Holiday in Central Asia (8): south side of Lake Issyk-Kok in Kyrgyzstan
September 9th, 2022 by Roger Darlington
Lake Issyk-Kol is over 170 km (105 miles) long and up to 70 km (44 miles) across and lies at an altitude of over 1600 metres (over 5,000 feet). It is not only one of the world’s few remaining ancient lakes, estimated to be 25 million years old, but it is also the second largest alpine lake on the planet.
The name means ‘hot lake’ which comes from a combination of extreme depth, thermal activity, and mild salinity which ensures that the lake never freezes even in the fierce winters. The backdrop in the north is the snow-dappled Ala-Too mountains. The lake runs west-east. The northern shore has shallower beaches and warmer water, but it is much more expensive than the southern shore which is therefore known as “the wild shore”.
Our first full day in the area (Day 7) was spent visiting locations on the south side of the lake. First, we viewed Skazka (Faireytale) Canyon which has red hills of every size and shape. There are high and low walking routes and our group took (part of) the low route (some members of the group have walking difficulties). Then, just south of a village called Jeti-Oguz, we drove into a gorge called Broken Heart and Seven Bulls which indicates the shapes of the mountains to be found there,
From now in, the route was even tougher for our four-wheel drive coach but our driver was not fazed. So we ploughed on up rutted and rock-strewn ‘roads’ twisting and turning to avoid obstacles and crossing the fast-flowing Jeti-Oguz River.
Out destination was a yurt camp located at a height of round 2,000 metres (7,000 feet). Since leaving the hotel, it had taken us four and a half hours to reach the camp with no stops for toilets or coffees. So we were pleased to make use of the camp’s facilities and enjoyed lunch in a yurt with four dumplings as the main course.
Finally our guide Olga – a fit young woman – invited the group to walk back as far at the first of the five bridges which apparently was 4 km (2.5 miles). Only one person actually made it as far as the first bridge and that walk took 70 minutes. Yes, it was me.
On the six previous nights of our Central Asia trip, we have only had one night at that hotel each time. But now we have checked into the Karagat Hotel in the town of Karakol where we will spend all of two nights. Suitcases might actually be unpacked this time and some clothes washing may be attempted.
Dinner was at a popular and lively restaurant called “Dastorkon”. Astonishingly one of the group met an English man who he used to know years ago.
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Holiday in Central Asia (7): travel to Lake Issyk-Kol in Kyrgyzstan
September 8th, 2022 by Roger Darlington
Now in another country: Kyrgyzstan is a thinly-populated nation bisected by mountain ranges and the north-south divide has always bedevilled the country’s politics. Since independence, there have been three revolutions (2005, 2010, 2020) and six presidents. The Kyrgyz language has two dialects, one in the north influenced by Russian and the other to the south shaped by Uzbek. In fact, Russian is the everyday language of all educated citizens and, like the other countries of Central Asia, emotionally most people still identify with Russia.
Now in another city: Modern Bishkek was founded in 1878 on the site of a Russian garrison. From 1926 to 1991, the city’s Soviet name was Frunze, honouring locally-born Mikhail Frunze, a Russian Civil War commander. Today it is a city of 1M. Before leaving town, we had a quick look at the main squares, viewing the soaring national flagpole and new equestrian statue of Mighty Manas, observing the changing of the guard with slowly goose-stepping soldiers, and finally observing the large statue of Lenin opposite the single-chamber parliament.
For the next two days, our itinerary will be focused on the Issyk-Kol Lake, so on Day 6 we drove east on a road which early on actually took us into and out of neighbouring Kazakhstan for a few minutes. The quality of the roads was terrible but we made steady progress on our journey of 330 kms (200 miles):with one short comfort stop at a service station (the toilets were out of order) and an hour and a half for lunch in a family home in Bokonbaievo (there were no adequate restaurants anywhere on the route).
