January. Watching the Ak Maral dancers perform at the Bishkek Philharmonic.
February. Farrell and I take a short trip to Osh to interview journalists for a research project on Kyrgyz media.
March. I take a weekend trip to Kochkor with some friends, get ambushed by smiling soccer players.
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Happy New Year! For the second time, I celebrated in Bishkek, surrounded by friends, food, and my wonderful husband.
Just like my Christmas trip to Chon-Kemin, I was really happy to spend this time of year with a smaller group of friends than the usual gigantic expat extravaganzas.
(Although, it was probably because all the other expats are back at home or in fabulous tropical locations at the moment. No, I’m not jealous at all. Nope.)
Special highlights of the night:
French cheese!
Delicious food (like cucumber soup in champagne flutes).
Glazed ham!
Click to see more fireworks photos
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Farrell and I spent Christmas weekend in Chon-Kemin again, this time in a different guesthouse located in a similarly quiet and small village next to the one we stayed in last year. The crowd was different and activities were (slightly) different. We still wandered around snow-covered mountains until sunset, I still gushed over all of the horses and cows. Instead of losing a hat (like I did last year, never to be found!), I gained (a nicer) one through a gift exchange.
I dutifully documented as much as I could, taking into consideration that yes, these are technically the same rippling mountains (the Kazakh border) on the north side and more jagged peaks to the south that I photographed exactly one year ago. It’s a different perspective, I say.
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The temperature in Bishkek today reached an astoundingly chilly high of -16 degrees (Celsius). Snow fell steadily all of yesterday, although when the weather is this cold, I suppose it won’t have a chance to melt and refreeze into the hazardous sheet of ice that is now a permanent fixture on all sidewalks for the next few months.
This all goes to prove wrong the men who boldly claimed that there would not be winter this year. A former presidential candidate held a press conference to discuss various messages received from the cosmos regarding the origins and strengths of the Kyrgyz people, the end of seasons, and the need for Kyrgyzstan to set the universe on the right path. Apparently the men in the video are also using atrocious Russian grammar, and the phrase “зима не будет” (“there will be no winter”) has become the catchphrase to encapsulate not only how laughable the idea is in the first place, but how they couldn’t even say it with correct grammar. (Although, full disclosure, my Russian’s not yet good enough to recognize the error.)
With all of the many (many MANY many) examples of American politicians saying dozens of cringe-worthy catchphrases, I’m glad that I can empathize with some Kyrgyz people in this way. Don’t worry guys! Turns out there are people everywhere who say silly things on TV.
And just in case, here is more hard evidence that winter, in fact, not only will be, but already is here:
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On November 27, I attended a concert in Bishkek that was organized by the Kyrgyz branch of the Red Crescent for HIV/AIDS awareness. As of now, I’m pretty lost when it comes to knowing who’s who in Kyrgyzstan’s pop music scene, but it was an interesting opportunity to see these performers live and see how the crowds reacted to each one, allowing me to guess at who are the superstars based on how loudly the girls screamed and how hard they swooned. There were a lot of rap performances, which I wasn’t completely expecting. Definitely some hits and misses, and there’s definitely so much more to follow up on in the future.
And that’s exactly what I’ll be doing! I’m in the beginning phases of what will become a long-term photography/multimedia project on Kyrgyzstan’s pop music scene. I plan on interviewing singers, rappers, performers, record producers, music video producers, radio DJs, fans, aspiring stars, and pretty much anybody who’s willing to talk with me. If you’d like to get involved, think you can be of any help, or just want to send me info about your favorite musician in Kyrgyzstan, please PLEASE email me! kirstin {at} ivorypomegranate {dot} com
The crowd waits to enter the Sports Palace, where the show was held.
A poster in Russian and Kyrgyz with some quick facts about AIDS and HIV. There were Red Crescent volunteers everywhere to answer questions and pass out informational pamphlets, red ribbons and even condoms.
The crowd gathers at the auditorium entrance, waiting for security to open the doors. There was no charge to attend the concert, which probably added to its appeal among many young attendees. By the time the show started, the venue was nearly full.
Omurbek Andarbekov (better known as “Oma”) sang a song in Kyrgyz and one in English as well, Louis Armstrong’s “What a Wonderful World.”
Performances, which also included hip-hop dance groups and stand-up comedians, were interspersed with opportunities for audience members to win prizes based on their knowledge of HIV/AIDS.
The audience listens as an emcee explains myths and facts regarding HIV/AIDS.
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Recently the topic of bride napping has been coming up in the news more than usual (see the Washington Times, Telegraph). Now with the release of a five-part documentary from Vice, the topic is getting a wider audience. Having lived in Kyrgyzstan for more than a year, it’s a topic I’ve been exposed to many times already, either through heated debates with locals or other expats, hearing about the kidnapping of a friend of a friend’s relative, or, worse, getting involved in protecting one of my best friends from threats of kidnapping.
