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Madras Madness
The main reason people go to Uzbekistan is for the history. You go to Kyrgyzstan for the horses, to Tajikstan for the people, to Kazakstan for- I don’t know, but if you want grand buildings and stunning history, then Uzbekistan’s got you.
The perhaps most prominent town is Samarkand. It is known because Amir Timur, a guy who was a war for 40 years of his life and pretty much conquered everyone and everything within reach, and that included parts of Europe and all of Persia, is buried here, as are his kin. The mausoleum is large and beautiful, and somewhat wasted on a dead person, or so I thought.
Except for mausoleums and mosques, the other type of building which is very common in Uzbekistan are madrasses. Let me explain. A madras is a universtiy, or a house of learning. The 3 main madrasses of Samarkand, which are undoubtedly the most spectacular and aweinspiring buildings we have seen on our trip, were built by the grandson of Amir Timur, Ulugbek. He figured it would do his population good to have as many learned people as possible and so he built these universities. It was the 15th century, and at that time, Central Asia was the heart of the scientific community, especially in manners of astronomy and mathematics.
Basically, behind the monumentous entrance dome, there were a few public rooms in which the students presumably studied. A term lasted from Oktober through February, give or take, and the rest of the time the students were on break. On the inside, there was a courtyard, with the students dorms facing the courtyard. Nowadays it’s all souvenir shops.
How do we know all these tidbits? Well, we had the worst guiding experience of our life. We were stopped by a guide offering her services to us, encouraging us to learn more about the sites, she had been a guide for 20 years, after all. We thought, why not, after all, it’s not like were going to be here again so soon, if ever. She proceeded to take us with here and talk faster than any person I’ve ever met. As she sped from one place to the next, talking nonstop with the most robotic voice I’ve ever heard. In comparison, Siri has a pleasantly modulated and warm tone of voice. There was absolutely no time to linger, or to perhaps take a photo or simply think for more than half a second. Sometimes, if we did linger anyway, she sped off ahead, continously talking and it took her a few seconds until she noticed something was missing. In the end, it cost a fortune, too, about 30 USD. She was a bit miffed, I think, when she demanded feedback, since we didn’t look to happy and we told her it was not quite enjoyable. She told us, now, after the tour was done, was time to enjoy and relax, not before. Alright. So thats what we did and we did the tour again, slower, enjoying the spectacular mosaics and pictures, the geometric art and the vibrant colours. Especially the mosque encased in one of the madrasses was truly beautiful beyond comparison, with gilded blues and whites.
After the madrassas we went to the (still active) cemetary which houses the Shah-i Zinda ensemble – a group of mausoleums. Some from the 15th century. On the way there we made a stop by an impressive 15th century mosque and also came by the mausoleum of Uzbekistan’s first president. It used the same style as Timur’s mausoleum and the madrassas. The whole mausoleum reeks of hubris (it is supposed to be an “holy and eternal” place). We didn’t linger too long and tried to find a route to the Zinda ensemble, as we were not keen to walk next to the main thouroughfare. We followed two Russian women into the graveyard, since they encouraged us and said that yes, this is the way to the Zinda. But this one is for free! That should have been a clue… Well, as it turned out, they planned to skip the ticket office and take the backdoor in. We arrived at a back gate, hip-high, chained shut. The women were already inside, milling about and gesturing futively for us to jumpp in. We hesitated. We’ll leave it up to you to imagine what we decided to do. Either way, the mausoleums were absolutely stunning, full of deep turquiose glaze. Amir timurs familiy was buried here, and remarkably, the biggest mausoleum was dedicated to Timur’s wetnurse.
After Samarkand, we had one more stop left: We went further west to Bukhara. We took the train for the first time in Central Asia and it was surprisingly comfortable and easy. Bukhara has the feel of museum rather than a town, with 16th century buildings all over the city. Bukhara hosts as many as 100 madrassas which had once hosted 10 000 students. But there were also old mosques, bazaars, a bathhouse , caravanserais, a prison and a castle. But one of the main attractions was definitely the kitten Olga picked up. We stopped to pet it, as one does, and it promptly sat on Olgas lap. As it showed no signs of wanting to leave, we concluded it obviously needed a taxi service. The cat was perfectly happy being carried around half the city, until about after an hour it decided it had enough of our city tour, and graciously departed. Despite our passenger, we were interviewed (for the third time since we came to Uzbekistan) by Uzbek students. This time, we were asked about our opinions on Uzbek food and culture. Our suspicion is that there is only one paedagogical textbook in Uzbekistan and all the universities use it.