So we left the hotel at 8.30 am and finally reached our overnight accommodation at 3.40 pm. We are staying at an artist colony at Kadji-Sal just 10 minutes walk from Lake Issyk-Kol. Unlike Saty village in Kazakhstan, each room has a toilet and shower and decent WiFi but, at the time of our arrival, there was an unannounced absence of electricity locally (it returned at 5 pm). Dinner was at the guesthouse with a large group of Israeli tourists.
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Holiday in Central Asia (6): city tour of Almaty, Kazakhstan
September 7th, 2022 by Roger Darlington
Our last day in Kazakhstan (Day 5) started with a surprise when one of our group Nova announced that overnight her partner Charles, who had never had covid, had just tested positive for the virus. The tour organisers decided that, while the rest of the group would fly to Bishkek in Kyrgyzstan, Charles & Nova would need to travel there by road and then isolate at our hotel there until he tested negative.
So, for the rest of us, the day was a tour of the city on a day when the temperature was 36C.
Almaty, which is located in the south-east corner of the country, was previously called Alma-Ata (Father of Apples) but, following independence, it was renamed to be closer in name to the original Silk Road settlement of Almatu. It used to be the capital but, in 1998, this was moved to Astana in the centre of the country which was subsequently renamed Nur-Sultan. This is all part of the ubiquitous post-Soviet rebranding in this region.
However, Almaty remains the largest city in the country with a population of about 2M. It is a surprisingly picturesque city with plenty of trees and overlooked by the Zailiysky Alatau mountains. It has only has one tube line with just 11 stations.
The tour started with a visit to the Central State Museum where pride of place goes to a large replica of the Golden Man – the national symbol of Kazakhstan – who was a 3rd or 4th century warrior whose gold-clan remains were uncovered in 1969 and are now located in the new capital. Next we took a cable car – or “the rope way” as a sign suggested in English – up the Kok Tobe (Green Hill) which affords splendid views over the city as well as offering a 2007 set of bronze statues of the four Beatles.
Back down from the cable car, we had lunch at a restaurant called “Assorti”. Afterwards we drove down Freedom Street (formerly Lenin Street) to Panfilov Park (named after an Almaty infantry unit who died fighting outside Moscow in 1941). At the heart of the square is the beautiful candy-coloured Zenkov Cathedral which was built between 1904-1906 entirely of wood (which is how it survived the earthquake of 1911).
Much of the square, as its name suggests, has military connotations with grandiose Soviet-designed monuments commemorating the dead of the Civil War in 1917-1920 and the Second World War in 1941-1945 plus a huge statue portraying the 28 Panfilov Heroes and an eternal flame of honour. Rather prosaically, we even made a short visit to the Kazakh Museum of Folk Musical Instruments which is located in a 1908 wooden building in the square.
It was time to say goodbye to Svetlana and make the short flight of 30 minutes from Almaty in Kazakhstan to Bishkek in Kyrgyzstan – the second country on our tour of the ‘stans’. Our local guide was Olga – a Russian whose family has lived In Kyrgyzstan for five generations. Our hotel was the Hyatt, an excellent place, if not as opulent as the Ritz-Carlton in Almaty.
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Holiday in Central Asia (5) a strange lake in Kazakhstan
September 6th, 2022 by Roger Darlington
It was an odd night in the Alban guesthouse and many of the group did not sleep so well because of the regular barking of local dogs, the early crowing of the village cocks, and some members taking nighttime showers. I pride myself on being able to sleep anywhere at anytime but a combination of jet-lag and animal noises had me awake for a while.
Today’s excursion (Day 4) was to a very particular location called Kaindy Lake. This is so remote that it could only be accessed by four-wheeled drive vehicles, so the group split into two Toyota 4WD land cruisers in which we swerved around ruts and rocks, splashed through streams, and ploughed up hills for a fun drive of 45 minutes.
Once out of the vehicles, things became even more challenging. The paths down to the lake are very steep and very gravelly and several of the group took a tumble. But what a sight: both at water level and from the hillside above.
