THE Spektator №1 October 2008

Your monthly guide to what’s happening in and around Bishkek

A very
Dungan
wedding
p 16

Plus:
Into the wild
The road to Naryn
Climb Chongkerchuck

. .
Tourist Map What’s On Restaurant Guide
2 Advertisement

alatoo

Who we are
CAMP Alatoo is a non-profit and non-governmental organization
founded in 2005 promoting sustainable development in the mountain
regions of Kyrgyzstan. CAMP Alatoo is a successor organization of the
Central Asian Mountain Partnership (CAMP), a program financed
by the Swiss Agency for Development and Cooperation. Jointly with
its partner organizations in Kazakhstan and Tajikistan, CAMP Alatoo
forms part of the CAMP Network which employs about 25 people.

What we want
The overall goal is to contribute to the improvement of people’s livelihoods
in the mountain villages of Kyrgyzstan by encouraging a more
sustainable use of natural resources.

How we work
CAMP Alatoo pursues a trans-disciplinary and multi-stakeholder
approach based on local, regional and international partnerships
and experiences. CAMP Alatoo develops, adapts and implements
innovative, simple and effective technologies with an emphasis on
awareness raising and involvement by villagers, local institutions,
partner organizations and experts.

What we do
CAMP Alatoo supports the development of mountain villages by promoting
the sustainable use of natural resources through:
theoretical a • nd practical trainings
• institutional development of NGOs
• soil and water conservation technologies
• energy saving technologies
• participatory pasture management
• integrated local risk management
• small grants

www.camp.kg

Central Asian Mountain Partnership

Alliance
N o n g ove r n m e n t a l o rg a n i z a t i o n s of Central Asian
for sustainable rural development Mountain Communities
 The Spektator Magazine
Publisher: Tom Wellings

Contents
Staff writers: Alex Ward, Robert Marks,
Andreas Hedfors, Carl Whetham,
Anthony Butts, Asel Orozalieva

Email: tom_wellings@live.co.uk

Out & About

Into the wild
A hapless Russo-British expedition into 4
deepest, darkest Altyn Arashan

Chongkerchuck gorge yourself

Rock climbing on your doorstep, plus 8
where to buy and rent gear

Secret Korean restaurant

We barge into a ‘locals-only’ restaurant 10
operating out of somebody’s front room

This Month
News and Views
Mutated TB, blackouts, cultural festivals
12
and a wrap of the month’s news

Introducing the super stove

How a local NGO is helping Kyrgyz vil-
14
lagers to make the most of their energy

Focus
A very Dungan wedding
We gatecrash a 130-year-old tradition in
16
Tokmok and hear the story of the Dungans
Tales from the road: Journey to Naryn
Ivar Dale travels to the highest, coldest
20
poorest part of Kyrgyzstan

Get Kymyz
The boozer’s guide to fermented horsemilk
23

The Guide
Restaurants, Bars, Clubs 27
Don’t get poisoned, use our restaurant
guide, plus all the best bars and clubs in
town

What’s On
The pick of the entertainment listings for
30
October

Map
Don’t get lost...
31
Weekend
Crosswords, Sudoku, and other things to
32
do over a coffee
On the Cover: Dungan Wedding by Andreas Hedfors

Spektator
THE

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 4 Out & About
Rotten pig fat, houses that run around
on chicken legs, vodka at every turn, and
drunken men with crossbows; even in
the remotest mountain wilderness, Rus-
sian influence in Kyrgyzstan is far from
dead. Follow Rob Marks and Pavel Kro-
potkin on their hapless, Russo-British
expedition into deepest, darkest Altyn
Arashan
Far right Lake Ala-kol (R. Marks)
October 2008 The Spektator
Into
the wild
A
ROB MARKS
LL THE BEST BRITISH expeditions seem al park, but altitude sickness had quickly kicked
to start off late, or under equipped, or our arses back down the mountain again. We
with a spectacular lack of planning decided that the beautiful 40km trek from the
and foresight. Look at the history. picturesque ‘Seven Bulls’ at the crumbling Soviet
Captain Scott, for example, decided spa at Jetti-Orguz, to the more rustic hot springs
the best way to transport his provisions across in the mountains at Altyn-Arashan, via the high
the frozen arctic wastes would be on fine Cornish altitude Ala-Kol lake, would be excellent acclima-
ponies, which promptly caught cold and died, tization. Most trekkers take around four or five
with Scott following a few agonizing weeks later. days to do the trek (although now we had less
Similarly, Newby set off into the Hindu Kush to than three days’ worth of food).
make the first ascent of an unclimbed peak with I contemplated all this as we sat down to the
a sum total of one weekend of mountaineering obligatory kymyz outside the yurt of a grateful
experience in his team. As for the Scots, Mungo chap who we’d given a lift on our way to the start
Park, after many near of the trail. Beside us, the
misses that should “Can you sell us any food?” we enquired. matriarch of the house-
have taught him bet- He had none to spare, but there were hold, who spoke Russian
ter, ended his final trip however several cases of beer and vodka” with a perfect accent,
into the interior of Af- and who had travelled
rica by finally succumbing to a tribe of cannibals. the length and breadth of the Soviet Union, sat
And so, aware of this unhealthy tradition, it making smetana (sour cream) with a process of
came as no surprise to me to discover as I opened infinite slowness, while we struggled to com-
my rucksack at the start of the four day trek from municate with the Kyrgyz-speaking younger
Jetti-Orguz to Altyn-Arashan, which would take generations, who had clearly been holed up in
us over two 4000m passes, that I had left the the mountains for the last few years. Indeed,
greater portion of our food behind in our lodg- the times they are a-changing in Kyrgyzstan.
ings on Lake Issyk-Kul. Fortunately my own ra- Leaving our chocolate ration behind in
cial handicap was offset by the disgusting dietary thanks, we strolled our way through the idyllic
habits of my Russian companion, Pavel, who alpine scenery, interrupted only by the occa-
had procured from somewhere several hundred sional yurt. By the end of the day we had met
grams of purest, raw pig fat and some onions. It up with some much better prepared Germans
seemed it was going to be a long trip. (who had in fact brought all their own food with
We had previously attempted to climb a route them from Germany), and some Swiss, whose
high above the Ak-Sai glacier in Ala Archa nation- train of porters (including a Kyrgyz, Uiger, Ka-
www.thespektator.com
 Out & About 5

Above rationing out pig fat at the close of day one (P. Kropotkin)

lmyk and Dungan) were laden down with enough

supplies for a month. Sitting together round the
campfire that night we represented such a diverse
ethnic grab-bag as to make a Benetton advert
look like propaganda for the Third Reich. This was
however little comfort to me as I spent the night
shivering inside my 400 som sleeping bag I’d pur-
chased from Orto-Sai bazaar.
The next morning we picked our way up the
first pass (or pereval in Russian), which took
us up to a brittle Martian landscape just shy
of 4000m. All the way Pavel regaled me with
popular folk tales and songs about the brave,
clear eyed Russian soldiers bravely struggling
to take the pereval from the dastardly enemy.
Indeed, brutal fighting occurred over similar
terrain in the Second World War, as Russian
and German alpine troops, who had often even
trained together, replayed their war games over
the same mountains for real. At that moment
however, it seemed difficult enough for me to
trek over such windswept terrain, as I struggled
to gulp down the rarefied air and keep up with
my companion.
Gradually we descended into the lush green
of the Karakol valley, and were greeted by the
cheery sight of a hunter’s outpost – a couple of
canvas tents and a radio manned by a stoic and
sun-bronzed local. He strode out to meet us as
we approached.
“You should continue quickly,” he warned.
“The first snows are forecast soon, I’m leaving
myself in a day or two.”

www.thespektator.com October 2008 The Spektator

 6 Out & About
Above horses graze by a fork in the river (R. Marks)
Below aches and pains are merely a memory
after a dip in the thermal baths (R. Marks)
October 2008 The Spektator
“Can you sell us any food?” we enquired. He had
none to spare, but there were however several
cases of beer and vodka available at 100 som
a bottle. This was apparently, a place for real
Russian men, who shot their own meat and
only descended to the camp to gulp down sev-
eral litres of foul-tasting local firewater. They
certainly seemed to know how to live in the
mountains a lot better than us amateurs. There
was even an improvised sauna. At least we
didn’t go to bed thirsty that night, and I cer-
tainly didn’t feel the cold.
We set off the next day ascending to the next
pass after which lay the real jewel of the trek –
Ala-Kol lake. As we passed through the gloomy
alpine forest Pavel again held forth on Russian
folklore and the inhabitants of a certain drem-
ichi les (brooding forest) which form the basis
of traditional Russian fairytales. Baba Yaga, for
instance, is some kind of witch who, for reasons
best known to herself, lives in a house with
chicken’s feet (perhaps some tax dodge?), and
eats small children. Kashei Besmertnyi is an
evil wizard who lives in tall tower deep in the
wood, and only ventures out in order to kidnap
and deflower beautiful maidens (are these sto-
ries really meant for children?). With a sigh of
relief we left the woods behind and continued
higher and higher towards the lake.
As we threw ourselves over the second
pass we were sudden greeted by the infeasi-
bly beautiful sight of Ala-Kol lake. This ice-cold
high altitude lake is encircled by a wall of crag-
gy peaks and fed by the glacier leading up to
a series of snow capped mountains. It really
is the kind of thing you come to Kyrgyzstan to
see. We chomped down the last of our remain-
ing pig fat to catapult us down the valley to
the waiting delights of Altyn-Arashan, only to
discover that it had gone rotten, treating us to
bilious gasses bubbling up from our tortured
digestive systems for the rest of the hike. But
the end was finally in view.
We cast our skeletal frames into Altyn-Ar-
ashan just after nightfall. The settlement con-
sists of a collection of homesteads united by a
series of bath houses filled with hot mineral wa-
ter direct from mountain springs. It is just the
place to relax after a hard day in the hills. The
Russians in the bath house next to ours seemed
www.thespektator.com

to agree, as they and their buxom companions
swilled vodka and sang about the old times
into the early hours, emerging in the morning
for some crossbow practice. A drunken Rus-
sian armed with any kind of pointed weapon
is a formidable thing to behold, so we decided
to make our excuses and head down the final
fourteen kilometres back to civilization in the
jeep provided by the Yak Tours hostel in Altyn
Arashan. That journey in itself is a bit of an ad-
venture, but why don’t you go and see for your-
self, I wouldn’t want to spoil all the surprises.
Eventually we returned to attempt our climb
in Ala Archa, fully acclimatized. Naturally, it was
another gloriously amateurish failure, but this
is perhaps one of the great attractions of Kyr-
gyzstan. British layabouts, serious Swiss hikers,
local hunters, drunken Russian crossbowmen:
all are free to practice whatever kind of sport
they want in their own way, protected by the
open freedom of the Kyrgyz mountains from
the restraint or dictates that you find in the hills
of Europe. So go out there and do something
– as the locals say, “In Kyrgyzstan all things are
possible.”
www.thespektator.com
Practical Information
When to go
Summer is the best time, as the passes are high
and can get clogged with very deep snow. It is
best to check with the local guides in Karakol as
to current conditions and weather reports before
you start off.
Gear
You will need warm clothes, a sleeping bag, tent,
sleeping mat and stove. Red Fox in Bishkek sells
good quality equipment: 65 Sovietskaya; Tel: (312)
591755. A cheaper alternative is to check out the
hunting/fishing stalls in one of Bishkek’s bigger
bazaars. In Karakol the Tourist Information Cen-
tre (TIC) rents sleeping bags, tents, rucksacks and
sleeping mats: 130 Jusup Abdrakhamanov; Tel:
(3922) 51356. Ecotrek also rents primus stoves
and sells gas canisters: 112A Toktogul; Tel: (3922)
51115.
Maps
Get the ‘South East Issyk-Kul Lake Coast’ trekking
map. Available from the Cartography Agency in
Out & About 7
Bishkek: 107/4 Kievskaya, 3rd floor. Apparently it’s
also available from the TIC in Karakol (see ‘Gear’).
Guides
If you want to arrange a guide or porters, there are
plenty available in Karakol. Try Ecotrek (see ‘Gear’)
for a start.
The route
The route varies from luscious alpine meadow to
grueling and rocky high altitude passes. Be pre-
pared. Clean water is plentiful in the form of the
delicious mountain streams, and there are a great
number of fantastic camp sites. We did the trek in
two nights, but most people allow for four or five.
If you want to camp near the hunter’s outpost,
there is a small fee but vodka and beer is available.
Carry out all your rubbish with you. Only make
fires in areas already established for the purpose.
Accommodation in Altyn Arashan is plentiful; just
speak to anyone you see there about staying and
using the hot baths. Transport down from Altyn
Arashan can be organized from the Yak Tours hos-
tel there. You can either hitch to Jetti-Orguz or ar-
range transport in Karakol.
October 2008 The Spektator
 8 Out & About

Chongkerchuck
gorgeyourself
“An obsession for the mentally deranged” is how one British colonel
described the passion for rock climbing at the time of the race for the
first ascent of the north face of the Eiger. This sentiment seemed to
be shared by the farmer that came up to me one sunny afternoon as I
secured my partner up the granite walls rising out of the fast flowing
waters of Chongkerchuk gorge.