In the evening we did a tour of the castle with a funny guide speaking perfect German with a slight Swabian accent. Being surounded by that many ancient building gets old eventually, so we were very happy to see that some other tourists had arrived in our hostel. It was a young couple and the guy and I were sure that we knew each other. It took about 10 minutes, but finally we figured out where we had met each other- in Duschanbe, on the first weekend in Central Asia, almost 2 months ago. They are Arno and Charlotte, a lovely couple about our age, on a year-long cycling trip through Central Asia. While we were doing our thing, they had spent their time cycling through the Pamir in Tajikstan. We spent a very pleasant evening talking and trading stories.
Almaty, again.
There was a point in our travels where the end of the planned part of our journey was looming nearer and we thought- what now?
Stick to the plan and go to Pakistan?
Skip Pakistan and go directly to India?
Go somewhere else entirely?
Unfortunately, both of us hate hate hate planning things like that, but eventually, we had no choice. Operating on the assumption that Pakistan was probably more of the same compared to Central Asia so far, we opted to skip ahead towards the next big adventure: The grand subcontinent of India.
Or so we thought.
Applying for a Visa for India can be done online and is a pretty straightforward process. The website states that it takes up to 72 hours and then you’re good to go.
So, we picked a date the following week, booked the flight and applied for the Visa. Fred did get an answer, however, his application was rejected. He immediately reapplied, but of course, the second application wasn’t done on time. And mine? Well, Fred has two rejected applications, whereas I’m still waiting for an answer on my first one, even though it’s been two weeks.
In the end, we opted for catching the first flight to Almaty, and staying here, as there are slightly more flights available and they seemed cheaper. This is how we came to another, not-quite-voluntary stay in Almaty. We tried to spend the time somewhat pleasantly, but the difference in weather was stark compared to our first visit. It rained most days we were there, and it was pretty cold- it was proper autumn now.
We went for a hike in the mountains and found lots of footprints in the snow. Fred went to the botanical garden and fed squirrels. We took the gondola to the top of the hill and had a marvellous view of the city. There were also a few exotic birds there. And a cat. Sctually, two cats, but one bit me, so he didn’t get a photo. We stumbled upon the Almaty food festival- it came as no surprise that faux street food here is just as overpriced as any steet food festival back at home, so we didn’t get anything. However, they had a live coverband playing anything from Black Eyed Peas to Modern talking and a Deadpool hitting it off on a huge coca-cola truck.
So far, this has proven the most frustrating and depressing part of our journey. We lost a lot of money and felt stuck in a rainy and quite expensive city.
But all is well that ends well: As I’m typing this, we’re waiting for our final meal in Kazakhstan, then we”re headed off towards our next destination: The Phillipines.
Stay tuned for a new sort of adventure!
Oh, and the perhaps most important part: Fred fed some squirrels in an Almaty part. Probably the highlight of the two weeks we spent there.
A taste of Tashkent
Tashkent was our next big destination, one we have been looking forward to ever since people have told us how great it is. We booked ourselves a walking tour and learned all about this ancient citys history. The city was founded in the times where caravans still brought spices from China all the way to Europe and vice versa. It has been occupied by pretty much every mayor culture that has come and gone in this region, oftentimes burning it to the ground. Therefore, lots of Tashkent is actually quite modern and of course, much larger than in ancient times.
We also visited a few sites, but the mosques and mausoleums weren’t all that great, especially since they were overshadowed by the absolutely gigantic building site, which will one day be the centre for Islamic culture. As per now, its just an eyesore, but I’ve no doubt it will be well worth a visit in a year or two. We also walked through the old town- personally, I’ve found “old towns” here decidedly underwhelming. It’s basically one or two-storey, sand-coloured and slightly dilapidated buildings. Usually, they’re not very pretty. The streets do wind in utterly unpredictable ways and don’t follow any sort of logical sense, which feels somewhat adventerous and is definitely a reason to get lost.