Kaindy Lake was formed by nature after an earthquake in 1911 dislodged a huge block of mountain which blocked the river and created the lake in which earlier trees still make a ghostly appearance. Located around 2,000 metres above sea level, surrounded by huge spruce trees, and with the silver trucks of dead spruce risking above the water surface like the masts of sunken ships, this is truly a magical experience.
We were at Kiandy Lake for an hour and a half, following which we returned to our guesthouse for a quick lunch, before leaving Saty village to return to Almaty. It was a journey of almost four and a half hours, but we stopped briefly to view the Black Canyon and to have a comfort break.
Some of us wanted to take the opportunity to have a sleep or read a book, but our guide Svetlana appealed to us to ask her anything about Kazakhstan and our Scottish member requested information on the country’s experience of ice hockey. His other questions kept us going till Almaty where we are staying at the same place as previously: the luxurious Ritz-Carlton Hotel.
Dinner was also at a familiar location: “Navat” restaurant. This time we had salmon as the main course (the Kazaks do love their meat) and three members of staff put on a short dance show.
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Holiday in Central Asia (4): canyon & lake in Kazakhstan
September 5th, 2022 by Roger Darlington
After a day and a night in Almaty to rest and recover from our jet lag, on Day 3 we left the city for two days to visit some nature locations in the very south-east this huge country.
Our guide Svetlana never stopped talking while we were on the road and we learned so much about the country and the people. Her personal story is symbolic of post-Soviet Central Asia. Her mother’s family was Ukrainian kulak and banished to Sakhalin Island, while her father’s family was Don Cossack kulaks who were sent to Siberia. Thank you, comrade Stalin. They grew up in the Soviet Union before finding themselves in independent Kazakhstan. On our road journey, we passed close to China and Kyrgyzstan and went through a Uyghur village. It is a complicated region of the world.
Leaving our Almaty hotel at 7.30 am, we travelled around 200 km to arrive at our first destination just over 3 hours later (there was a comfort stop at a service station that served coffee). Our destination was the spectacular Charyn Canyon where we spent three and a half hours. The canyon consists of rocks varying in age from 23M to 60M years old. Today the canyon is 154 km in length with cliff sides of up to 300 metres high.
We walked the 1.3 metre trial along the top, walked all the way back, and then took the 2.3 metre trail on the floor of the canyon all the way to the rushing Charyn River, so we covered around 5 metres. The lower part of the canyon is known as the Valley of the Castles because of the striated and coloured cliff faces on either side. The weather was glorious with a temperature of around 40C made bearable by a breeze. But, in the summer, the temperature can hit 50C. Understandably we all took a open lorry back (thankfully with sears) from the river to the start of the trails and found some shelter for a picnic lunch.
Our next destination was a further 100 km and took almost another two hours on increasingly winding roads. This time our destination was the Kolsai Lakes. In fact, we only viewed the nearest and deepest (70 metres). We were higher now so the weather was milder and the views were simply beautiful. After a coffee, I took a walk half way round the large lake, during which I befriended a Kazak couple who wanted to video me (no problem) and discuss English football (a subject on which I am totally ignorant).
We are not returning to Almaty yet because we have another local sight to visit, so we spent the night in the very simple but clean Alban guesthouse in a tiny village called Saty. Ten of us the group plus driver & guide – shared two toilets and two showers. Here the WiFi was so slow it reminded me of the days of dial-up when we watched that blue bar edging barely perceptively to the right.
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Holiday in Central Asia (3): welcome to Kazakhstan
September 4th, 2022 by Roger Darlington
Kazakhstan is about the size of Western Europe and, as a single entity with defined borders, it was an invention of the Soviet regime in the 1920s. During the Cold War, the USSR decided that the republic was so empty and remote that they used it as the chief nuclear bomb testing ground. When the USSR collapsed, it was the last of the Soviet republics to declare independence.