ROB MARKS

W
HAT ARE YOU DOING?” he asked.
“Climbing,” I answered, surprised
that the rope and the impedimenta
draped over me hadn’t been a give-
away.
“Yes, but why?” he asked incredulously.
“Because it’s there?” I wondered – a little dif-
ficult to translate perhaps. “For sport,” I replied,
feebly.
“But what’s up there?” he rejoined, suspicious-
ly now.
“Nothing.”
“Nothing up there at all?”
“Yes, nothing.”
He backed off slowly, bidding me good day,
obviously deciding that we were best left to our
ridiculous pursuits.
Indeed, it is sometimes puzzling why anyone
would want to climb. Aside from all the usual ob-
jective dangers, not so long ago a group of Ameri-
can climbers were kidnapped by extremists in the
Karavshin region of Kyrgyzstan, and were being
slowly led across the border to their doom until
they managed to hurl their captors off the moun-
tainside. But now Kyrgyzstan is a more stable
place, and more tourist-oriented organizations are
helping both local people and visitors to realize
that there is something “up there”, and that you
don’t need to be a terrorist-slaying superman, or
mentally unbalanced to experience it.
One such organization is the Alpine Fund, a
Bishkek based charity which trains local youths
in mountain skills and helps them find positions
as guides for tourists, as well as providing edu-
cational support for disadvantaged youngsters.
I accompanied two of their guides with some
American tourists on a day trip to Chongker-
chuk gorge, a beautiful and secluded spot in the
mountains just half an hour’s drive from their of-
fices in Bishkek.
As we cooled off in the mountain stream the
guides quickly established safe ropes up some of
the more amenable routes on the 30m rock walls
and started to explain the simple skills the first-
time climbers would need to get to the top.

October 2008 The Spektator www.thespektator.com

 Out & About 9
Before long any initial nervousness was forgotten
as the Americans soon found themselves work-
ing their way up the cracks, overhangs and faces
that tower over the non-climber, discovering a
whole new dimension of freedom and move-
ment, along with a few muscle groups never be-
fore suspected.
Soon the goal was reached and the climb-
ers abseiled triumphantly to the ground, having
achieved what seemed impossible only minutes
before. The samovar was then fired up and we ate
lunch, swapping stories and talking our muscles
bigger while feasting on good Tajik watermelon.
The more confident climbers began contem-
plating some of the more challenging routes,
while everyone began looking at the mountains
that surrounded them with a new sense of under-
standing and curiosity.
Before we could rope up again however, the
peace was shattered as a band of ragged and
heavily armed men burst down the gorge, wild
eyed, bearded and screaming bloody murder.
I wondered if we were perhaps the next group
of climbers to be kidnapped, and started assessing
the ground for a convenient precipice over which
to hurl our attackers. Fortunately it turned out
they were actually actors, here to film a documen-
tary on the kidnapping of a Japanese geologist in
the South of the country.
Yes indeed, climbing in Kyrgyzstan is a much
happier experience these days, but still just as re-
warding. So call up a guide, grab some ropes and
get out there – do something a little bit unusual
and you’ll get a lot more from Kyrgyzstan. As the
Americans said, they had a whole new apprecia-
tion for the famous mountains of Kyrgyzstan than
that framed for them in guidebooks or photo-
graphs.

Practical Information

Location
Chongkerchuk gorge is located a 30 minute
drive south of Bishkek, just off the village of Koi
Tash, in the hamlet of Tartyr. In Koi Tash there
are some kiosks and an excellent fish restaurant from Red Fox (65 Sovietskaya; Tel: (312) 591755) some dachas and winding through a farm. After 10
(which farms it’s own fish), as well as a modern and Lim Po Po (on Isanova street next to Beta minutes you will hit a better road. Turning right will
hotel, but there are no facilities in the gorge it- Stores). take you back to the centre of Koin Tash, turn left
self apart from long-drop toilets. and follow the road for 30 minutes through open
Guides country until you see the gorge in front of you, with
When to go The Alpine Fund, based in Bishkek, can provide full a red-roofed holiday home at it’s mouth.
You can be reasonably sure of good weather instruction, transportation and equipment hire By car – take the road to Koi Tash village. Once in
from April to September, but climbing is possi- services, for a reasonable price which goes towards the village turn right to cross the Ala Medin village.
ble earlier or later depending on the tempera- funding their development projects. A climbing You will come to a T-junction and should turn left,
ture. guide to the area is also available on their web- passing a theological college and mosque, and
site. Contact: Ahunbaeva 119A #502, Phone: (996- continue along this bad road until you sight the
Staying out 312) 47-16-35, Email: kyg@alpinefund.org Website: gorge.
There is a big café/hotel complex in Koi Tash, www.alpinefund.org
called ‘Dordoi’ – the huge red-roofed building You may also like to try
at the end of the village; or you could continue Getting there Hiking the length of the gorge is an interesting
down the road to the resort and hot springs at The Alpine Fund – the Alpine Fund will arrange and challenging hike which can be done in a
‘Toplie Kluchi’ to rest your aching bones. You transport for you, contact them by telephone or day. Follow the river until you emerge out of
can also camp for free in the gorge, but treat or via their website. the other end of the gorge and then ascend the
boil the water from the river, due to livestock. By marshrutka – from the roundabout at the east- slope to the right and follow the ridge back.
ern end of Achumbaeva, take one of the inexpen- Speak to the Alpine Fund about taking a trip
Gear sive taxis to Dordoi café in Koi Tash village. 100m to the Ak Sai glacier in ala Archa, site of the fam-
You can rent equipment (shoes, ropes, harnesses, before the huge modern red-roofed café take the eous peaks Korona and Free Korea. You could
quickdraws, belay devices) from the Alpine Fund dirt road to the right leading down to a bridge. also try peak Uchitel, which is a 4000+m peak
(see ‘Guides’ below). You can also buy most things Continue over the bridge and turn right, passing which requires no technical alpine skills.

www.thespektator.com October 2008 The Spektator

10 Out & About
Top crunchy swegogybokym, quite a mouthfull
(All photos C. Whetham)
Secret
Korean
restaurant
F
CARL WETHAM
OUND ON THE CORNER of Scriabina and
Zhukeeva Pudovkina, in a rather unassum-
ing suburban home (so unassuming, in
fact, that it took me a couple of attempts
to find it – be warned, there are no signs),
“Petel” restaurant is a veritable oasis of Korean cui-
sine and courteousness.
Apparently the name means “God’s house” in
Korean, which I avouch is quite a fitting appella-
tion, as the very atmosphere of the place exudes
humbleness and harmony.
After knocking at the entrance gate, we were
greeted by the proprietors with friendly smiles and
welcomed into the courtyard; the civility didn’t
stop there. Ushered into the tidy home-cum-res-
taurant and asked to take our shoes off, we were
then directed to a charming room with low tables
and cushions on the floor. It is worth noting that
the entire restaurant is non-smoking, and there
are no alcoholic drinks served on the premises
(what would you expect, after all, in a restaurant
with such a name). Unfortunately the menus are
only in Korean, but the proprietress sat with us,
and employing a little patience and a mix of Eng-
lish and Russian we were able to establish what
most of the dishes were.
The food is reasonably priced, with soups and
main courses ranging from 100-250 som and 60
for a portion of plain steamed rice. There is a de-
cent selection of pork, beef and chicken dishes as
well as fish and seafood; vegetarian food is avail-
able on request (there is no Kya, or dog, on the
menu, so if that’s what you’re after this is not the
place for you).
For this review, we sampled three dishes: Map-
atofu, tasty tofu and shredded pork fried together
October 2008 The Spektator
and served under a sumptuous sauce of finely
diced vegetables (150 som); Swegogybokym, a
dish of tender sliced beef and crunchy mixed
vegetables with bamboo shoots and black mush-
rooms, all braised in thick white stock with sesame
seeds (140 som); and the delicious Zachangmyun,
steamed home-made noodles topped with a rich,
meaty black bean sauce (120 som). The portions
are generous, and all orders are served with com-
plimentary dishes of wonderfully succulent Kim
chi and spicy seaweed. Possibly equally important
as part of the dining experience (certainly for this
diner) the food was served with a smile!
Other favourites on offer include Bibimbab 150,
Kim chi jigee 210, Tungte jigee 250 som.
Feeling stuffed after our feast, we were able to
take full advantage of the cushions and stretch out
on the floor to ease our distended bellies before
asking for the bill, which came to less than 500
som for two people with large appetites.
Refrigerators in the entrance hall are stocked
with various pastes, sauces and condiments of-
fered for sale to those wishing to add a little Ko-
rean spice to their home cooking, and Kim chi can
be purchased by the kilo (price varies according to
seasonal availability).
I believe that the decency of a restaurant can
be measured by how clean the lavatories are, and
am pleased to impart that Petel passes the toilet
test with flying colours! All in all a very agreeable
eatery to which I will most certainly return on a
regular basis.
Petel restaurant, Zhukeeva Pudovkina 52,
tel 0543-922539. Open Monday - Saturday
11.00-21.00, closed all day Sundays.
www.thespektator.com
 MK International offers:
• American Courses--English Language Courses
• Work & Travel Program
• Work & Study Program
• English Language Courses in the US, UK and Europe
• au-pair Program
• Preparation for any kind of Programs
Call in and see us at 12a Togolok Moldo!
E-mail: americancourses@yahoo.com Office Tel: 61-41-96

Spektator
THE

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Restaurant
We invite you to try our homemade Kyrgyz
specials in our newly opened family
restaurant

Local specials to eat in or take away for less that

100som!
Gorky st. / Panfilova st.