A highlight, as per usual, was the bazaar. It was huge, filled with all kinds of foodstuffs, spices, fruit, meat, clothing, sometimes even live animals. We had great fun in trying on different hats, though in the end, we decided against buying them. We also witnessed them baking bread- the way of doing so with this specific type of oven is that you stick the bread to walls and let it be baked from below by the open flame. When the bakers saw me looking and taking pictures, they had me harvest my own bread. It was delicious, hot and fresh. The bakers were very friendly and waved us on our way.
We very much enjoyed the greater opporutnities for different food- especially Korean and Japanese food is very popular here, which was a delightful change from the usual plov and shashlik. This was also the first time we managed to go to a nightclub, which was recommended to us by the hostel owner. It is called Bla Bla Bar and was so incredibly expensive and fancy that we definitely stood out, not only because of our shabby clothes and lack of makeup, but also because of our unwillingness to pay 9 (!!!) Euro for a beer (350 ml !!!). The cocktails were cheaper and truly excellent, but after drinking two apiece and spending more than on our average meal budget, we called it a night and went walking through town, looking for another place to go.
On our way, walking along the main street which is called “Broad way” by the locals, we passed a bar call “FM Bar” and I thought “Oh good, another bar, maybe this one will be more suited to our budget.
Maybe it’s radio-themed?” We went up to the entrance and were greeted by the black-clad bouncer. He smiled pleasantly, greeted us politely and then asked “Is this your first time?”
We said, yeah, sure, why?
Its a strip club, he answered.
Yeah, so we didn’t and went home.
Gender rolls
This one is for the people who actually care about the “roll” part of our “roll and travel”.
To recap, for those of you that don’t know: Fred and I both train BJJ (Brazilian Jiu Jitsu) quite frequently at home and love to explore new gyms when we’re on the road. So, here are our experiences so far!
(If you’re not that interested in BJJ, I’d advise you to skip this one- it’s full of details nobody who doesn’t much care about the sport will find interesting.)
The first time we did this we were in Bishkek, Kyrgyzstan. We actually tried to contact quite a few gyms in different cities before, but they didn’t answer. This was the first time it worked out.
We went to a gym called “Kyrgyzstan Top Team”. They had a strong social media presence and answered fast enough to my enquiries over Instagram. They had lots of videos featuring lots of athletes of all ages and genders. We were quite excited and, for my part, a bit nervous.
Martial arts are quite popular in Central Asia- Khabib Nurmagomedov was on many a billboard and car, lots of men and boys wear UFC-branded shirts and there are adverts for boxing or wrestling competitions in every city. We also saw many shops and stands selling sports equipment, and, as far as I could see, that always included boxing gloves, spats, rashguards and everything else a martial artist might yearn for. Of course, Central Asia is also the crib of many a wrestling style and many famous fighters come from these regions. We’ve often seen men play-wrestling while hanging out or waiting for something, and I’ve seen a young man kneel before his much younger, perhaps 4-year old relative and hold out his hands, patiently explaining to the child how to properly strike into his open hands. By the little ones finesse, this wasn’t the first time, either.
So, I was nervous. We entered the BJJ gym and saw the tail end of the former class- the next class was to be seminar by some black belt from Russia, but beggars cant be choosers. We were greeted curiously by some people, many people shook Freds hand. Nobody shook mine, except a Russian guy who was talking to Fred, when I commented on the hand-shaking thing. He said “Yeah, they’re pretty religious here. I’m Ivan, by the way”, and pointedly offered me his hand. He had only just joined the gym.
We got in line, one of the few people without a Gi (we decided to travel without, as it’s too bulky) and went all the way to the back of the line. To say it was white belt city was an understatement- I’d guess there were about 50-60 people in the room, there was one purple belt, a handful of bluebelts and the rest was whitebelt. The coach was a blackbelt. There were even a handful kids, about 10 -12 years old. And I was the only woman.