Although Kazaks – who ethnically split from Uzbeks in the 15th century – form two-thirds of the population, it is a multi-ethnic country with a substantial Russian minority. The dominant language is still Russian, but the Kazak language is in the process of moving from the Cyrillic to the Latin alphabet.
Our first day in the country – Day 2 of the tour – was just a resting day to catch up on our jet lag. For those who wanted it, there was a free extra option of a demonstration of falconry which I attended. Then, in the evening, we had our first group meal – there are eight of us – round the corner from the hotel at a restaurant called “Navat” which served us a selection of local foods, all of which were tasty.
We will be back in Almaty in a couple of days for a proper look at the city.
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Holiday in Central Asia (2): getting there
September 4th, 2022 by Roger Darlington
I knew that this trip would be challenging but I didn’t expect the challenges to begin before we even reached the region. However, the evening before departure, we were notified that our UK Tour Manager had just gone down with covid so that we would be dependent solely on local guides.
On Day 1 of our 26-day trip, to reach the starting point of the tour, there were two Turkish Airline flights: one from London to Istanbul and then another from Istanbul to Almaty.
The first flight of just over 3 hours went smoothly. Once at Istanbul airport, the good news was that it is a super modern facility opened in 2019 – although free WiFi is only available for an hour after scanning one’s passport details. The bad news was that the onward flight was delayed by two hours turning a three-hour wait into a five-hour one. The second flight was just over 4.5 hours.
We were met at Almaty airport – a wholly inadequate facility – by our local guide, a Russian called Svetlana, and driven the short distance to the 30-storey Ritz-Carlton Hotel which is as good as any Western hotel. Indeed it was so modern that the rooms had sliding panels in the drawers with a fixed electronic pad that controlled the lights, the curtains, the air conditioning and probably all sorts of other things that I never discovered.
It was now 8 am local time. Since I had left home at 7 am and Kazakhstan is five hours ahead of UK time, the journey door to door had been 20 hours. After a quick breakfast, it was time for bed.
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Holiday in Central Asia (1): introduction
September 2nd, 2022 by Roger Darlington
Throughout my life, I have been fortunate to have had many opportunities to travel and I have visited a total of 80 countries all around the world. But this trip – organised by the travel company Voyages Jules Verne (VJV) – is different. It is not my furthest or my longest trip: that would be the one to Australia and New Zealand in 2013 when I was away for 31 days. But, given the location (Central Asia), the length (26 days) and my age (I am now 74), it is probably going to be the most challenging.
As the travel company puts it, the region is: “Perhaps amongst some of the world’s least visited and least well-known destinations, making this a true journey of discovery”. The briefing refers to “remote and, in part, unsophisticated destinations”, hotels that may be “simple and unpretentious”, occasional “water or electricity shortages”, food that “can be repetitive”, and “some long journeys, some on uneven roads with only limited opportunities for comfort breaks”. And, of course, you cannot drink the water anywhere.
We will be away 26 days and make 9 flights. We will stay in 18 hotels: 12 of them for one night only and 6 for all of two nights. Although VJV has been operating in the region for many years, this is the company’s first five-nation tour. Sounds like fun, huh?
We are going to visit five ‘stans’ (the word ‘stan’ means country): Kazakhstan, Kyrgyzstan, Tajikistan, Turkmenistan and Uzbekistan. The only one that I have visited before is Uzbekistan in 2006 so, by the end of this trip, the total number of countries that I have visited will be 84. Visas are not required for Kazakhstan, Kyrgyzstan or Uzbekistan but are necessary for Tajikistan (payment in advance of £50 to VJV) and Turkmenistan (payment at the border of $100).
All five of these ‘stans’ were previously members of the USSR but, with the collapse of the Soviet Union in 1991, each became an independent state. All of them are overwhelmingly Sunni Muslim, economically underdeveloped, and politically illiberal. But, of course, each is different.