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Email: tom_wellings@live.co.uk
www.thespektator.com October 2008 The Spektator
 12 This Month
Bishkek tops
list of mutated
tuberculosis
ANDREAS HEDFORS
BISHKEK, Sep 9 (The Spektator) - “It began as a
dry cough. Then I thinned off severely and sweated
whatever I did. I waited two weeks before I got x-
rayed,” said Anara, 23, a medical student until she
fell ill with multi-drug resistant tuberculosis, MDR
TB, last spring.
Years of mistreating TB has given Bishkek the
world’s largest known proportion of drug-resist-
ant strains of the ancient disease, according to pre-
liminary and yet unpublished WHO data. Over 60
percent of those who developed TB in 2007 in the
Kyrgyz capital caught a strain which is immune to
at least one TB drug, levels unmatched in a recent
study that covered 77 countries.
“The situation is very bad. Migration makes it
complicated, people are treated for two months,
then break off. And they get worse,” said Yelena Pese-
na, a senior doctor at the Bishkek city TB centre.
But the blatant shortages in the Kyrgyz health
care system, where an experienced family doctor can
make around 3,200 som a month ($90), has meant
the mistreatments that create the drug-resistance
have been repeated again with the reserve drugs.
“I am now in terror. I see how our doctors pre-
scribe medicine and create XDR,” said Atyrkul Tok-
togonova, the national coordinator for the fight
against MDR TB, speaking of the nearly incurable TB
strain which is also immune to reserve drugs.
During the last years, Toktogonova, 43, ex-
plained, she has received no budgeted medicines
whatsoever for the growing population of MDR TB
patients. Therefore she has initiated hundreds of
partial treatments, where patients were given only
half the drugs they needed, and only for 6 months
instead of the 24 months the WHO guidelines talk
of.
“I would very much like to treat all patients fully.
But as a human being, when they ask me to save
their lives, what am I to do? I give what I have, for
if I don’t touch them at all, they die,” Toktogonova
said, indicating at her office door outside which a
few patients were standing hoping to be included
in treatment.
Because of a lack of statistics as well as labora-
tory resources, numbers are uncertain, but out of
some 15,000 TB patients, approximately 3,500 are
resistant to at least one anti-TB drug. Of these, only
154 are receiving quality second-line drugs, and an
estimated few hundred are in the dangerous partial
therapies or self-medicating.
The National TB centre has in writing forbidden
all partial MDR TB treatment, but the centre director
Aftandil Alisherov confirms it carries out such treat-
ment.
From a public health perspective, the forbid-
den therapies are catastrophic. Treatment with less
than at least four effective substances risks allowing
those few bacteria which will always be resistant to
survive and become the dominant strain in a new
population.
October 2008 The Spektator
MDR TB-victim Karamat Mendybayeva from the village Jilaldy outside Osh has just received a shot from nurse Gulnara Jakbeko-
va. Until now, most patients like Mendybayeva go without treatment, and risk spreading the disease. Photo: Andreas Hedfors
“There is little awareness that this may be danger-
ous to society. It is an enormous problem,” said Do-
minique Lafontaine, head of a Doctors Without Bor-
ders TB mission in Bishkek.
In the WHO study, some nine percent of the new
cases were resistant also to at least one second-line
drug, but no cases of XDR were reported.
Kyrgyzstan in Brief
Prosecutors demand release of
former opposition editor
BISHKEK, Sep 19 (yahoo.com) - Prosecutors or-
dered the immediate release of a former editor of
a Kyrgyz opposition newspaper who was jailed for
not paying court-ordered libel damages.
Babyrbek Dzheenbekov was detained by police
earlier this month for not paying US$28,000 in li-
bel damages for an article that alleged President
Kurmanbek Bakiyev’s nephew had caused a fatal
road accident.
Bakiyev’s nephew, Akylbek Saliyev, has denied
any involvement in the crash last year.
KG slips in corruption index
BISHKEK, 24 Sep (The Spektator) - Data re-
leased by Transparency International on September
23 shows Kyrgyzstan has continued to slip down the
World Corruption Index. This year Kyrgyzstan was
ranked 166 out of 180 countries.
The country has fallen from a semi-respectable 118th
place in 2003 to a position level pegging with region-
al neighbours Uzbekistan and Turkmenistan. Kaza-
khstan moved up from the 150th place to 145th.
According to the index the least corrupt states were
Denmark, Sweden and New Zealand; the most cor-
rupt were Iraq, Burma and Somalia.
Kyrgyz Glaciers melting away
BISHKEK (IRIN) - The number of glaciers in Kyr-
gyzstan has dropped by 15 percent over the past
30 years because of climate change, say Kyrgyz en-
vironmental experts. The rate of decline has accel-
erated dramatically in the last 30 years, they add.
The Spektator will be reporting in detail on Kyr-
gyzstan’s disappearing glaciers next month.
The large first shipment of second-line drugs, paid
for by agencies Global Fund and Unit Aid to cover
1,780 patients over five years, was expected to
reach Bishkek in April or May.
“I am keeping my patients alive until the project
can take over. Now everything is on the right track,”
said Toktogonova.
Kyrgyz culture festival hits China
BEIJING, Sep 18 (Xinhua News Agency) - A recep-
tion marking the opening of the Kyrgyz Cultural Fes-
tival was held in Beijing on the 17th September. As
the opening show of the festival, Kyrgyz art groups
gave a performance at Beijing’s Tianqiao Theatre.
Addressing the reception, Kyrgyz Minister of
Culture and Information Sultan Raev said the
opening of the Kyrgyz Cultural Festival reflected
on the friendship of the two states and the sound
developing momentum of bilateral relations.
Chinese president Hu Jintao in 2007 signed a joint
declaration with his Kyrgyz counterpart Kurmanbek
Bakiyev, in which the two states vowed to hold cul-
tural festivals in respective countries.
A Chinese Cultural Festival was held last year in
Kyrgyzstan.
Kyrgyzstan and Armenia hit
hardest by food, fuel price rises
BISHKEK (COMTEX) - Kyrgyzstan and Armenia are
on the UN Food and Agriculture Organization (UN
FAO) list of countries whose economies have been
hit hardest by the global food and oil crisis, NEWS-
ru.com reported this week. UN FAO will provide
48 countries that have struggled to cope with the
dramatic rise of food and fuel prices, including Kyr-
gyzstan and Armenia, with US$21 million.
Bus falls of cliff killing four
OSH, Sep 16 (RIA Novosti) - A bus slid over a cliff in
Kyrgyzstan’s southern Osh province, killing four peo-
ple and injuring 10, an interior ministry source said on
September 16. The accident occurred when the driver
left the bus parked on a steep incline putting rocks un-
der the wheels to prevent the bus from moving. How-
ever, the driver’s actions failed to stop the vehicle.
www.thespektator.com

Analysis:
A cold winter
in Central Asia
JOHN C.K. DALY
WASHINGTON, Sep 25 (UPI) - When the Soviet
Union sundered apart seventeen years ago, fifteen
new nations emerged. The former Soviet republics
that are doing best are those that either have in-
tegrated with the European Union (Estonia, Latvia
and Lithuania) or have substantial hydrocarbon
reserves -- Russia, Kazakhstan and Azerbaijan.
Energy resources do not necessarily translate
into foreign currency reserves, however, most
notably in the case of Kazakhstan’s Central Asian
neighbours Kyrgyzstan and Tajikistan, which, de-
spite being rich in hydropower potential, are fac-
ing a brutal winter of electricity cuts.
Communism left the 15 new nations’ econo-
mies warped, geared toward supplying the Soviet
centrally planned economy directed from Moscow
instead of supplying regional needs. Since 1991
Kazakhstan, Kyrgyzstan, Tajikistan, Turkmenistan
and Uzbekistan have struggled to reform their
economies to integrate into global markets. For
Central Asia, Moscow’s directives meant agricul-
tural production and, most importantly, cotton to
feed the massive textile establishments ringing
Moscow. Tajikistan had the additional misfortune
of descending into a vicious civil war in 1992; by
the time it ended five years later, 50,000 were dead
and the economy was left prostrate.
As the successful cultivation of cotton requires
long periods free of frost, sunshine and moderate
rainfall, usually one to two feet per annum, the
Soviet solution to Central Asia’s lack of precipita-
tion was to dig a vast network of irrigation canals,
drawing most of their water from the Amu Darya
and Syr Darya rivers.
Consequently, the largest single regional unre-
solved post-Soviet issue concerning Central Asian
water is the equitable division of the waters of the
1,500-mile Amu Darya and the 1,380-mile Syr Dar-
ya, whose combined flow before massive Soviet
agricultural projects were implemented equalled
that of the Nile. The two rivers together contain
more than 90 percent of Central Asia’s available
water, and their headwaters are controlled by Kyr-
gyzstan and Tajikistan, the two poorest and most
mountainous “Stans.” While alpine Tajikistan culti-
vated small amounts of cotton, it was the down-
stream states of Uzbekistan, Turkmenistan and
Kazakhstan that were responsible for the bulk of
Soviet cotton production.
Soviet water management was highly cen-
tralized, with Moscow ordering Kyrgyzstan and
Tajikistan to accumulate water in their reservoirs
in winter to release downstream at the beginning
of the cotton-farming season to Uzbekistan, Kaza-
khstan and Turkmenistan, who in turn during the
winter would supply their upstream neighbours
with the fuel and natural gas needed for power
generation.
During the 20th century, Soviet engineers di-
verted almost all of the Amu Darya and Syr Darya
www.thespektator.com
Get used to the idea of a long, dark winter. Photo: Duncan Ferguson
flow, about 110 cubic kilometres annually, to ir-
rigate Central Asia’s cotton fields, but as water
withdrawal from the rivers eventually reached 85
percent of their annual flow, little subsequently
reached the Aral Sea, once the world’s fourth-
largest inland sea with an area of 28,000 square
miles. Beginning in the 1960s, the Aral began to
shrink, and is now approximately 8,920 square
miles.
“Tajik authorities are predicting
15-hour daily blackouts this winter to
conserve energy, and the Kyrgyz gov-
ernment is contemplating 10-hour
blackouts.”
By the early 1980s the Soviet Union had be-
come a major exporter of cotton, accounting for
more than 20 percent of global production. After
independence, however, Moscow’s subsidies dried
up and the new nations’ interests swiftly began to
clash. The legacy of Soviet inefficiency combined
with a lack of investment steadily worsened the
problems, and today Uzbekistan, Kazakhstan, Turk-
menistan, Tajikistan and Kyrgyzstan occupy five of
the top seven places in the world league table of
per capita water users.
For better or worse, Uzbekistan remains wed-
ded to its cotton crop. Uzbekistan is now the sec-
ond-largest exporter of cotton in the world and
receives more than $1 billion annually from its ex-
port of around 800,000 tons. Unfortunately for Uz-
bekistan, the possibilities for diversifying its agrar-
ian base are limited, as only 10 percent of its land is
suitable for cultivation, with cotton accounting for
up to 40 percent of its agricultural production. The
income from cotton remains vital to the country’s
economy, representing around 60 percent of hard
currency export earnings.
Which brings us back to the coming winter.
While Kyrgyzstan and Tajikistan rely on hydro-
power to generate electricity, both states for the
This Month 13
last several years have released more water from
their reservoirs during the winter to meet peak
demand, even though downstream Uzbekistan
requires a uniform supply of water to maintain its
crops. In Uzbekistan, the irregular water releases
have caused food prices to rise and some cotton
farmers to go bankrupt, leading to rising regional
tensions. For people in Kyrgyzstan and Tajikistan,
having no hydrocarbon reserves, last winter was
brutal, when despite the fact that Tajikistan in-
creased water flows through its hydroelectric
dams, people froze to death during the coldest
winter in 50 years.
The crisis will escalate this winter in Kyrgyzstan
as well, as the Toktogul reservoir, the largest in
Central Asia, has a water level now of only 9.6 bil-
lion cubic meters, 74 percent of what’s needed to
generate electricity this winter. As discussions held
Sept. 9-10 in the Kazakh city of Almaty between
Kyrgyzstan, Uzbekistan and Kazakhstan over the
equitable division of the Syr Darya’s water were
unsuccessful, Bishkek now faces the possibility
of importing Uzbek natural gas and Kazakh elec-
tricity this winter at near market rates. Kyrgyzstan
is unlikely to get a sympathetic hearing in either
country, as recent Kyrgyz legislation increasingly
characterizes its water resources as a marketable
commodity to sell downstream, a position strong-
ly opposed by both Kazakhstan and Uzbekistan.
For too long the West has been interested in
Central Asia primarily for its energy and military
uses; it is now time to provide assistance to allow
the economies there to diversify. Failure to act
could see the chaos still roiling Afghanistan spread
northward into a region committed to change but
lacking the internal resources to accomplish it. Tajik
authorities are predicting 15-hour daily blackouts
this winter to conserve energy, and the Kyrgyz
government is contemplating 10-hour blackouts.
If the West does not want to increase its Interna-
tional Security Assistance Force presence in Af-
ghanistan to deal with Tajik and Kyrgyz refugees,
then it might consider advancing fuel subsidies to
assist the two nations as money well spent.
October 2008 The Spektator
14 This Month
Introducing
super
the
stove
Westerners may grumble at the rising cost TOM WELLINGS
A
of filling up their gas tanks, but in rural Kyr-
SCORCHING MIDSUMMER day is
gyzstan increasing fuel prices are leaving definitely not the best time of year
some villagers to face bitter winters with- to imagine the hardships of Febru-
out enough fuel to heat their homes. Tom ary frosts. Nevertheless, we are off
Wellings and Valeria Pototskaya travelled to meet Arstanbek, the head of a lo-
to Balaayilchy village, an hour’s drive from cal Self Governance body to get the lowdown
on a new type of stove that is keeping families
Bishkek, to learn more about an innovative warm through the winter and cutting coal use
new energy efficiency project run by local by over seventy-five percent.
NGO, CAMP Ala-too, that is already attract- Thirty minutes after leaving Bishkek’s subur-
ing enthusiasm from the locals. ban sprawl behind we exit the highway and turn
south along a rough gravel road towards more
peaceful country. The backdrop of lofty snow
capped peaks offers something of a cooling
distraction from the intense heat, although this
year snow levels seem to be retreating up the
mountains more quickly than usual. As we enter
the foothills and approach the village we pass
fields of brilliant yellow sunflowers lolling in the
glare of the midday sun, soon to be harvested
for their seeds and oil. Golden fields then give
way to the first cottages, and finally the small
village centre – a school, town hall, and an old
rusting electrical substation that looks like its
Left Jumabe and his super-stove (T.Wellings) taken a battering.
We pull up outside the town hall and find Ar-
stanbek waiting for us. This ecologically friendly
public building also houses Arstanbek’s office.
Right Sunflower fields line the road to Balaay- The whole thing is made from hay, he says,
ilchy village(T.Wellings) showing us a cut out window in one of the walls
that gives a view of the internal construction.
Not quite as primitive as it may sound, the hay-
October 2008 The Spektator
bale walls are finished with wood and plaster
and provide effective insulation during cold
weather. It is clear that this is one village that is
enthusiastically going green.
Arstanbek is eager to tell us about the village’s
history, and how it is trying to survive in increas-
ingly difficult conditions. During Soviet times, he
says, coal was readily and cheaply available from
Russia and Kazakhstan. The traditional type of
stove, which is used for cooking as well as warm-
ing the house, required two and a half tons of fuel
during one winter heating period. Matters of en-
ergy efficiency never crossed people’s minds as
they could stuff their fuel-devouring stoves full of
cheap Soviet coal at minimal cost.
Now times have changed but stove-technol-
ogy has yet to catch up. With coal costing 2000
som a ton (60USD), a typical monthly income for
a village household, villagers are forced into for-
aging for locally available fuels - an unsustain-
able practice that has given rise to unforeseen
dangers. When trees and bushes are cut down
for firewood the land becomes more vulnerable
to landslides, erosion and flooding, and when
dried animal dung is burned there is little left
with which to fertilize the fields.
The energy efficient stove project , Arstanbek
says, began last year and offers a sustainable
solution to the village’s energy problem. In the
summer of 2007 a workshop was held by CAMP
Ala-too that demonstrated the advantages of
installing ‘super stoves’ and effective insulation.
Following that, three villagers were taught how
to construct the new stoves and became quali-
www.thespektator.com

