A winter in Osh - Kyrgyzstan

For over 2,000 years Osh has been a landmark of Central Asia.  Alexander the Great passed through on his way towards India and it was a key trading centre on the Silk Road. It is also one of the few cities left from the old days that retains its statue of Lenin in the central square.

Osh is a gateway to the Pamir Highway that leads to Kherog in Tajikistan and then finally on to Dushambe. It is an epic journey.

I have since been back many times but that first winter in the early 90's was a real shock after Africa. The cold and wind chill ensured every field trip required careful planning.

The old order had departed back to the Russian Federation taking its expertise and Kyrgyzstan existed in a surreal twilight zone, quite unsure of what was going to happen next. 

People made the best of a difficult time. Dances were held in the Hotel Osh. The heating had failed and in that sub zero freezer, people danced dressed in thick fur coats and hats. Stalls out in the snow sold shashliks and plov and champanski and beer. Soft drinks and beer were hopeless as they froze in the bottle before you could swallow them. Some local vodkas were drinkable, but many tasted suspiciously of diluted diesel.

Above Osh is the Sulayman Mountain, Kyrgyzstan's only world heritage site. A mosque on the top was built by Babur a decendant of Tamerlane. Streams of ribbons attached to branches mark the way to the top, left to invoke prayers and wishes, particularly by women hoping for children.

On top of the Sulayman Mountain

Osh Market is one of the biggest in Central Asia and that winter it was encased in thick ice which made staying upright virtually impossible.

The crowd was so dense it was also virtually impossible to fall over, so when you began to slide it was a human version of pin ball as with increasing speed you bounced off the Kyrgyz around you until someone would grab hold until you regained your balance. Most fruit were  seasonally available and non existent in winter. The pickled variety for winter consumption left a lot to be desired.

Bus stop in the shape of the national hat

When spring arrived the city was transformed into a carpet of blossom. The snows finally melted and travel into the surrounding mountains was at last possible.

Lake Victoria of the Pamirs – Travels in Tajikistan.

Tajikistan is the Country with nature  on the grandest scale.

Access is via the  Pamir Highway, the second highest international road in the world, Dushambe to Khorog - 13 hours of stunning scenery, bumpy roads and scary edge of cliff track sections.

I first worked in Tajikistan in 1994 during a particularly vicious civil war which lasted up to 1997. Dushambe was full of Russian military and a place to be firmly indoors before dark.  The Garm Valley was one of the centres of opposition to the Government as was the remote eastern Oblast of Gorno Badakhshan.  

The people  unlike Turkic populations of the surrounding countries have a different culture, historically looking towards Persia (present day Iran), 

The Fann Mountains and Lake Iskanderkul are stunning but eastern Gorno Badakhshan and Khorog are the places to draw one back again and again.  Khorog was built to firmly establish the area within the Russian sphere of influence in an area contested with the British and the Emir of Bukhara.

Here the Fedchenko Glacier is the longest outside of the polar regions, Pik Lenina one of the highest and  Lake Victoria of the Pamirs, named by British cartographers in honour of their Queen. The Black Lake now goes by the name of Lake Karakul.  It's nearly 13,000 feet above sea level, 52 km in diameter and set in what is believed to be a meteorite impact crater.

Lake Victoria of the Pamirs

If the Yeti exists anywhere it is up here in the Pamirs. Stories of its existence  have been circulating since the 19^th century and expeditions have been sent. One can readily believe in the possibility when alone in the High Pamirs.