It is a real occurrence, but it is not what defines Kyrgyzstan. Unfortunately, the Vice documentary is doing just that for an audience with little prior exposure to Kyrgyzstan. Rather than bringing awareness to the practice, discussing initiatives to criminalize it and decrease it, and demonstrating that not everybody in Kyrgyzstan agrees with the concept of bride napping (as the online articles do), Vice focuses on the most basic theme of demonstrating the brutality of a what is portrayed as a dearly held tradition. The viewers get to gawk in horror at the backwardness of people in Kyrgyzstan and their peasant lifestyle of conspiring to snatch a girl as she fetches water from a communal pipe sticking out of the ground.
For people who are more familiar with Kyrgyzstan, or who have been lucky enough to visit and experience it for themselves, they can watch the documentary and realize that it doesn’t show the whole story. Not every marriage starts in tears. Not everybody believes that it is a true Kyrgyz tradition that must be honored. Some people actively protest the practice. Beyond the issue of bride napping, the imagery of the clips set a specific tone for the viewer about Kyrgyzstan and the people that live here (hospitality, yes, but also felt tents, gold teeth, rural poverty and violent forms of entertainment involving dead goats).
It didn’t strike me at first how these videos could affect Westerners’ perception of Kyrgyzstan until I scrolled down and read the comments that accumulated. Some people seem conflicted about what to think; on the one hand, it’s a piece of Kyrgyz culture, but on the other hand, it’s violent. Others are much more straightforward about how horrible it is. One woman says she would certainly kill herself if put in that situation, others take solace in how their own problems seem much less serious comparatively, and some are able to completely write off the entire country based on seeing this one video on one subject.
Kyrgyzstan, like any other place in the world, cannot be defined by one practice. The Vice documentary shows only a small part of Kyrgyz culture from the viewpoint of one family, interspersed with a bumbling host who seems more than willing to ask questions that are both idiotic and condescending, extrapolating every small event into generalizations about the entire country. Well, it seems the girl has agreed to marry her captor, but to make things worse, now the family is slaughtering a sheep right before my eyes! The horror!
The topic of bride napping brings out strong opinions in many of the people I’ve met in Kyrgyzstan. Personally, I don’t agree with the practice and I think the cultural aspect of it that some people fiercely stand by is a poor excuse at building a Kyrgyz identity that was lost during the Soviet Union. Another documentary I’ve watched on this subject was made by Petr Lom, called “Bride Kidnapping.” In an interview he gave to PBS, he explains a bit about the complexities of viewing the practice from a Western perspective, especially in some cases where the couple goes on to have a happy marriage:
Certainly, it is extraordinarily challenging to our understandings and beliefs in individuality, choice and our Western romantic conceptions of true love to see a groom kidnap a woman he has never met in his life, and then to see the couple happy 24 hours later. I did a follow-up with one of these couples four months later: The woman is now two months pregnant, and the couple is happy and very much in love.
Does this justify kidnapping? Of course not. But the practice certainly raises some challenges to how many people in the West think about love.
During my time living here, I’ve been able to barely scratch the surface at that elusive Kyrgyz identity (or rather, the identity of Kyrgyzstan that includes all ethnicities and cultures), but I can already tell that it is remarkably complex. Overall, Vice’s documentary seems to close off all of those complexities for the sake of shock value. It doesn’t set up the viewers to create their own opinion on bride napping or on Kyrgyzstan, but rather lets them sit back and congratulate themselves on living in a more civilized society. Bride napping is a serious issue, but the Vice documentary strikes me as cheapening the situation.
As with any issue, it is important to be as informed as possible. Watch the Vice documentary, but realize that there’s much more that can be said than would fit in five short clips. Research other sources of information, or for the truly curious, book a flight out to Kyrgyzstan and experience its complexities and wonders for yourself.
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The longer I’m in Bishkek, the less I write about it. It’s not that I no longer have things to say, but there’s a specific concern that takes over when it comes time to hit “publish”. People in Bishkek will read this. People in Bishkek will have opinions on it. Will I get a snide tweet? Maybe a message on Facebook? A comment on the blog that’s the equivalent of a finger-snapping “Guuuurl, you don’t know me or my city!” Or it’s my own discomfort thinking about how people outside of Bishkek will read it. When I receive emails from people saying my blog is the only one they’ve ever found about Bishkek or Kyrgyzstan, I cringe and almost want to apologize; “You’re not getting the whole story from me, please just keep that in mind.”
The longer I’m in Bishkek, the less I know about it. Before moving here, I had high expectations that by simply being in Kyrgyzstan, I could write about it with authority. I planned on submitting to travel publications (blogs, magazines, the New York Times… lofty dreams) and discussing the paradoxical clash of modernity and tradition, how Bishkek city can appear so modern in comparison to the nomadic ways of people in a rural Kyrgyz village. I’d camp on jailoos, drink kumys, generalize the identity of the country and its people based on my one experience, and write up 750 words full of italicized terms you’d have to Google to understand.