fied stove-makers. Finally, a micro credit agency
was set up with the support from the Mountain
Villages Development and Partnership Founda-
tion (MVDPF). They provided 116,000 som as
the initial capital (approximately 3400USD) that
enabled villagers to take out small loans at an
attractive interest rate and put the new energy
saving ideas into practice. In its first year, six
families took out small loans of between eight
and fifteen thousand som to install super stoves
or carry out insulation work. Tests conducted
last winter on these households showed that
not only were the houses much warmer, but if
a stove and insulation had been installed the
amount of coal needed during the winter was
slashed from two and a half tons to just half a
ton.
Arstanbek suggests we pay a visit to Jumabe
to see one of the super stoves for ourselves. Ju-
mabe, he says, was one of the pioneers of the
energy efficiency project and has not only in-
stalled a new super stove but also insulated the
walls and floor of his home.
When we knock at the door, Jumabe’s wife
greets us and invites us inside. We are, it seems,
the latest in a long line of curious visitors keen
to inspect recent domestic improvements. Wok-
en from a late morning snooze, Jumabe joins us
in the kitchen and is soon enthusiastically sing-
ing the praises of his new appliance.
The biggest advantage, he says, is that even
during the coldest weeks of winter the kettle
can be brought to boil in ten minutes. With our
old stove it took more than an hour.
www.thespektator.com
As Kyrgyzstan rivals Great Britain for its tea
drinking, the appreciation awarded a stove ca-
pable of producing a quick cuppa should not be
underestimated.
Jumabe says that before the insulation and
stove were installed the temperature inside his
home during winter reached around 10-12’C,
but last winter it averaged 18’C. Instead of walk-
ing around the house in hats and coats, he grins,
we could laze about in our socks! The only dis-
advantage of this was that we were inundated
“Instead of walking around the
house in hats and coats, he grins, we
could laze about in our socks!”
with guests who came to sit in the warmth of
our stove and enjoy hot tea!
Still not finished with his one-man energy
efficiency campaign, Jumabe plans to add the
coup de grace by insulating the roof before the
onset of next winter.
On closer inspection the ‘super stoves’ do not
appear radically different from the traditional
variety. However, their deceptively simple ap-
pearance belies cutting edge stove-technology.
Developed in Germany, the super stove is com-
pact in design and utilizes special heat retaining
bricks that continue to radiate heat twenty-four
hours after the fire has gone out. The stoves are
optimally located on an inside wall and there-
fore provide heat to more than one room, and
This Month 15
are also often installed with a system of pipes
that channels heat throughout the house and
recycles warmth from the fire instead of letting
it immediately escape through a chimney.
Although Jumabe is obviously a happy cus-
tomer, Aslanbek tells us that scepticism ran high
when CAMP Ala-too held the first stove work-
shop in the village. I think the other villagers
thought I was attending just to fill my stomach
with the free food, he says with a smile. To coun-
ter this uncertainty, after the first stoves were in-
stalled villagers were invited to see the benefits
for themselves in demonstration houses such
as Jumabe’s. Evidently they were impressed as
this year sixteen families have taken out loans
from the micro credit organization to fit their
own houses out with super stoves and insula-
tion measures. The idea has become so popular
that there is now a small waiting list for credit. In
addition, four other households have forked out
the full cost from their own pocket and installed
new stoves independently. This means that
come the first snows of next winter, nearly fif-
teen percent of village households will be ben-
efiting from super stoves. When credit is repaid,
the fund will have swelled to allow even more
households to participate the following year.
Now it seems this village can look forward to
a safer, more prosperous and environmentally
friendly future. CAMP Ala-too, however, will not be
stopping here and is already taking its workshops
to other villages in the region to ensure that more
families can bask in the warm glow of energy ef-
ficiency, just like those in Balaayilchy.
October 2008 The Spektator
16 Focus

Right Groom Ibrahim and Bride Zamira posing

with cousins and grandmother. (A. Hedfors)

a
very
The Dungans are a staunchly insular people who left China as refugees 130 years ago and
now live throughout much of northern Central Asia. Tom Wellings, who knows nothing
about the Dungans or their culture, attends a traditional wedding and tries not to offend
anybody.

I
TOM WELLINGS

Dungan INVITE YOU TO SPEND with me my last few

moments as a boy!” announces Ibrahim with
He then stands still whilst his friends make final
adjustments to the two brightly coloured sashes

wedding
Far right the two colourful sashes are prepre-
pared before Ibrahim leaves to pick up his bride
(A. Hedfors)
an ecstatic smile on his face. I have only just ar-
rived and already I am beginning to doubt the
wisdom of my trip here to Tokmok, a rather ob-
scure, little-visited town in Kyrgyzstan’s far north.
Without time to object I am hustled into a room
and merge with a joyous throng of jostling Dun-
gans, all helping Ibrahim prepare for his big day.
Taking the opportunity to practise his English,
the groom tells me that he is twenty years old, has
had his head shaved especially for the occasion
and enjoys playing Counterstrike. To be honest, I
had hoped for something a little more traditional.
As we chat, more bodies join the heaving mass
of people and it’s hard to find a place to stand, I
feel that I’m beginning to get in the way. Still reel-
ing from some undercooked mutton from another
Kyrgyz party I attended some weeks before, I sway
and try not to vomit over the multitude of well-
wishers.
Friends and family, old and young, are either help-
ing the groom get ready, giving him advice on mar-
ried life, cracking jokes or just pestering him with
questions. I ask about his bride. “I’ve never met her,”
Says Ibrahim, “but I’ve seen a photograph and even
managed to talk with her on the telephone once.”
he must wear over each shoulder, one red, one
green. “Nobody quite knows what they symbolize,”
Ibrahim says, “but in my family, the red one means
‘man’ and the green one means ‘woman’.” A small
commotion then erupts when a girl points out that
he’s wearing the female sash over the male sash.
“That’s surely a bad sign,” she says. In this male
dominated society even the male sash must take
precedence, it seems. They are rearranged and the
sniggering dies down after a few crude jokes.
Ibrahim has just enough time to adjust his fur
box hat, button up his cream suit, and lace his new
black shoes before his driver summons him down-
stairs. Now, properly dressed and adopting a con-
fident swagger, he leaves with a small entourage
of close friends and relatives on the short journey
to collect his bride from a neighbouring village
across the border in Kazakhstan.
Whilst he is gone, I wander downstairs to the
long benches laid out in the yard; all Dungan
homes should have a yard and garden for growing
food, a throwback to when times were harder. The
benches are full of old men running their fingers
through their wispy beards, sipping black tea, talk-
ing about the way things are.

October 2008 The Spektator www.thespektator.com


“Do you want to hear an ancient Dungan rid-
dle?” one white-beard asks. Not waiting for my an-
swer, he launches into his riddle with childish en-
thusiasm before I can escape. “Ten brothers went
up a high mountain to do some urgent work. Eight
were working and two were lazy. They screwed
their brows into a frown, but they had joy in their
hearts, and snowflakes fell before their eyes.”
Unaware of exactly how one should approach a
Dungan riddle I stare intently at my teacup with
my chin cradled thoughtfully upon one hand. “It’s
a baldy scratching his head,” the riddle man ex-
claims. “He’s got a scabby itching skin disease!” a
second riddler pipes up. I think for a moment and
then feign understanding. These guys have been
drinking strong black tea since the break of morn-
ing and it’s now nearly noon.
A more serious character asks me what I know
about the Dungan people, and I confess I know ab-
solutely nothing. His eyes light up as he senses an
opportunity to tell a tale. He carefully balances his
chopsticks on his bowl and takes a quick sip of tea.
“There is a legend,” he begins in a deep bass voice,
“that we descend from a band of three thousand
Arabian mercenaries who were invited to China
to act as bodyguards to the Emperor way back in
the time of the Prophet Mohammed.” A little far-
fetched, I think to myself, but it sounds like the
beginning of a cracking story. “They were strong
and brave and earned the respect of the Chinese
who became our brothers. For over one thousand
years we lived in peace alongside the Chinese – we
worked hard, we lived in small communities and
farmed the land. However, when the Qing Dynasty
came to power in 1644 many Muslims in China be-
www.thespektator.com
gan to feel threatened. The Qings were perceived
to be anti-Muslim and corruption was rife. Many
Muslim people, and even some Han Chinese, rose
up in the western and central provinces. During
the eighteenth and nineteenth centuries there
were ten rebellions against the emperor’s forces
and millions died on both sides. Eventually our
rebel soldiers were crushed and three groups of
Dungans fled China in the winter of 1877 to be-
come subjects of Imperial Russia. The journey was
“‘He’s got a scabby itching skin
disease!’ a second riddler pipes up.
I think for a moment and then feign
understanding”
horrific, nobody knows how many died, but frozen
corpses littered the road all the way to Kyrgyzstan.
Only six thousand reached safety.”
Ismael takes a short break to slurp his tea
once again, pulls a flake of food from his mous-
tache, and then continues: “One band arrived in
Naryn [a town in central Kyrgyzstan], they were
freezing, starving and had no money. The local
Kyrgyz were also suffering from the terrible win-
ter and therefore had little to give the refugees
who had turned up at their doors. However, they
did all that they could, and the following spring
the survivors were allocated land by the Impe-
rial Government, allowed to establish their own
villages and maintain their way of life. The early
days of these settlements were tough too, but we
Focus 17
survived and now there are over sixty thousand
Dungans living in Kyrgyzstan alone.”
I ask him if he feels at home here, “Of course
we do. We’ve lived here for over a hundred years.
We’ve put down roots.” Rashid, a younger man in
is mid-twenties interrupts, “We have two moth-
erlands, China is our motherland, but Kyrgyzstan
too is our home and I don’t want to leave. I was
born and raised in this country and all my friends
and family are here.”
Rashid, who speaks excellent English, tells me
he has lived in Bishkek since his university days
and now works for an NGO. He is well educated,
has travelled widely, and seems more worldly
than many of the other guests. “Are arranged
marriages like Ibrahim’s common?” I ask. “We
are a tightly knit community,” he replies, “most
families insist that their children, especially their
daughters, marry other Dungans. I know of one
family that disowned their daughter because she
married a Kyrgyz guy. She may never be allowed
back to her family home again. For our survival,
people believe we have to act this way.”
“As for this wedding,” says Rashid, “the bride’s
dress, the rituals and the traditions – they have
remained unchanged since the arrival of our peo-
ple here 130 years ago.”
It’s one o’clock in the afternoon. A small girl
runs into the courtyard from the street.“They’re back,”
she calls, “they’re back!” The guests leap up and away
from their tea cups and bound towards the entrance
to the courtyard. The lead car, a Mercedes, is envel-
oped by the crowd. Everyone is itching to glimpse
the bride, but it is the groom who gets out first. He
looks quite pleased with himself.
October 2008 The Spektator
118 Focus
Right the bride has her lipstick touched up be-
fore the rest of the guests are allowed in to the
room (T. Wellings)
Below one of the riddle-tellers tucks in to his
bowl of cia teh, an oily dish of vegetables and
meat served with small steamed dumplings.
(T. Wellings)
The bride, a silk scarf over her face, gingerly steps
out of the car and is escorted through the crowd
and into the house.
“When will the ceremony take place,” I ask a
guest in the yard.
“The ceremony? That took place at the girl’s
house, there won’t be a ceremony here.” I can’t
help but let out a deflated sigh. “That was the
most important part of the day,” the guest contin-
ues, “the Mullah comes, reads a few verses of the
Koran, blesses the marriage, all that sort of stuff.
You should stick around though. The bride’s go-
ing to be presented to us so we can admire her.”
This sounds more promising.
We enter the house and trot up the stairs and
onto the landing. People nudge me towards the
room where the bride is sitting. “Look, she’s beau-
tiful!” they whisper. The next group of guests is
allowed to enter and I tag along.
The seventeen-year-old bride sits by the win-
dow with the early spring sunlight streaming onto
her face. To be honest, she looks a little down in
the dumps. “Why isn’t she smiling?” I ask Rashid.
“It’s customary for the bride to remain impassive,
she shouldn’t smile - it shows she respects her old
family, now that she has been taken away from
them.” We admire her some more, and I, along
with every other guest, take photographs.
The wedding dress is quite a sight, looking
somewhat like the aftermath of an explosion in
a very colourful haberdashers shop. It’s part pink,
part blue, part yellow, black, green and red. There
are intricately detailed seams, bold floral motifs,
and an elegant headdress crowned with a tiara of
deep pink flowers. Despite the somewhat raucous
design, the different elements of the outfit some-
how manage to harmonise.
After a while, I offer to take group photographs
and the atmosphere lightens. The bride even
comes close to cracking a smile as one of the small
kids falls flat on his face when trying to get in the fi-
October 2008 The Spektator
nal picture. Everyone says ‘cheese’, except the bride
of course, and I promise to email the results as soon
as I can.
Despite the chilly March weather, the party
finishes outside. The men have been preparing
plov (a rice and meat dish) over a fire in a huge
metal pot since the morning and it is ready to
serve. They peel back a piece of Hessian sacking
from the top of the pot and a cloud of steam es-
capes into the sky releasing an aroma of cumin
and turmeric. The guests take their places at the
benches and the groom’s younger male relatives
set about serving. “Don’t they mind doing all the
work?” I ask Ibrahim.
“Of course they don’t,” he replies. “And when
they marry, their brothers and cousins will do the
same for them.” The boys walk up and down the
aisles between the tables spooning out plov and
ensuring teacups are never empty. The table of rid-
dlers is now engaged in intense conversation, their
booming voices reverberating around the yard, the
children are playing to one side, and the women
are merrily cleaning the dishes in an outside kitch-
en. Things seem very organized. I politely enquire
if there is any alcohol, but Rashid just tuts at me
disapprovingly, “We are a Muslim people, you see.
We aren’t like the Russians.”
The party is over and before I make my way
back to Bishkek I ask Rashid about his plans for
the future.
“I will get married, but not like this. I don’t like
the attention.”
“But won’t your family be disappointed?” I ask.
“Well, yes. I suppose they will be.” He pauses, “I am
proud to be Dungan, I value our traditions and cus-
toms, but for me, I prefer to watch rather than take
part. Maybe I have been living in the city too long.”
I tell Rashid the riddle about the baldy man
with the itching scabby skin disease. He thinks
hard, but he can’t get it. Maybe he has been out of
village life too long.
www.thespektator.com
 Advertisement 19

