebacker; I imagined he had been a wrestler in his youth. Salavan told me he would take us for 1,200 som ($75). That was more than a local would pay, he said, but it was half the “foreigner’s price” I’d have paid if I’d tried bargaining myself. It was also one sixth of the travel agency price. I paid Jorobev 200 som ($12) up front, and he promised to pick us up at the apartment at 6 a.m. the next morning. I had no way of knowing whether he would show up, although I reckoned the balance of 1,
000 som might be incentive enough. He was right on time, and we sped off in his battered but mechanically well maintained Lada 300, the trunk stacked with our luggage and his commercial cargo—two cases of vodka he was taking to sell in Osh. It turned out we needed the extra ballast.

  From Bishkek, the main road runs west along the Chuy Valley for about sixty miles to the town of Kara Balta before turning south and ascending into the Kyrgyz Ala Too range through a narrow gorge. The mountains are rough slopes of loose rocks, with little vegetation and few trees. Apart from the lack of a guardrail, the main hazards were rocks that had fallen onto the road. For Jorobev this was just normal driving. Still, it’s tiring work dodging boulders, and by 8 a.m. he was feeling hungry. We stopped at a group of weather-beaten wooden shacks, parking behind a line of trucks on a narrow strip of ground overlooking a ravine. There was no sign, but Jorobev said this was the last place to find food before we ascended to the first pass. We shared a bowl of grechka (buckwheat) topped with boiled mutton. Two truck drivers joined us; we couldn’t figure out whether they knew Jorobev, but on the road to Osh there are no strangers. They washed down their meal with a bottle of vodka. We were relieved that Jorobev was happy with tea. After the obligatory driver-posing-by-Lada-at-truckstop-with-the-Americans photos, we took off again, heading for the first pass, the Tor-Ashuu (11,765 ft.), where the Kyrgyz Ala Too and Talas Ala Too ranges meet. The views of the mountains and deep valleys were jaw-dropping, but it was too much to ask to ask Jorobev to stop so we could take pictures because we were already in the snow. He handled the small car expertly, controlling the skids on the bends and staying in high gear to maintain traction.