Welcome to Bishkek: Ski Adventures

Greetings, intrepid blog readers!

I’ve been in Bishkek a week now, and wow, have I met a lot of people and done a lot of stuff! It’s been a whirlwind. Happy to report that my apartment is great, the research looks promising, I have tutoring starting this week to brush up on language, and I haven’t eaten anything too weird yet.

This weekend was a highlight of the trip so far. On Friday I attended the opening of a new American Corner at a local library and got to meet the US Ambassador. That evening I went to a dinner hosted by a new acquaintance from the embassy – Bishkek is a small world in a lot of ways, and I met plenty of people at the dinner who either work at the same university where I am based or have interests similar to mine.

On Saturday I went to the ballet with my fellow Fulbrighter Ailey and some new friends, an American couple and a Kyrgyz doctor. The ballet was, as always, a cultural experience. In particular, the norms of cell phone use during a performance are quite different in Kyrgyzstan. But the dancers were great, the music was good, and the setting was fabulous. See the picture of the outside of the building below…

The opera and ballet theater in Bishkek with New Year's tree

We topped off the evening with a few beers and a ride home from a female taxi driver. I know that there are plenty of women drivers in Central Asia, but it was still unusual for me to see a woman hanging out at the taxi stand. A highlight of my night was negotiating a lower price for the taxi. I’m going to do my best to spend all of your hard-earned tax dollars right.

Today (Sunday) was another good-luck, met-the-right-person sort of day. A new friend told me on Friday about a trekking group based out of Bishkek. They run trips every weekend, rent out gear, and have a nice mixture of locals and foreigners. This weekend, they happened to be running a cross-country ski trip, so of course I jumped on the opportunity. Actually, my friend Sally jumped on the opportunity for me and made sure there was space on the trip.

Skiers are rarely serious

As you can see from the photos, I did manage to join the group. Right now I am tired, a bit sore, but very, very happy. It was wonderful to get out of the city and to see the mountains that I can usually only glimpse on a clear day. We wandered about a bit getting used to the skis and the snow, and then we came around a corner and discovered a sledding hill. There were kids and some adults sledding on giant tubes, horses towing more tubes to the hill, and cars bearing small cooking stoves for tea. Naturally, we had to try the sledding. I was only able to handle about a run and a half before I was reminded that I don’t have the best history of safe sledding. I stopped then, but not without a bruise or too…

Post-sledding. How many types of transport can you count?

We headed back to the van eventually and then the day got even more interesting. The spot that we went to ski turns out to have quite a bit of importance; it hosts a national memorial complex. The story goes like this: in the 1930s, during the Soviet repression, 137 political dissidents were taken to this remote location and shot. They were buried in a mass grave that was hidden under a brick factory. The atrocity was witnessed by a young girl, whose father told her to never speak of what she saw. When the Soviet Union fell, the young girl have become an old woman, but she remembered the story and told about those that had been killed. The grave was exhumed, and the bodies were given a proper burial. Now a monument stands at their grave site; the original mass grave has also been preserved. It is a reverent but unsettling place.

Amongst those killed was the father of Chingiz Aitmatov, who is considered to be the premier figure in Kyrgyz literature and activism. He was well-known throughout the Soviet Union. Aitmatov died in 2008 (I believe) and was also buried at this site, not far from the new grave of his father.

A memorial statue for repression victims; in the background is the 2010 monument

As if this weren’t enough sorrow and remembrance for one spot, the complex also holds a memorial to and the graves of many of the individuals who died on April 7, 2010 during the anti-government protests. Of course, this meant that I had both a humanitarian and an academic interest in the site. It was a moving place. As we stood there, fog began to roll up the mountains, making everything just that much more eerie. The mountains disappeared into the clouds as the day wore on.

Visitors to the monument for the April 7, 2010 victims

I will admit that after looking at all these sites, we returned to our skiing. Heading up the hill at one point, we heard the call to prayer echoing from a nearby village. It was one of those classic incongruities of Central Asia: cold air, snow, skis, the mountains, and the lilting song of Arabic prayer.

The foothills where we skied today

To leave things on a slightly lighter note, I would like to report that the belief that women should not sit on bare concrete is alive and well in Kyrgyzstan. No matter that we were out skiing in the cold. No matter that we are hearty women. As soon as we sat down on a narrow concrete slab for lunch, the driver came over worried about our health. He brought one of the cross-country skis and insisted that we put it down between our butts and the concrete. Glad to know that a ski is proper protection for our ovaries.

Week two looms, I can only hope that I will have something as interesting to report next time.