Kazakhstan is an enormous country, the ninth largest in the world and over 10 times the size of the UK. It is the largest landlocked country on earth and the world’s largest Muslim-majority country by land area. Yet it has a population of only 19M and therefore one of the lowest population densities in the world. Since 1997, the capital – which used to be Almaty – has been Astana which in 2019 was renamed Nur-Sultan. It is rich in oil, gas and mineral resources which makes it the most economically advanced of the ‘stans’. Officially it is a democracy but it has an authoritarian government with a poor human rights record.
Kyrgyzstan is a similar size to the UK but with a much smaller population of just 6M. The capital is Bishkek. The country is probably the most democratic in the region, following the Tulip Revolution of 2005 which overthrew Askar Akayev. it has a semi-presidential political system with a free news media and an active political opposition.
Tajikistan is smaller than the UK and has a much smaller population of about 10M. The capital is Dushanbe. Mountains cover more than 90% of the country which has minimal resources. Following a civil war from 1991-1997, it has had peaceful elections but the same president since 1994 and one party holding the vast majority of seats in the parliament. A major source of income is remittances from abroad.
Turkmenistan is twice the size of the UK but the population is a mere 6M, the lowest of the Central Asian republics. The capital is Ashgabat. Since independence, the country has been ruled by three repressive totalitarian regimes with poor human rights records. The country possesses the world’s fourth largest reserves of natural gas and substantial oil resources. It is the least-visited of the ‘stans’.
Uzbekistan is almost twice the size of the UK with a population 35M (about half that of the UK but almost as large as the other four ‘stans’ combined). it is one of only two double landlocked nations on earth (the other is tiny Liechtenstein). The capital is Tashkent. Following the death of the totalitarian leader Islam Karimov in 2016, the country has embarked on political reforms which have improved relations with neighbouring nations . The country is a major producer and exporter of cotton. It is the most-visited of the ‘stans’.
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A review of the 2017 film “The Killing Of A Sacred Deer”
August 29th, 2022 by Roger Darlington
This is a very odd film in so many respects.Above all, the storyline is so unusual: inspired by an ancient Greek tragedy (which is mentioned once very briefly), it is a psychological thriller in which lives are threatened and one is lost (the titular reference to an animal is a metaphor).
Although it is set in Cincinnati, the American family is played by an international cast: (a very hairy) Irish Colin Farrell as a surgeon and father, Australian Nicole Kidman as his wife. English Raffey Cassidy as his daughter and American Sunny Suljic as his son plus Irish Barry Keoghan in a stand-out role as the mysterious centre of the drama.
From the very opening, what we see is unsettling and unexplained and the narrative only moves very slowly in revealing meaning. Meanwhile our sense of unease is aggravated by the cinematography, with lots of tracking shots along corridors and wide-angle shots of characters in settings, and by the sound, with obscure classical music and frequent jarring noises.
The source of all this oddness is Greek director and co-writer Yorgos Lanthimos whose previous work was “The Lobster” and whose next work was “The Favourite”.
If you need conventional storytelling, this film is not for you. If you like something idiosyncratic and thought-provoking, this is recommended.
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A review of the 1995 film “La Haine”
August 24th, 2022 by Roger Darlington
A French-language film shot in black and white with the title “Hate” might not immediately appeal, but it won the Best Director prize at the Cannes Film Festival and it has become a major classic of recent French cinema. Written and directed by Mattieu Kassovitz, amazingly this was his screen debut and he was only 27 at the time. The work is so striking because the locations and the characters are so different from most French films and an array of cinematic devices is deployed to tell a hard-hitting story.Shot largely in the deprived Paris suburb of Chanteloup-les-Vignes, the 24 hour narrative revolves around three friends: a Jewish man Vinz (Vincent Cassel), a black boxer Hubert (Hubert Koundé) and a young Arab Saïd (Saïd Taghmaoui) – note how the names of the actors inform those of the characters. There is a lot of (rough) dialogue with plenty of anger and violence but cleverly Kassovitz weaves into the tale some funny characters and situations – a bit like Shakespeare in his tragedies. You will never forget the ending.
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