Issyk Kul
From Bishkek to Cholpon-Ata
The day started with a visit to the Burana Tower and Bulbans near Tokmok. The Tower is really the remains of a minaret that was attached to a mosque used by the Karakhanids, when they made this site their Eastern capital, Balasagin, sometime around the late 9th early 10th C. There is a large mound with some excavated rooms near the Tower, but otherwise there is nothing that remains of this vast city that used to be the size of Bukhara or Samarkand. We climbed up the very narrow steep stairway to the top of what’s left of the minaret, which is about 24m high. The original tower was supposed to have been up to 40m high. While the city hasn’t been around for quite a while, devastated by the Mongols in the 13th C and probably completely abandoned at the latest in the 15th C., the minaret lasted until an earthquake in 1900. From the top one can clearly see the outline of the inner city walls with the citadel in the middle. Near to the entrance are reconstructed outlines of two former tombs for the kings, but nothing else.
In the back of the site is an open air museum filled with petroglyphs from around Bishkek, Tokmok, and Issyk Kul, as well as the famous Bulbans, gravestones with images of Turks holding a cup that symbolizes happiness in the next life. Many of the gravestones were so worn that it was difficult to see their images, but many were very clear. It was interesting to see the similarities and differences among the various samples, and I learned that the styles differed by ruler and that the images were supposed to be those of the king/ruler who died. There are clear ethnic differences in the images that correspond to the different ethnic groups in the area today.
There was a small museum on site and it had a few artifacts that weren’t visible from the grounds outside. They had a few of fragments from a Buddhist temple that was originally about 5km away, but is now completely gone, as well as a few stones with Nestorian crosses and Zoroastrian tools and an ossuary. The Tokmok region was one of the sites on the Silk Road, which is why the Karakhanids built their capital here and why much later in the early 19th C the Kokand Khanate conquered it. I wasn’t aware that the Kokands had made it this far East, but they did, extending their reach to the next mountain range.
From Tokmok we drove further east along the Chu River briefly crossing in and out of Kazakhstan as the river changed course; the river is the official border between the two countries in this area. After a couple of hours we came to the tiny village of Örnök. The museum in Bishkek had fairly old photographs of petroglyphs (the museum collection hasn’t been updated since the Soviet era) and I had asked where they were. Many were outside of Osh, so we were not going to be able to see them, many others were from the open air museum in Issyk Kul, which we were going to see, and a couple were from Örnök. When we got to the village, Kuban asked where they were, but no one knew. As there is only one road from the lake back towards the mountains, the women shopkeeper said if there was anything they’d have to be on that road. The village only consists of about 15 houses, and on the way Kuban again asked a couple of men on the side of the road. One, who was slightly tipsy, said to just follow the road straight ahead about 10 km, ford a stream and they’d be behind a group of trees. We thanked him and continued on, the road became a jeep path & it was incredibly lucky to have this big high clearance SUV; we wouldn’t have made it in a car. Not trusting the directions from someone who was inebriated, we asked a shepherd we saw, but he didn’t know of any rocks with pictures on them; we asked a farmer and his family where they were and they didn’t know. So we followed the original directions to a small house, where the owner came out and said we’d missed the turn off, but only by about 100 meters and following that path would take us to the rocks. It did, and it was incredible.
The site was huge. There were rows upon rows of rocks that were strewn in lines that definitely showed human intervention. There were a couple of tomb mounds. There were at least three stone circles that we found and as we didn’t go through every section, there were probably more. There was a section that was laid out as a temple. And there were petroglyphs on almost all of the remaining black faced rocks. The petrogylphs appeared to be both ancient, i.e., Neolithic to Scythian, i.e., perhaps 4th-5th C CE. This wasn’t just an ancient rock art site, it was an entire city with rock art in it. The images were mostly of reindeer and goats, but there were, what I am assuming were, later ones of a dancing man, Bactrian camel, and one that looks like it has two Scythians, given the caps they have on. The site lies in almost a direct North-South direction from the mountains to the North to the lake on the South. The mountain is capped by a small roundish peak that was hidden in the clouds most of the time we were there, but came out just before we left. What was then visible was the peak as the head, the large, what looked to be, screefield unfolding like a lap when prone to the valley and stream below. Geologically, it would make sense that the rocks fell when the Ice Age receded, but mystically it looked like the fertile deity giving birth to all of creation below.