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implemented by the Swiss National Science Foundation. Created in the understanding
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currently comprises a network of about 400 researchers worldwide.

The Central Asia partnership region comprises Kyrgyzstan, Kazakhstan, Tajikistan and
Uzbekistan. Work in this region has been particularly challenging as the highly spe-
cialised and disciplinary research tradition inherited from the Soviet period did not
support integrated approaches, methodologies and concepts. Since its inception in
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www.thespektator.com October 2008 The Spektator

120 Focus
road
The
to Naryn
Ask a Kyrgyz cab driver what the most
pressing issue in his country might be
and he won’t bring up constitutional
amendments. Nor will he start on the
level of religious freedoms or the lack of
objective journalism. Easy to overlook,
yet so depressingly obvious, the answer
is always one and the same - poverty.
Ivar Dale writes about a trip he made to
Naryn oblast in 2007, Kyrgyzstan’s high-
est, coldest and poorest region.
October 2008 The Spektator
IVAR DALE
F
EW PEOPLE ARE MORE welcoming to-
wards strangers than the Central Asians.
A wonderful way to make new acquaint-
ances here is by travelling in long-distance
taxis, which means showing up at the
market early in the morning, when drivers yell out
their intended destinations and passengers scurry
for the best deals. After a round of good-hearted
haggling, you get one of the four seats in the car
and off you go. That is, as soon as the three other
seats are filled up. Sometimes that process can take
as long as the trip itself. Today, however, I’m in luck
- the car is full in thirty minutes and we get out of
the market and head east towards the regions bor-
dering China. Our first stop - the town of Kochkor,
the high-altitude economic pits of Kyrgyzstan.
What’s the frequency, Kurmanbek?
The radio is playing Russian, Turkish and Kyrgyz
pop music, a joyful female voice announcing the
tunes. My travel companions are all Kyrgyz, but
as diverse as they come. The driver’s story is sadly
typical. A former teacher of chemistry, he left his
$40 a month university post for the more lucra-
tive position of cab driver in order to take care of
his family. Beside him in the passenger seat is an
old man. Every so often he makes the driver stop
the car to help him pour another glass of vodka
from a bottle he keeps in a plastic bag. He is lame
on one side of his body, and downs the liquor in
large gulps with his one good hand. In the back,
a quiet, young man with a five year old boy on
his lap is in the middle seat, and next to him sits
a pretty woman in her late thirties. The little boy
babbles happily away in Kyrgyz, while the woman
seems miles away, staring absent-mindedly out
at the passing Bishkek suburbs.
We cross the city limits and get into the country-
side. The houses turn markedly poorer.
Kyrgyzstan is a poor country to begin with, but
our destination Naryn is worse off than all its other
regions. Around 37% of the population live under
conditions that the UN classify as “extreme poverty”,
meaning that people are scraping by on less than
$2.50 a day. As one of only three countries outside
Africa, Kyrgyzstan was offered membership in the
IMF and World Bank’s program for Heavily Indebted
Poor Countries (HIPC) in 2007 to try to deal with
its enormous burden of debt. It refused. Many con-
sidered it a matter of pride not to let others dictate
how Kyrgyzstan should run its affairs, even if the
latest statistics have them written off as one of the
world’s countries least likely to survive on its own.
During ousted president Akayev’s period, $1.8
billion was taken up in foreign loans, yet the pop-
ulation wonders what could possibly have hap-
pened to all that money. A quick glance at the
country’s infrastructure will tell you it certainly
hasn’t been spent on the common good. Part mis-
management, part corruption, according to Kyr-
gyzstan’s Minister of Finance – yet the fact remains
that the country is up to its ears in IOUs.
The driver and the old man in the front are dis-
cussing their common economic hardships, while
the young man beside me listens in. Pretty soon
I’m asked for my own opinion on the wretched
state of affairs, but conversation quickly turns to
the topic of my unfamiliar accent instead. When
I say I’m from Norway, the men start the usual
listing of what they associate with that country.
www.thespektator.com

Right in danger of rolling away, Ak-Bata restau-
rant tube serves fish freshly caught from Lake
Son-Kul
Skiers, ocean, oil, fish - and perhaps not quite
on target, really huge turtles. Only the thought-
ful woman in the back doesn’t care to join in. But as
strange coincidences would have it, it’s not because
the topic doesn’t interest her. I suddenly notice she
has turned in her seat, and is in fact staring at me.
She leans over, behind the young man between us.
“Are you really from Norway?” she asks in a low
voice, so the others won’t hear. I nod. She then tells
the driver to pull over, and politely asks the young
man and his son to change seats with her.
For the next three hours, while crossing the vast
and dreamlike Kyrgyz highlands, she quietly tells
me her story.
A drive down memory lane
“Eleven years ago, a Norwegian man came here. He
was building houses for poor people. I think maybe
he was a millionaire. We became friends. One day,
he asked me how to write ‘I love you’ in Kyrgyz. I
showed him. The next day, he had written the words
in big letters and placed it in front of my house. I in-
troduced him to my parents, and to my sister. They
said he looked like a Russian, but the fact was that
he didn’t even drink or smoke. He asked me to marry
him, and come with him to Norway. He showed me
pictures. It was beautiful. I thought for a long time,
but finally, I said no. You should have seen how tall
he was! I was just scared. And so I told him no. He
asked again, many times. And in the end, he left. I
never saw him again. Now I think about that, and I
feel so stupid.”
The woman is close to tears while relating this
story from years before. I feel bad for her.
“I wish I could talk to him again. Just to explain.
But what words could I use to tell him that he has
www.thespektator.com
been in my thoughts ever since then? You need
great words for that. Eleven years is a long time.
I’m 36 now. But I know I made a mistake. How dif-
ferent my life would have been if I had just married
him.”
I try suggesting that Norway might not have
been what she expected it to be. That maybe her
decision was right, that perhaps the man would
have turned out to be different than she had
hoped.
She shakes her head and answers coldly, “It
was a mistake.”
Maybe you have to be from a place like Ko-
chkor to truly understand. Many Westerners
would raise their powdered noses at the thought
of marrying for economic reasons, swearing that’s
something they would never do, no matter how
poor they were. But then, they didn’t grow up in
Kochkor. There is a big difference between marry-
ing into wealth and marrying out of poverty. One
has much, and craves more. The other has noth-
ing, but wants a little. Trying to change the odds
for happiness handed to you by fate and global
politics is the only thing you can do, if you believe
you are given but one chance at life.
The woman still remembers the man’s full
name. She even knows his date of birth. She writes
it down on a piece of paper and hands it to me. It
really is a Norwegian name. She asks me if I could
try to find him for her. I say I will try, and put the
note in my pocket as we roll down the main street
in her small hometown. I don’t have the heart to
tell her the name is so common there must be
hundreds of Norwegians called just that.
We say goodbye on the dusty street outside
Kochkor market.
Focus 21
Trembling earth
The local café is bustling with lively conver-
sation as shepherds and farmers in muddy
clothes gather over traditional Central Asian
dishes like shorpo and lagman. It is the busiest
place in town, and I’m just barely able to find
a seat in a far corner, order tea and something
to eat. Five rough-looking bearded men in con-
servative Muslim dress are seated at the table
next to mine. They look somewhat out of place
here. The locals are dressed differently, casu-
ally, like most Central Asians. Remembering a
recent news report, it dawns on me who the
men might be, and just how they might have
ended up here.
As if Kochkor didn’t already have enough
problems for one little town, a few weeks be-
fore it became the epicentre of an earthquake
that reached 5.4 on Richter’s scale. The trem-
bles that merely made the cutlery clatter in
my Bishkek apartment brought considerable
damage to the ramshackle homes here. Along
with the damages from the Batken earthquake
two months before, estimates said $800,000
was needed to repair the damages. While Kyr-
gyzstan’s parliamentarians announced they
would all donate one day’s salary to help those
affected, the illegal Islamic movement Hizb-ut-
Tahrir made a curious announcement of their
own. Outlawed in a Supreme Court decision in
2003, their press release said the organization
was sending a construction team to Kochkor to
repair houses for free. Apparently, parliamen-
tarians and Islamists alike know that nothing
makes people more impressionable than grind-
ing poverty.
October 2008 The Spektator
 22 Focus
As I discreetly watch the men eat, I wonder if
they could be that very group of Hizb-ut-Tahrir
members sent here to repair houses. They seem
have that same secretive air about them as mem-
bers of the organization I already met with in their
ideological southern stronghold, Osh. Then, I be-
come aware that they are observing me too. In
fact, the entire café is. If anyone is out of place in
Kochkor, it’s me.
I turn to look at my hot soup instead.
Morning has broken
It’s 7am when I emerge bleary-eyed from a cold,
cold night at the Kochkor Hotel. At 60 Soms ($1.85)
a night it might be a bargain, but not even sleep-
ing fully dressed in a thick winter coat and covered
in blankets has kept the frost from getting into my
bones. Finding there is no running water, a visit to
the rank outhouse is the only morning toilette to
be had. I feel tired and a bit out of place as I half-
consciously join another group of travelling Kyr-
gyz for the dramatic ascent across the 3100-me-
ter Dolon Pass, hardly making note of the three
elderly women chatting merrily away in the back.
But I wake up with a start as another coincidence
strikes. The driver turns on the radio to a voice
speaking softly in Russian. For a moment, I think I
might be on hidden camera.
…and that of his contemporaries. One of the
great masters of his time, an entire nation mourned
his death on September 4th 1907. Dear listeners, we
give you Norwegian composer Edvard Grieg’s ‘Morn-
ing Mood’.
I suppress a smile as the driver starts quietly
humming and turns the volume up. All five listen
in silence as the awesome peaks loom higher still
above us, and the snake-like road takes us further
into the mountains. Eventually the altitude turns
the soothing melody from the radio into a hissed
garble.
Here, three thousand meters above sea level,
any thought of economic trouble in the valleys
below seems impossibly far away. Although they
know every inch of this pass, the women in the
back stop talking, as if taking a break from real
life. The scenery turns unearthly, at least to the
eyes of a city boy. There are no people, no socie-
ty, no politics – and no economy. Only the steady
hum of the car’s engine.
We climb higher and higher through this silent
otherworldliness until we reach the high-water
mark, and begin our steep descent back into re-
ality.
Easy rider
On a hillside outside the town of Naryn lies a
cemetery. Only, it’s not quite a regular cemetery
- it’s rather a small village, clutching the moun-
tainsides. The graves are small houses, divided
neatly by narrow streets. Many of them are beau-
tifully decorated. Looking out over the poor liv-
ing conditions in the town itself, one might won-
der where the logic lies buried. Poverty in life,
Top lonely road towards the Dolon Pass extravagance in death.
(3100m) Just beneath this peculiar village of the dead
lies a simple house. You might miss it at first; the
Middle poverty in life, extravagance in death tombs are so much like real homes it blends in
among them. But like ghosts, a man and a small
Bottom mother and daughter from a village boy emerge from the building, alive and well.
just north of Naryn They walk towards me.
“Salam aleikum!” The man greets me heartily
October 2008 The Spektator
as he approaches. We shake hands. I explain that
I saw the cemetery from town, and decided to
take a walk up here for a closer look. The man
introduces himself as Mirzabek, and tells me he
lives here with his wife and their two children.
“People told me I shouldn’t build my house here
by the cemetery. They say it’s wrong. I told them,
if you’ve got money, go ahead and build where
you want. I don’t have any money. So this is where
I will build.”
He speaks in a pleasant, unhurried manner,
taking his time, reflecting on his own words in
a way that city people perhaps have no time for.
His manner of speaking seems almost to belong
to a different era, far removed from my own.
“A lot of people went to Russia, and never re-
turned. They just take off, saying they are going to
come back rich. Of course, they never do. I will tell
you a story. An old man lives down the road here;
his son was always planning to go to Russia, even
if his father said he shouldn’t. Eventually, he left.
And then, after a few years, we got the message
that the boy had died, in Moscow. When he got
the sad news the father just said, let him be buried
there! He wouldn’t listen to me! And now see what
happened! He chose Moscow, so let him be buried
in Moscow. Yes. That’s what he said.”
He thinks for a moment. “Maybe people don’t
come back because they’re embarrassed. They
don’t make it, then they start drinking, maybe.
And then they just stay there, and you never see
them again. I don’t know. Myself, I’ve never been
anywhere.”
Mirzabek’s son is smiling shyly, listening to
our conversation. I ask him what his name is, but
he doesn’t understand. After the break-up of the
Soviet Union, Naryn region is almost exclusively
inhabited by Kyrgyz, and children grow up not
knowing Russian. The boy giggles at my strange
questions and hides behind his father. Mirzabek
tussles his hair, then turns to me again.
“I want to ask you something. Once, a man from
Germany came through here. On a motorcycle.
It had broken down, and I helped him fix it. This
man said that in Germany, even the villages don’t
have roads like ours. He said he’d never seen such
a terrible place in his life. He said he was happy
he was leaving, and that God forbid anyone else
should have to live like us.”
He looks at me, and I dread the question I know
is coming. “Is that true?”
I think of this smug German coming through
Naryn on a shiny motorcycle on his way to Chi-
na, leaving his stupid comments for Mirzabek to
ponder. The radio was probably playing Wagner
when he rolled into town.
“Well, you know, they have really nice roads in
Germany.”
Mirzabek smiles briefly, but we both know my
answer isn’t very convincing.
“I guess so. But still, that’s what he said, that
German. Yup. That’s what he said.”
He goes quiet, and warms his hands in the
sleeves of his jacket while looking out over the
town below us. The sun is setting behind the
mountains, giving off a warm, orange glow that
shimmers over the rooftops. Mirzabek nods his
head at no one in particular, and sighs.
“I don’t know. You have to live. You have to
build your house. That’s the way it is. That’s the
way life is.”
www.thespektator.com
 Focus 23

