Kyrgyzstan

How is growing up in Paradise, California similar to my virtual trip to Kyrgyzstan? In Paradise, we lived on the edge of a canyon with beautiful mountains surrounding us, far from many entertainment options, and my mother wouldn’t let us watch more than two hours a week on TV. For fun, I cooked, read books, and danced in the living room with my sisters. My trip to Kyrgyzstan reminded me of Paradise. They have beautiful wild mountains and very little I can find on TV, so I cooked a little, read a lot, and enjoyed the dancing. For a country that I’ve barely heard of before, I felt right at home!

Let’s start with the Kyrgyz dancing because each dance is unique and interesting. There is a:

· Black Stallion Folk Dance: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=J2V9DtAGBAU

· Moonlight Dance: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=E3htaSpxEkc

· Kocsmondor Dance: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=s9H12gelFKs

· A dance at an international festival in Australia: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=FKPItDsDIxs

· And this isn’t a dance (can you dance to jazz?), but here is a concert by a famous Kyrgyz American musician, Eldar Djangirov: https://www.kennedy-center.org/video/education/music-jazz/jazz-with-eldar-djangirov-performancedemonstration/

Because I never found a Kyrgyz restaurant in California, if I want to try Kyrgyz food, I have to cook. Here is a video with some of the common Kyrgyz foods: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=dzTv2LXS5p0 and several Kyrgyz recipes:

· Stuffed and rolled pasta: http://globaltableadventure.com/recipe/kyrgyz-stuffed-rolled-pasta-oromo/

· Djarkope (lamb and vegetables): https://www.196flavors.com/kyrgyzstan-djarkope/

· Laghman (noodles, meat, and vegetables):https://nationalfoods.org/recipe/national-dish-of-kyrgyzstan-laghman/

· Borsook (fried bread – the video on how to make it is on slide 11): https://www.bbc.com/travel/gallery/20171025-kyrgyzstans-bread-that-feeds-the-dead

What I did the most, both as a child in Paradise and to travel to Kyrgyzstan, is read. The Epic of Manas has been passed down orally for generations. I enjoyed both reading the part that has been translated online and seeing clips of traditional story tellers: http://www.silkroadfoundation.org/folklore/manas/manasintro.html

For 20th century Kyrgyz literature, Chingiz Aitmatov is a Kyrgyz writer from the time of the Soviet Union. I was impressed to find five of his books in English and even more in Russian on Hoopla through the Los Angeles County Library. I chose to read the most highly rated, The Day Lasts More than a Hundred Years and appreciated the portrait of the indigenous people who have supported the Soviet system by serving in the military and maintaining the railroad as they are denied access to their ancestral cemetery. Their story is contrasted with that of the cosmonauts taking off nearby and finding that even they are limited in what they are achieving.

For 21st century Kyrgyz literature, I found a sketch and a couple of short stories on Words Without Borders:

· A sketch of being in Kyrgyzstan called “Shade and Shadow” https://www.wordswithoutborders.org/article/asia-shade-and-shadow

· A short story by Alla Payatibratova called “An Orange Lemon” https://www.wordswithoutborders.org/article/an-orange-lemon

· A short story by Konstantin Kondratenko called “Melanch” https://www.wordswithoutborders.org/article/melanch

Allan calls this next section the part about people doing unwise things in Central Asia. Allan has a cousin who spent some time in a central Asian prison for a similar unwise action, so he notices these things.

· The unwise thing in episode 2 of Himalaya Calling wasn’t during the center section while they motorcycled through Kyrgystan and saw beautiful countryside. It was the cavalier attitude about following the rules in Pakistan and making a significant detour off the planned route. I watched it on Amazon Prime.

· The unwise thing in Over the Edge by Greg Child was because during the El Qaeda buildup in nearby Afghanistan in the year 2000, the State Department had posted a warning about going to that particular part of Kyrgyzstan. Some saw the warning but assumed that it didn’t apply to them. Others didn’t check the State Department website. The American climbers taken hostage by militants who crossed the nearby border and engaged with the Kyrgyz army didn’t get long to enjoy the amazing climbing opportunities they went to find, but the book kept me engaged until the very end. I borrowed it from the San Bernardino County Library.

· The unwise thing in I Shouldn't Be Alive season 3, episode 9 was driving in a blizzard through the Kyrgyz mountains and then overloading the helicopter that came to rescue them by also trying to take their equipment. These people are lucky to be alive! But of course, that’s the point of the show. I watched it on Amazon Prime.

To get a glimpse of the beauty of Kyrgyzstan, you can watch The Silk Road, Episode 10 “Kyrgyzstan: The Freedom of the Steppes” on Amazon Prime and see a nice montage of drone footage from various parts of the country at https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=P5yx8XKkkOU

Things to do in Kyrgystan are included on their tourism site http://www.discoverkyrgyzstan.org/destination/sight and yes, I would love to go! I am looking forward to that time when we can travel again and hoping we all survive, thrive, recognize our mutual humanity, learn to deal with our conflicts, and allow peace and health to flourish in Kyrgyzstan and throughout the world.

Photo credit: EJ Wolfson https://unsplash.com/photos/jTO7daIRh0U