It was so quiet and peaceful there and so big that Paul, Kuban and I separated each looking a different section and out of view of the others. I was a bit started when two rather strong looking young men came over to me on horseback. They jabbered away in Kyrgyz, then realizing that I didn’t understand what they were saying, asked if I spoke Russian, “nyet.” I motioned to the rocks and the pictures and camera, and they laughed. They must have thought this crazy woman is out there alone in the midst of nowhere looking at a bunch of stones amidst where their cattle graze. Once they realized I wasn’t interested in the cows, they headed off towards the West. Örnök is a site that really needs to be excavated by a seriously professional team. There is clearly so much this site has to tell us about the pre-Islamic traditions in this region. One aspect that has come through time is that the tribe that lives in the area is known as the “Deer” tribe and given all the reindeer on the rocks, I now know why.
After Örnök, the Open Air Petroglyph Museum in Cholpon Ata was almost anticlimactic. It is an impressive site and fairly large, the sign said to do the big loop would take 2 hours, but the images were almost solely of reindeer and goats, with the exception of the big rock at the entrance that is called “Hunting and Taming Snowleopards.” If we hadn’t just come from something quite so spectacular, I would have found this Museum amazing. But after being awe-struck, this was just simply delightful.
The hotel we stayed in was right on the lake and the sunset was beautiful. Issyk Kul is the second largest mountain lake in the world, only Lake Titicaca is larger. It is over 180km long, 60km across at its widest point and up to 668m deep. Which means it doesn’t freeze over even in winter given the different temperatures in the lake. The Kazakh border and the Künggöy Ala-Too Mountains are on the north side while the Terskey Ala-Too Mountains with peak Karakol at 5218m, reign over the south side. The lake is slightly salty as it has no natural drainage. It’s water table has fluctuated over time as there is a 2500 year sunken city towards the north-eastern end, and pictures from the Przhevalsky Museum of what it was like in the mid 1800s that show the level probably 30m higher than it is today.
Around Issyk Kul
Yesterday we headed along the north shore of the lake towards Karakol, the city at the far eastern end of the lake. Our first stop was at the Przhevalsky Museum, which is dedicated to a 19th Russian explorer. It was a small museum, but it was fascinating to see some of the pictures his small group of 13 people took of local people in their journey towards Lhasa. The government at the time wouldn’t let them into the city, but they saw it from the mountains above town. Przhevalsky died in Karakol from Typhus Fever and the museum and monument were built to honor his explorations and the maps he made of Central Asia, which were the first made with scientific instruments.
From the museum, we went to visit a mosque that was built in 1907 by masters of the Dungan tribe in China. It is unique in the region as it looks Chinese, not Central Asian. When we entered the complex, we were told we couldn’t enter the mosque but could take pictures outside. I was taking pictures of the two paintings on the sides of the entrance, when an older gentleman who had something to do with the administration of the building, said that if I took my shoes off well in front of the entry carpet, I could go to the threshold and take pictures of the inside. He was very kind to let me do this, and while the inside was not particularly artistically special, the event was.
From the mosque to the mountains. We drove along the south shore to Dzhety-Oguz Gorge, stopping first at a Red Rock Overlook that had an incredible vista. The red rock was so much larger than in Sedona or So. Utah that it was almost overwhelming. The fertile valleys beyond the red rock stretching to the craggy granite peaks in the distance presented a feast for our senses. After having a yogurt for lunch, we drove further up the gorge, crossing the foaming whitewater river on wooden planked bridges just large enough for the car, and rippling streams when there were none. The higher we got, the greener it got and the more horses, sheep and yurts we saw. The jeep track ended at the bowl of the canyon and a place where we could rent horses for a trail ride to a waterfall. As there was only one way the horses could go, we didn’t need a guide, but I was unsure where we were supposed to tie up the horses as they couldn’t go all the way. Luckily, my horse was smart enough to let me know. We tied our trusty steeds to a couple of flimsy pine branches and scampered through the woods to the waterfall. The photos do not do justice to the place.
After the trailride, we each went our separate ways exploring stillness and beauty of the meadows and mountainsides for awhile, before the final three hour drive back to the Cholpon –Ata hotel. The sunset over the mountains was simply amazing.
Today is our last day in Kyrgyzstan, and I am sorry to be leaving this lake region which is simply among the most beautiful places that grace our planet. We drive back to the city this morning and will spend the night in Bishkek. Tomorrow it’s on to the Tamgaly petroglyphs in Kazakhstan.