Got
Kymyz?
If milk does a body good and booze does a km south of Bishkek (which, incidentally, is prob- Feeling like a favored steppe-child, you’ll crest
body better, then surely it is a wise drinker ably the only capital city in the world named after the horizon atop your steed, sitting skylit against
booze paraphernalia: a bishkek is the stick used to the vermilion of the setting sun, thirsty after a
indeed who combines the two.
stir the ripening milk; up to 3,000 stirs per day to long day’s ride. The woman of the yurt, an apple-
ensure evenness of fermentation). Nearly every car cheeked descendent of perhaps Genghis Khan
on the nearby highway stops at roadside stalls for himself, sees you and rushes forward through the

F
JAKE FLEMING
quick rounds and a pint or two to bring to parched waving grass, a bowl of kymyz in her upraised
FROM TATARSTAN TO Kyrgyzstan to Tuva, city-dwelling relatives. Here the elixir comes from hand. You sit upon your horse and drink deeply.
in what used to be the great thirsty inte-
jailoos to the east, where enterprising gentlemen You dismount, and the windblown, Fu Manchu-ed
rior of the Soviet Union, Central Asian no-
in 4-wheel-drives make patriarch, legs bowed
mads have the right idea: kymyz. Without
weekly stops at remote
question the world’s finest alcoholic dairy
“Be forewarned, you’ll have to to perpendicular from
yurts, filling 55-gallon years in the saddle,
product, kymyz is a toothsome brew of fermented drums with the fresh lay into vat of kymyz to get canned. comes to join you for
mare’s milk, and the intrepid inebriate who finds stuff. Even a strong batch tops out at less another cup. Even if
himself in these far reaches would be a fool not to But the best way to your Russian is rusty
embark on a kymyz-tasting tour. hit the horse-juice is on than 3% alcohol” and your Kyrgyz non-
The enterprising Russians long ago introduced a horse of your own. If existent, in this mo-
the tribes of Central Asia to the blinding blessings
you’re not feeling up to ment you understand
of vodka, and it’s never too early in the day to get
dropping a few hundred dollars on a mount at each other perfectly. With a wipe of the lips and a
nuked on the nectar of the potato in these parts. the cutthroat animal bazaars, local travel agents sigh of contentment, you speak the universal lan-
But in the face of this alcoholic imperialism, kymyz
can outfit you with a horse and guide for as little guage of alcohol appreciation fluently.
has maintained its hold on the boozer’s bowl in as $30 a day. Arrange your trip in Bishkek or in vil- Be forewarned, you’ll have to lay into vat of ky-
the nomad’s yurt (the traditional portable tent oflages closer to the action, like Kochkor, its main myz to get canned. Even a strong batch tops out
Central Asia). It’s not hard to see why. The stuff is
street lined with kymyz vendors, or Barskoon, on at less than 3% alcohol (though some groups, like
healthy, full of the same vitamins that allow foals
the south shore of Lake Issyk-Kul, one of the larg- the Tuvans of Russia and Mongolia, distill theirs
to gain up to four pounds a day, and was once est mountain lakes in the world and the quintes- into a stronger potion called araka). If, like the
used as medicine for tuberculosis patients. As farsential Soviet resort destination. With a little effort, locals, you’re low on aldehyde dehydrogenase 2,
as taste is concerned, though first experiences with
it’s no trouble at all to arrange a week-long tour your so-called “Asian flush” means you’re all set.
kymyz draw comparisons to sausagey milk or rot- into the hills, stopping each night at a different For the rest of us, not to worry, vodka runs 60
ten ranch dressing with just a slight hint of tinfoil,
yurt to stay with a different family of herders and cents a bottle.
the refreshing sour tang of a good vintage quicklysample the kymyz. Though recent efforts have been made to in-
becomes the perfect way to end a hot day. Or be-
gin it, if that’s your thing. And as it is the gravest of
insults not to invite passers-by into the family yurt
for a taste of the home-brew, you’ll find yourself a
connoisseur in no time.
Like a fine wine, a lip-smacking kymyz is the
product of both terroir and artisanship. Altitude
is key: the best kymyz comes from northern Kyr-
gyzstan’s jailoos, rich pastures 8,000 to 10,000 feet
above sea level, where herders spend the summer.
At lower elevations, the taste of the grass and the
mix of herbs and wild flowers in a mare’s diet pro-
duce a disappointing libation barely worthy of the
name, while higher elevations are just too cold.
Soil, geology, mesoclimate, and aspect undoubt-
edly play a part as well, though little systematic
work has been done on the matter. As for artisan-
ship, each family tweaks the simple recipe in its
own way, adding special herbs, barley germ, a lit-
tle cow’s milk, or sugar for the weak-kneed. Yeast
starters are jealously guarded and cultures kept
alive all year, and the special horse-leather sack in
which the drink is aged, the saba, is among a herd-
er’s most-prized possessions. Keep in mind that
the taste of a given batch changes as the drink
ages, starting out sweet and tangy and finishing
the season a riot of unholy gustatory explosions in
the sinuses.
Popular acclamation places the finest kymyz
in the Suusamyr Valley of Central Kyrgyzstan, 90 Above pass me another bowl-full sir!

www.thespektator.com October 2008 The Spektator

 24 Focus
Journalism
competition
The 2008/9 spektator
[ The Brief ]
Young journalists are invited to
submit feature articles in English
of between 1000-2000 words to
the 2008/09 Spektator journalism
competition.
The articles can be focused on any
aspect of life in Central Asia including:
sport, music, youth culture, national
traditions, social issues, etc.
For further information please email: tom_wellings@live.co.uk
October 2008 The Spektator
[ The prize ]
1st prize: the competition winner will re-
ceive $100 and have their winning arti-
cle printed in the Spektator magazine.
The 2nd and 3rd best entries will also
be printed in the magazine and the au-
thors will receive small cash prizes.
[ Terms & Conditions ]
- Participants must be over 16 years old
-Participants must not be native
English speakers
-All entries must be submitted in
English
-Entries can be submitted by email
only, All entries should be sent to
tom_wellings@live.co.uk
-The closing date for submission is
01.01.2009
-Entries will be judged by the Editorial
team of the Spektator magazine
www.thespektator.com
 №1
Bar

