Bishkek Kyrgyzstan
I had the opportunity to live in Bishkek for two months, while I was volunteering for a contemporary art association.
Those two months were very intense, and they literally flew between amazing people, wonderful landscapes and discovering a new culture. I think that what I brought with me from this experience are human relationships, Kyrgyz are smiling people, open to helping you and sharing their culture.
I also found some parallelism between Kyrgyz and Italians (at least people from Bishkek), they have the same behavior on the streets, they honk, they get angry, and they have their own rules.
B’ art contemporary organized a nomadic art camp from 2011 till 2019, my volunteer job was to organize it for 2021 but in the end, it wasn’t possible because of the pandemic situation. The plan b was to do a series of workshops between expat artists in Bishkek and local artists, with an exhibition at the end of them. The time was not enough to fully concretise this idea, but I’m sure I was able to build up new connections and get new volunteers for the organization.
For that two months, I lived with a local family, a Kyrgyz couple with 3 kids. I can simply tell that they are amazing, everything was super, and they were really welcoming and supportive. They helped me when I needed every kind of problem and we shared a lot about our cultures and traditions.
For the last week, in the flat, we decided to share traditional food: Italian, Kyrgyz and Vietnamese (I had a flat mate from there). I prepared pizza, and the family that hosts me prepared Manti (манты), and we had a Vietnamese fish soup with vegetables and spring rolls.
I lived in Bishkek, the capital, basically, during the week I stayed here, working and visiting it participating in different walking tours, and during the weekends I travelled in the countryside. Under you can find some pictures of places I visited with these tours, I want to put the focus on the Soviet architecture that is everywhere in the city and it is still a must here, as you can see also from the Lenin statue in my picture.
Here is a quick list of places I visited in Kyrgyzstan, I used organized tours, two-three day trips, very cheap, I think it is the easiest way to travel around the country.
Song Kul
Song-Kul lake is at 3000m altitude, the water is amazing and the mountains that surround the lake are wonderful. There I swam in the lake, rode the horses and slept in yurts, I really suggest this experience to everyone. There was no electricity, no tap water and no internet connection: two days disconnected from civilization.
Sary Chelek
I visited Sary-Chelek national reserve, where there are several lakes and I saw most of them with a really nice hike, and we swam in two of them. The hike was 7 km long and gave me the possibility to enjoy the national reserve and see stunning landscapes.
Kel Suu
It is a magical place near the border with China, a lake at 3500 m altitude. I have to say that I felt the altitude during the 7 km hike to reach the lake, high heart rate, sleepiness and real difficulty to hike. Kel Suu translated from Kyrgyz means “leaving water” because sometimes the water disappears leaking into underground caves.
Ala Archa
I went to the Ala Archa national park, not far from Bishkek. A lot of people suggested I visit it as a must-see in Kyrgyzstan. We started the hike at 6 am, and we walked 18 km with a 1500 m difference in altitude one way, at the end of the day I walked around 40 km. Our destination was the Big Ala-Archinsky glacier at 3400 m altitude. It was hard but as you can see from the pictures it was worth it.
I tried to see as much as I could but, of course, I missed a lot of things, and I have no regrets about what I was not able to see or do.
If you like to get into the local culture when you travel, I really suggest this type of experience, volunteering allows you to immerse yourself in a community.
Original travel blog:
https://ionlytakepics.substack.com/p/kyrgyzstan-two-months-in-central
Published April 2023
All images from https://ionlytakepics.substack.com/