But now that I’ve lived here for almost 16 months, my approach has changed. I’ve attempted to push the cliches out of my head and out of my writing (sometimes succeeding). I can distinctly remember a phase I went through, maybe six-ish months ago, of seeing Bishkek as exceedingly normal. There were coffee shops and art galleries and paintball and excursions to the beach and I couldn’t bring myself to think of the city in any way other than “Wow, wouldn’t you know it? Bishkek is a normal city, just like the ones we have in America.”
This didn’t sit right with me either. It still seemed naive and short-sighted to overlay my experiences in Bishkek against the US-centric templates I have in my head.
The longer I’m in Bishkek, the less I see it as either exceedingly normal or excitingly exotic. Bishkek is what it is and it’s useless to limit it to any one adjective. Yes, it’s true that there are similarities between Bishkek and other cities I’ve lived in, it’s true that there are certain differences here that some people might see as off-the-charts bizarre, but overall, Bishkek is on its own. It has many facets, and the longer I’m in Bishkek, the less I want to hide from all that Bishkek has. The longer I’m in Bishkek, the more I want to explore, the more I want to discover, the more I want to write about (and photograph) as many different parts of Bishkek (and Kyrgyzstan) that I can, keeping in mind that I really don’t have authority on any of it.
That’s the freeing part, to realize that I can only write what I observe and what I feel, and to realize that my truth may be different from your truth.
The longer I’m in Bishkek, the longer I want to stay.
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I’m thankful…
…for many things.
…for being done with that gigantic market research project that took over my life for 2+ months.
…for the new and exciting projects I’m planning.
…for the new friends I met during a proper Thursday Thanksgiving dinner.
…for the leftover apple pie I ate for breakfast.
…for how wonderful the pumpkin pie I baked smells.
…for the opportunity to have another Thanksgiving dinner tonight with some truly excellent friends.
…for Mamajan, the best cat that 1 som (~$0.02) has ever bought.
…for my health and my youth (sometimes I’m self-conscious about being the young one, but today I’m embracing my 23 years).
…for competent healthcare providers in Bishkek that calmed Farrell’s nerves when he WebMD’ed himself into a panic attack.
…for family and friends and love and support all over the world.
Happy Thanksgiving!
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Good morning, Bishkek! Here are a few inches of snow for you.
But Mamajan doesn’t care.
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Like many of my mini-trips around Kyrgyzstan, I boarded a marshrutka full of friends and friends of friends at an unreasonably early hour, not quite sure where we were going or what we were actually going to do once we got there.
That day’s destination turned out to be (in theory) an eagle hunting festival in Bokonbaeva, a town on the southern shore of Issyk Kul, about four hours away from Bishkek.
In reality, there were some unsteady-sounding postponements. We left early enough that most had not even made time for coffee, but there was still talk that we were leaving too late to catch the start of the activities. Then, about half-way there we began stopping to stretch our legs, photograph the scenery; take your time, the driver said, the festival has been postponed and we’ll arrive early now.
Pulling into Bokonbaeva, I found a town that looked like it had simply expanded slightly outward from one main road, and another postponement. We thought we’d be right on time, but now we have an hour or so to pass before the festival starts. How about some mindless wandering around a market? Perhaps a syrupy mug of instant coffee? Just make sure you stir around the sediment of sugar and artificial creamer that has settled on the bottom.
Back to the bus at 12, now can we go to the festival?
The driver confesses the festival organizer and the hunters aren’t answer their phones anymore. It’s a classic cold-shoulder move in Kyrgyzstan. How about we just pop on over to the organizer’s house instead? See what he’s up to, get the details on this festival.
The doubt is starting to sink in, but we drove to his house and found out from his wife that he was already at the festival area. From there, it’s only a slow, bumpy ride on a dirt path. Finally, we pull over a hill and see a group of men, horses, and large birds.
Not before some more disappointing news: the actual festival was going to start the next day. Today was just a practice-run. Four hours in a bus to see the hunters take their birds out for one quick run? I was a bit bummed.
I had to make the best of it though, so I acted like a total creeper, stalking the hunters and their birds for photos and video clips. I dutifully watched each hunter whoop and chirp at their eagles, goading them to chase after a dead rabbit attached the back of a galloping horse. I even interviewed Elizabeth, an American woman who came to Kyrgyzstan after a local eagle hunter caught a baby eagle for her, straight from the nest, so she could train with him. It’s a fascinating and random story and I’m hoping to whip up a video about it soon.
The hunters started packing up immediately after their one practice run and suddenly our marshrutka of foreigners was left to figure out what to do with the rest of our day. We made one more stop close to the shore to admire Issyk Kul (on the southern shore, it’s a lot less beachy and a lot more marshy than I thought) and then drove to the Burana Tower, one of the oldest structures in Kyrgyzstan.
By then it was after dark and I had long since filled my quota of hours-spent-on-a-bus, so I was anxious to get home. It was interesting to see the eagles up close (they’re huge! and loud!) and talk to Elizabeth (my Russian skills aren’t anywhere near good enough to interview the other eagle hunters), but overall I probably would’ve rather stayed the weekend than try to shove all of that driving into one day. Oh well, maybe next year.
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