A Beatles themed bar in Bishkek

Sovietskaya/Gorky

www.thespektator.com October 2008 The Spektator

 Spektator

THE

Advertise
Email: tom_wellings@live.co.uk
 THE GUIDE Bishkek life
Bars and
restaurants
There’s a fine line between ‘bar’ and ‘restaurant’ in but in a nice way. $
Bishkek. Places more suitable for drinking sessions
are highlighted orange.
Price Guide (main course, garnish & drink)
$ - Expect change from 150 som
$$ - A little over 200 should do the trick
$$$ - Expect to pay in the region of 350
$$$$ - A crisp 500 (or more) needed in this joint
American
Cowboy (Toktogul/Orozbekova)
Bishkek’s all-American restaurant-cum-dance club
has now gone a little more up-market, but wild
nights are still to be had. Dig in to a kilo of chicken
wings and then hit the dance floor. $$$
Hollywood (Druzhba/Sovietskaya)
As you would probably guess, decorated with
movie posters, photos of cinema icons and a
bunch of American kitsch. Hollywood is popular
with a younger crowd and is usually packed from
mid-evening onwards. A fun place for a few drinks
before heading off to the clubs. $$
Metro (133, Chui)
In the impressive location of a former theatre, Met-
ro remains the première drinking hole for ex-pats.
A high ceiling, a long bar and friendly staff compli-
ment a good Tex-Mex menu and a wide selection
of drinks. Metro is one of the best bets for catch-
ing sporting events on TV, although thanks to the
hideously late kickoff times for Champions League
football matches, don’t count on the staff waiting
up unless it’s a big one. $$$
New York Pizza (177, Kievskaya)
Decorated with pictures of the Big Apple and serv-
ing a fine selection of steaks and other American-
themed dishes, NYP is sure to get New Yorkers
thinking of home. Also serves what many believe
to be the best pizza in town. $$$
Armenian
Landau (Manas/Gorky)
Fancy something a little different? If you can tol-
erate the arthritic service, Landau isn’t a bad spot
for a pork steak or some other Armenian culinary
goodies. Also, treat yourself to some decent Arme-
nian conjac whilst your here, you’ll never go near
Bishkek conjac again. Ever. $$$
www.thespektator.com
Ak-Bata (108, Ibraimova)
Chinese
This place must serve up pretty authentic dishes
as it’s always full of Chinese playing mah-jong and
waving their chopsticks about. Smoky and stuffy,
Goin (Jibek Jolu/Sovietskaya)
Although advertised as a 24-hour joint, Goin tends
to shut if business is slow. Nevertheless, find your
way to this little-known gem (upstairs past the
paintings of scantily clad ladies and on your right)
and you’ll discover that the food is fantastic value
for money. Portions are often so large, doggy bags
are in order. Interesting Chinese delicacies and
huge pots of tea aplenty. $
Peking Duck I & II
(Soviet/Druzhba & Chui/Tog. Mol.)
Huge portions to feed even the biggest of glut-
tons. Those who don’t appreciate ‘professional’ Ka-
raoke maestros should be on their guard during
evenings. Dancing occasionally kicks off on more
raucous evenings. $$
Dungan
Luk-Fu (Orozbekova/Kievskaya)
In many Bishkek joints the lepyoshka is stale and
the service makes you look for candid cameras. At
Luk-Fu, despite its stolovaya atmosphere, not so.
Add to that generous portions and cheap prices
and the place is a pearl. One of few establishments
offering satisfying vegetarian meals, such as the
tofu po-domashnemu. Watch out for slippery floors
and dodgy Karaoke in the evenings. $
Hui Min (Ibraimova/Frunze - next to Beirut)
Don’t be put off by the slightly decrepit feel to this
place, they serve up some damn fine Dungan eat-
ing. Try the gan-fan (meat, peppers, spices, rice),
its big enough to keep you going all day and you’ll
get change from a ton. Also, ask for the special
Dungan tea, it’s rather good. $
Georgian
Mimino (27, Kievskaya)
Re-opening soon we’re told, Mimino is nice, cosy and
serves up bowl-fulls of steaming, hearty Georgian fare
with pomegranate seeds a-plenty. We recommend
the Georgian cheese bread and anything that’s served
in a pot. Watch out for Uncle Joe at the door. $$$
German
Steinbrau (5, Gerzena)
Don your beer drinking trousers and head down to
Bishkek’s take on a Bavarian-style beer hall. They brew
their own stuff - such a relief from the insipid bilge
that’s normally sold as lager. Compliment your pint
with a plate of German sausage with sauerkraut. $$$
October 2008 The Spektator
 28 Bars, Restaurants & Clubs
International
No. 1 (Gorky/Sovietskaya)
A Beatles themed bar to make Bishkek scousers feel for conversation, but if you’re alone there’s a mini-
at home. Huge screen outside for sporting events. library to peruse (although literary classics are thin
Shashlyk and cool beer. $$
2x2 (Isanova/Chui)
Trendy drinking hole with a circular bar and friend-
ly staff. A good place for knocking back a few pre-
nightclub cocktails. Slouch into one of the comfy
lounge seats and try to look cool. $$$
Avant Gard (127, Sovietskaya)
We’re not so sure what’s so avant-garde about
Avant-Gard. They put candles on the tables in the
evenings, but there is a distinct lack of Parisian
Bohemians. Still, the food is fine and the relaxed
ambience means AG is a good place for a conver-
sation, or a debate on existentialism. $$
Boulevard (Erkindik/Kievskaya)
A small stylish restaurant, offering a refined atmo-
sphere, delicious cakes and wi-fi internet. By Bishkek
standards, the service is usually excellent. $$$$
Captain Nemo’s (14, Togolok Moldo)
Small nautically themed restaurant with a selection
of evocatively named dishes including ‘Fish from the
ship’s boy’ and ‘Tongue from the boatswain’s wife’.
Cosy wooden interior and porthole style windows
create a hybrid underwater log cabin experience.
Spirits, cocktails and a good business lunch. $$$
Coffee House (9, Manas)
Treat yourself to some of the finest coffee and
cakes Bishkek has to offer at the imaginatively
named ‘Coffee House’, a cosy boutique café with a
European flavour. Curl up and read a book, or just
drop in for a caffeine hit and a chocolate fix. $$$
Concord (Alatoo Square)
Waiting staff dressed as airline stewards and an in-
terior featuring some aeronautical paraphernalia
attempt to lend a little glamour to this small diner
just off Ala-too Square. Good, cheap food and fur-
ther deals for lunch during midweek make this a
popular spot during the daytime. $$
Doka Pizza (97, Akhunbaeva)
The ever-popular Doka Pizza, open non-stop, pro-
vides decent live music on most nights and a wid-
eranging menu. There’s a large eating area outside
that’s open in the summer with a garden, stage
and kids play area. Both Doka restaurants do a
good ‘beeznes lanch’ before 4pm. $$$
Doka Pizza (153, Kievskaya)
More sexed up than its Akhunbaeva sister bar,
there’s a strip bar downstairs, Doka Kievskaya is
often a post-party chillout venue for Bishkek’s
young, rich kids. Enjoy the good food, the lively
vibe, and the coquettish waitresses – just don’t
break your beer glass, there’s a stiff fine. Also
non-stop. $$$
Spektator
THE
Find the best bars in town with the Spektator and thespektator.com
October 2008 The Spektator
Fatboy’s (Chui/Tynastanova)
Civilised, friendly cafe bang in the middle of town
and a popular ex-pat meeting point. Sensible spot
on the ground). Check out the American pancakes
for breakfast, top marks. $$$
Four Seasons (116a, Tynystanova)
One of the poshest places to eat out in Bishkek.
Elegant, yet modern interior and polite service.
Great place to splash out on a special occasion or
just for the hell of it. $$$$
Advertise with the Spektator
0550 99 1945
Email: tom_wellings@live.co.uk
Live Bar (Kulatova)
24 hour sports bar with live music at weekends.
Plenty of leather couches provide the ideal place
to sip cocktails whilst watching the Champions
league at 3 in the morning. $$
Lounge Bar (338a, Frunze)
One of our favourite places to drink in the Sum-
mertime, when we can afford it. Outdoor balcony-
cum-terrace high above the street with slouch-
couches and fine veiws of the circus - which you
can sometimes smell in the summer. Nice. $$$
Meri (33, Gorkova)
In the summer months, Meri has one of the prettiest
dining areas in Bishkek. International cuisine served 24
hours a day, more lively nights see jiving on the dance
floor to all your favourite Kyrgyz pop tunes. $$$
Navigator (103, Moskovskaya)
A pricey, but pleasant place to while away an af-
ternoon. Sit in the bar area over a beer or lounge
in the airy non-smoking conservatory. Attentive
service and a refreshing selection of salads, a good
place for a light, healthy lunch when fat and grease
are getting you down. $$$
Pit Stop (Toktogul/Orozbekova)
Open 24-hours. Stands out for its rather expen- scrape together enough soms. $$$$
sive drinks. Now spring is here, it’s quite nice to
sun yourself in the garden in the company of a big
Michael Shumacher poster and some home-made
formula 1 decorations. Classy. $$$
Stary Edgar’s (15, Panfilova)
The concrete monstrosity of the Russian Theatre con-
ceals one of Bishkek’s finest attempts at a cosy base-
ment bar. Friendly staff, a decent menu and a collection
of old bits and bobs decorating the walls make Edgar’s
an attractive alternative to the city’s mainstream cafés.
A blues band plays most nights and a pianist adds a
romantic ambience on some Sunday evenings. $$$
.com
Time Out I (7a, Togolok Moldo)
The tea, served in an ornate tea pot with an elab-
orate tea-cozy that could win prizes, goes a small
way to justifying the high prices of the food. But
only a small way. $$$
Time Out II (Sovietskaya/Gorkova)
Used to be our prime 5am post-party crash-pit.
Like its sister bar though, the food often fails to
justify the high prices. Good summer garden with
dodgy out-door pool table. $$$
U Mazovaya (Behind ‘Zaks’ on Sovietskaya)
Possibly Central Asia’s only rabbit themed restau-
rant. Descend into this underground warren and
tuck in. $$
Veranda (Gorky/Soviet. Vefa Centre roof )
Wow, what a view. Eat rather decent international
cuisine whilst taking in a superb view of the moun-
tains from the 4th floor terrace above the Vefa centre.
Now the weather isn’t so bloody hot, this is a great
place to spend a sunny afternoon. $$$$
Italian
Adriatico (219, Chui)
Classy restaurant with it’s own Italian chef. Great
pizza, improved service, and a fine selection of
pasta dishes. $$$
Cyclone (136, Chui)
Smart Italian restaurant with plush interior, effi-
cient, polite serving staff and a warm atmosphere
to alleviate Bishkek’s winter chills. Pasta dishes
stand out among a menu of traditional Italian fa-
vourites. $$$
Dolce Vita (116a, Akhunbaeva)
Cosy Italian restaurant with smiling waitresses
serving excellent pizza. Also serves salads and Eu-
ropean cuisine. Small terrace outside for summer-
time dining. $$
Japanese
Aoyama (93, Toktogula)
Posh sushi place full of fat, suited-types talking
in low voices. The foods good though - if you can
Korean
Petel (Scrabina/Zhykeeva Pudovkin)
See full review, page 9. $$
Santa Maria (217, Chui)
Plush Korean restaurant with two main dining
rooms, function room and a casino out back. Usual
Eastern favourites, including Korean barbecue,
plus an extensive European menu. $$$
www.thespektator.com
 Bars, Restaurants & Clubs 29
Tete-a-tete (162, Ibraimova) Fire & Ice (Chui/Erkandik)
Another swish Korean joint offering more excit-
Turkish Tel. 625100
ing Korean barbecue action. A great beer garden Fire & Ice is a popular end-of-evening venue for
makes this place a summer standout. $$$ Carlson (166, Sovietskaya) the ex-pat who’s drunk everything. Dark and noisy,
Great outdoor eating area. We recommend the no airs or graces are needed here: order a double
tavuk sote (chicken, peppers, tomatoes) and a big
Lebanese lavash bread - a good feed. A good outdoor ter-
and hit the dance floor. Foreigners normally get in
for free, but the door policy often seems to rest on
race, but be prepared to be serenaded by god-aw- the whim of the arsey bouncers. (Entrance charge
Beirut (Ibraimova/Frunze) ful Karaoke style crooners. $$ [girls/boys] free/150 som midweek, 150/250 Fri/
Beirut always seems to be empty, but we like it.
Sat. ‘Foreigners’ usually free)
Gorge yourself on Lebanese favourites such as Ibrahim (Gorkova/Oshskaya)
falaffle, humus and grilled lamb. If the weather is Several dining rooms including private booths and Golden Bull (Chui/Togolok Moldo)
warm it’s fun to relax in Beirut’s outdoor terrace a covered outdoor terrace with an extravagant wa- Tel. 620131
area - next to the main road and intersected by an terfall fountain to help you keep cool while tuck- A Bishkek institution. Full of ex-pats and tourists
open drain. $$$ literally every night of the week. Long bar, friendly
ing into your kebabs in the summer. $$ staff, cheapish beer, everyone’s happy. (Entrance
charge [girls/boys] free/400 midweek, 150/400 Fri/
Regional/Central Asian Istanbul (48, Chui) Sat. ‘Foreigners’ free.)
Discretely tucked away on Chui Prospekt, Istanbul Ibiza (9, Kulatova)
Arabica (Sovietskaya/Kulatova) is a low key cafe offering tasty Turkish cuisine. Puff A cavernous space with a large dance floor. Danc-
Descend the steps into an aromatic cloud of hooka away on a hookah pipe or slurp lentil soup to your ers suspended on platforms 15 feet above the
smoke. The music’s normally reasonably decent heart’s content, all at a nice price. $$ floor, strobe lighting, smoke machines and bang-
chilled out sort of stuff, the food’s good, and the ing dance tunes. Bishkek’s attempt to create a lit-
waitresses smile. $$$ tle bit of the party island. Efforts to negotiate a
Konak (Sovietskaya/Gorkova)
Arzu-I (Togolok Moldo, next to the stadium) This Turkish joint used to be ‘Restaurant Camelot’ cheaper entrance fee are futile. (Entrance charge
Offers a hearty selection of Kyrgyz and European hence the incongruous suits of armour in the back 350-400 som)
dishes and a homely atmosphere. It’s probably a room, and the rather crappy castle facade. However, Retro Metro (24, Mira)
little too chilly for al fresco dining these days, but the food is often great, the salads are large and fresh, www.retrometro.kg
there’s also a great outdoor terrace. $$ and the staff are always pleasant. Recommended! $$
Bright, happy, 80’s kitsch bar, the DJ spins his rec-
ords from inside the front of a VW camper van. One
Arzu-II (Sovietskaya/Lev Tolstoy bridge)
of the most popular places for post-2am partying.
Twenty-four hour joint that’s a godsend for those
(Entrance charge: 200/300 som midweek, 350/450
who get cravings for lagman or manty at four in
Night
som Fri/Sat. Reservation price 200 som)
the morning. Sometimes smoking isn’t allowed,

sometimes it is, however the food and prices are
constantly pretty good. Comfy booth style seats
to dig yourself into after a heavy night. $$
Jalalabad (Togolok Moldo/Kievskaya)
Basically the cheapest food (that won’t give you gut
rot) in the centre of town. While it should stand out
for its fresh lagman, Jalalabad is sometimes over-
looked. Probably at its best in summer, when the
shashlyk masters flanking the entrance offer their
creations straight to guests sitting at Eastern-style
tables – cross your legs and see how long you can
last before cramp sets in. $
Jetigen (Gorky/Logvinenko)
A new place offering European cuisine as well as
the usual local specials. Stands out for it’s deli-
cious lagman, fresh lepyoshka bread, and attentive
service. $
Smile (Chui/Sovietskaya)
Despite the name, you’ll be lucky to see one on the
waitresses face. Nevertheless, if it’s decent cheap
food you’re after, this isn’t a bad place to look. The
eggs are just as good as those at Fatboys next door,
and half the price. Think about it. $
Russian/Ukrainian
Russky Dvor (Kievskaya/Togolok Moldo)
A Russian restaurant we haven’t eaten at yet.
Seems to be well-recommended. $$$
Taras Bulba (Manas/Jibek Jolu)
Now it’s not that we have anything against Rus-
sian or Ukrainian food, but we haven’t had time
to check this Ukrainian place out either - although
the word is that it’s well worth stopping by for a
borsht po-ukrainski.
Clubs
Live Music
Jazz Club (173, Akhunbaeva)
A large open plan area with stage and dance floor.
There are some Bishkek old-hands who say that
Midweek sees a variety of music, including piano
things aren’t what they used to be when it comes
and violin jazz, the weekend sees wilder bands and
to nightlife in Bishkek. They talk of legendary nights
dancing. Full menu, conference room and casino.
of carnage, vomit, and debauchery - delights that
(Music charge 100 som)
contemporary Bishkek struggles to offer.
Not so, we say. Take your pick from the list below Promzona (16, Cholpon-Atinskaya)
and we’re sure there’s still enough carnage, vomit www.promzona.kg
and debauchery in town to keep everyone happy. Promzona’s far-flung location sadly means a taxi
ride or a long walk home are in order at the end
of a night. Nevertheless, this trendy live music
Discoklubs venue has a lot going for it: good bands, an exten-
sive menu, and a hip industrial interior featuring,
Apple (28, Manas)
strangely, a wind tunnel fan, make this one of the
Fat, old, lecherous foreigners not welcome, this
best nights out in Bishkek. Tuesday is Jazz night.
place is for a younger cooler crowd. Multiple bars,
Rock or blues bands normally play at the week-
large dance floor, friendly atmosphere. Thursday
ends. (Music charge 150 som)
usually a big night. (Entrance charge 100-200
som) Tequila Blues (Turesbekova/Engels)
Arbat (9, Karl Marks) A possible misnomer, the tequila is just fine, but
Tel. 512094; 512087 the blues is pretty much non-existent. Young
Popular with a slightly older Russian crowd. Strip Russian studenty types mosh away the nights to
bar and restaurant in same building. rock bands in an atmospheric underground bun-
(Entrance charge 200/350 som midweek, 350/450 ker. Weekends are not for the fainthearted, or the
som Fri/Sat. Strip bar 700 som) claustrophobic. (Entrance charge 100-150 som)
Zeppelin (43, Chui)
City Club (85/1, Zhukeyeva-Pudovkina)
Zeppelin is in the same vein as Tequila Blues but
Tel. 511513; 510581
not quite so spit and sawdust. On the nights we’ve
So exclusive it makes the Spektator crowd feel like
visited, there’s been a line up of young rock or punk
cheap scum bags, City Club is one of the posh-
bands strutting their stuff, heavier beats seem to
est clubs in town. Get past the ‘face control’ (ugly
go down best with the young Russian crowd. Full
people beware) and spend your evening with gang-
restaurant menu.
ster types, lecherous diplomats, Kazakh business-
(Entrance charge 100-150 som)
men and a posse of young rich kids who all seem
to have studied in London... (Entrance charge: girls Live music also common at Doka Pizza Akhun-
200/boys 300, Fri/Sat girls 300/boys 500 bayeva and Stary Edgar (see ‘bars/restaurants’)

www.thespektator.com October 2008 The Spektator

 30 What’s On

Entertainment Directory
The Abdylas Maldybaev Opera and Ballet Theatre
Thursday, Oct 2 Sunday, Oct 12 Abdyrahmanova, 167
Battle Kings of Da Floor A Festival of Cats Tel: 661548; Tickets 50-300 som
International breakdancing dance off If ultimate fighting is not your scene, you could do The theatre has resident opera and ballet compa-
Havikoro, the pride of Houston, Texas (we assume), worse than head along to the eagerly anticipated nies with occasional guest companies. The season
take on Wake Up, Bishkek’s own breakdancing Bishkek Cat-Lovers’ Festival. Feline fun is sure to usually runs from autumn to spring but there are
gang, in a grudge-match clash of breakdancing await you there. often performances at other times of the year as
titans Russian Drama Theatre, 09:00 well.
Apple Club, Evening till late Tickets: TBA
Tickets cost 200-300 som The Kyrgyz Drama Theatre
Tel. 21 97 52 Panfilov, 273 (behind the Government House)
22-25 October Tel: 665802, 216958
Hollywood Party Hours: 8:00-20:00 in summer
Golden bull Hollywood themed night-out Chingiz Aitmatov Exhibition
Tickets 20-200 som
Smart dress code, red carpet treatment.. The late, great Kyrgyz writer is honoured in an ex-
The resident company performs a range of local
Golden Bull, 22.00 hibition run by the Kyrgyz-Japanese Human De-
and international plays – performances are in
Tickets cost 500-700 som velopment Centre. The exhibition will take place in
Kyrgyz or Russian.
Tel. 62 01 31 the History Museum on Ala-too square.
History Museum, Ala-too square
Russian Drama Theatre
Tickets: TBA
Saturday, Oct 4 Tel. 62 60 97
Tynystanova, 122 (Situated in Oak Park)
Tel.: 662032, 621571
Ultimate Fighting Hours: Mon-Sun, 10:00-18:00
Ormon-Hana International Semi-finals
The best ultimate fighters from Uzbekistan, Kyr-
28-30 October Tickets 30-100 som
A range of local and international plays in Russian.
gyzstan and Kazakhstan will be knocking seven A Musical Tale for Kids
bells out of each other for one night only, right The Mermaid The Puppet Theatre
here in Bishkek. If your kids are into mermaids and other such sea- Sovietskaya/Michurina
Almatinska, 304 creatures, this could be the place to dump them. Performances on Sundays at 11:00am.
2 programs: 13:00 - 16:00 and 19:00 - 23:00 Opera-Ballet, performances at 11:00
Tickets cost 500 som Tickets: TBA Kyrgyz State Philharmonic
Tel. 0312 284403; Mob. 0773 032873 Chui Prospect, 253
Tel: 212262, 212235
Hours: 17:00-19:00 in summer
Sunday, Oct 5 Thursday, Oct 30 Tickets: 70-100 som (sometimes much more for
Battle Kings of Da Floor Halloween Party special performances)
International breakdancing dance off As we are still not sure if this is a fancy dress affair, There are two concert halls featuring classical,
Havikoro, the pride of Houston, Texas, take on Wake it would probably be prudent to check nearer the traditional Kyrgyz, and pop concerts and a variety
Up, Bishkek’s own breakdancing gang in a dance time with the organizers before turning up as the of shows.
off grudge-match rematch. only idiot in a full-body pumpkin suit.
Dvorets Sporta, 19.00 City Club, Evening till late The Conservatory
Tickets cost 200-300 som Tickets: TBA Jantosheva, 115
Tel. 62 51 77 Tel. 51 15 13; 51 05 81 Tel: 479542
Concerts by students and professors.

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October 2008 The Spektator www.thespektator.com

 dia
Molod aya Gvardia Molodaya Gva
Mapr
31

Ji b e k
The mountains

Jolu
Kievskaya
Chui
Engelsa
Lva Tolstogo

Toktogula
a n a s ave.
M
ve.
Manas a

Ryskulova

Jumabe
ve.
Manas a

Kievskaya
Moskovskaya

Isanova

k
T. Abdymom
Isanova Koenkozo
va
Isanova

u
nov stadium
old o
Togolok M

Jibe
Michael Frunze
Spartak

k Jo
Chui
Toktogula

lu
k o
Logvinen
Moskovskaya

Panfilova
va
Panfilova Orozbeko

Juma

Baeto
Ala-too
Lva Tolstog

va
Orozbeko a
Square Razzakov
Bokonbaeva

bek

va
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Razzakov
Erkindik
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Erkindik
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va

ova
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AYA
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va
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va

www.thespektator.com October 2008 The Spektator

32 Weekend
crossword quick quiz
Hint: All the answers involve colours

1. What is the world’s most poison- &

ous snake?
2. Which computer beat chess
grandmaster Gary Kasparov in
1992?
3. What colour is an aircraft’s black
box?
4. What is the only country to have
a flag of a single colour? Which col-
our is it?
5. Who were the first winners of the
SuperBowl?
The End
6. What was the name of the Are you a Bishkek driver?
Beatles album featuring ‘Back in
1. You see an elderly babushka stranded in the middle of
the USSR’?
one of Bishkek’s faded, grubby zebra crossings between
two lines of fast moving traffic. What do you do?

A. Pull to a halt a safe distance before the crossing

Note: Answers to all puzzles will appear online or in the next edition of the Spektator.
Across
1 Convivial - party (6)
4 Sledge-pulling dog (5)
7 Large sturgeon, source of ... (6)
8 ... prized delicacy (6)
9 Heel - catalogue (4)
10 Flowers of iris family (8)
12 Information on procreation (5,2,4)
17 Established model - flag (8)
crossword clues
White Album
place, smile warmly and signal for her to cross at
5 — Green Bay Packers; 6 — The
Blue; 3 — Orange; 4 — Libya, green;
her leisure. You feel warm and fuzzy inside at your
Answers: 1 Black Mamba; 2 — Deep
gesture of goodwill.
B. Increase your speed from maim to kill, honk your
horn several times before you reach the crosswalk and
Sudoku several times more once you’ve passed to ram home
the point that she was a contemptible idiot for not
MEDIUM using the underpass two kilometres down the street.
C. Honk your horn, then adjust your driving
trajectory 10 degrees so as to catch her with the
left corner of your bull bars, sending her flailing
body into the oncoming traffic.
2. You’ve had 16 large lagers and a shot of Bishkek cognac.
You need to drive home from your local alehouse but the

19 Be without (4)
20 Not clear (6)
21 Entirely empty space (6)
22 Appellation (5)
23 Sculpture of person or animal (6)
Down
1 Lawman (7)
2 Corrosive (7)
3 Inability to feel pain (9)
4 Gave ear to (5)
5 Profitable by-product (4-3)
6 West Indian gangster (6)
11 Written declaration or oath (9)
13 Unyielding (7)
14 Under the counter (7)
15 Leave out (7)
16 Protective accompaniment (6)
18 Drench with water (5)
brainteasers
marshrutkas have stopped running. What do you do?
A. Concede to yourself that you are experiencing a
level of intoxication incompatible with driving home,
hail a taxi and politely negotiate a fair price home.
B. Struggle with the lock of your car in the dark,
collapse in a heap into the car seat perplexed that
somebody has stolen your steering wheel, realize
your error, climb over the seats into the front of the
car, start the engine at the third attempt and drive
VERY HARD home along the back streets to avoid the police.
C. Pick up a couple of dark beers from the kiosk over
the road, get in your car and drive aggressively into
a tree at a speed fast enough to result in a collision
loud enough to wake up the neighbourhood.
3. One morning as you are about to start your drive
to work, you come across a neighbour attempting to
drive the opposite way down your driveway into the
courtyard of your block of flats. What do you do?

Take the letters ‘ERGRO’. Put three letters in
front of it, and the same three letters behind to
form a common English word.
What number gives the same result when it is
added to 1.5 as when it is multiplied by 1.5?
Which of the following words is the odd one
out?
IBIS IBEX ORYX SIKA ZEBU
Mostly Cs –You are probably a taxi driver
the city’s more refined motorists
Mostly Bs – Congratulations, you are one of
or you’ll be eaten alive
Mostly As – Stick to using the marshrutkas
ANSWERS: Are you a Bishkek driver?
A. Wave at your neighbour, reverse calmly into a
convenient space five metres back down the driveway
and insist your good neighbour has the right of way.
B. Stare at your neighbour in a minatory fashion
through your cracked windshield as a clear signal
there isn’t a chance in hell that you’ll back down in this
macho battle of wills. After an obvious impasse has
been reached, try to blow your adversary backwards
and out of the way by the power ofyour loud horn.
C. Slam your handbrake on, fling your door open,
get out of your car, tell your neighbour to get the
hell out of your way or you’ll rip his damn arm off,
ram it into his fuel tank and set fire to it.
— See left column for driving test results

October 2008 The Spektator www.thespektator.com