We warmed up, we drilled, Fred and I paired together as the coach advised us to. The topic was distance passing and even though I don’t think we were taught any groundbreaking new magic moves, it was nice to just move again, practice and grapple with each other. Soon, we started on positional sparring with increasing intensity and switching partners every few minutes. Fred went off, eager to test himself against people closer of his skill level (he’s an experienced purple belt, I’m a freshly minted bluebelt) and weight class (he has about 20 kg on me). Me? I found myself somewhat shunted to the side and awkwardly seeing if anyone would approach me- they didn’t. I couldn’t really tell if someone had left or perhaps was resting or just didn’t want to spar with me. This happens sometimes, even at home, that someone has to sit out a round and wait. Sometimes it’s a welcome excuse to catch your breath and when the next round starts, then you go back in and somebody else takes a break.
Not this time. This time, nobody caught my eye, even though multiple people sat out and some left and the numbers were definitely uneven. One round, Fred was also without a partner- the coach, who was constantly watching from the sides, picked up on this and quickly arranged for a partner for him.
Up until the end of the lesson, nobody rolled with me. When people were leaving, they shook hands with everyone sitting on the sidelines- up until they came up to me. They skipped me, avoiding my eyes and shook everyone else’s hand.
At some point during towards the end of the lesson, I found myself sitting next to the coach, who started talking to me. He told me “You look bored.”
At this point, I was very frustrated and I told him so, since no one wanted to roll with me.
“Ah”, he said, smiling and putting his hand on his chest, “this is because they respect you.” He proceeded to explain to me that this was a conservative culture and the men didn’t want to touch me because it wasn’t proper.
I wasn’t convinced and said so, somewhat politely. He shrugged, obviously feeling a bit awkward, and drifted away.
During our cooldown, a nice guy chatted me up, asking where we are from and how we came to be there- but he was pretty much the only person I talked to, apart from Fred and the coach, during the lesson.
The most positive contact actually happened after the session- back in the changing room, while I was changing out of my sports clothes, another girl came in.
She greeted my effusively and with a lot of enthusiasm.
“Ooooh, you train BJJ? They let you join just now? That’s great, when is your next time, we can train together!” She was so enthusiasctic that it took two tries until I could convey that by saying “I’m not from here” I meant not from this country, and no, I wouldn’t be returning as we were going on to Almaty the next day. She was quite dissappointed and explained to me that the guys were kind of conservative and would only let you join as a woman if you brought another female training partner. She had someone for Tuesdays and Thursdays, but wanted someone for Mondays and Fridays. I actually felt bad for letting her down, especially since she had been the friendliest encounter so far.
To be honest, I was somewhat devasteted by the whole thing. I felt utterly humiliated and alone. Everyone had been so friendly and welcoming to Fred, whereas I’d been totally ignored. I’ve been training martial arts, with a small gap during my student years, more or less non-stop since I’ve been 12 years old. I love my sport. I enjoy pitting myself against an opponent, I love the challenge and I love the martial force behind it. It’s always been “my thing” and I don’t see myself stopping anytime soon. To be excluded from the very people who share the same passion and to somehow be found unworthy of even a hello or even simple eye-contact and a friendly smile felt horrible.
I thought about the explanation the coach provided me, about it being about respect. That the others won’t touch or train with me for not wanting to dishonour me, or perhaps themselves. I thought if I was viewing this whole experience from the wrong lens.
Maybe I am. But fuck that. I think they’re wrong. There is nothing respectful about being ignored and not offered the basic courtesy of a greeting, or even an explanation of a certain behaviour before the fact. Maybe there were people there who would be uncomfortable rolling with me. But we have a saying in Germany, roughly translated as “The fish goes bad from the head down.” It sounds better in German. But what I think that the coaches set the tone in a gym, and if they enforce a certain set of rules or just lead by example, then even the guys who wouldn’t have minded rolling with me, or perhaps- what an outragous notion- even enjoyed it, would have been free to do so. But they can’t, of course, if its considered improper.
So yeah. This experience, for me, was a disaster and rankles still.
The next BJJ experience was right around the corner. In Almaty, Kazakhstan, we found a new gym, Checkmat Kazakhstan. We got there a little late, since we had problems finding the gym, but the people there were very nice about it. There were about 20 people there, with more milling about. There about 4 women there. I got paired up with one of them, who was very nice but barely spoke any English. Nevertheless, we tried to have a bit of a conversation during drills.
“Are you a champion?”, was the first question she asked me.
“Ah, uhm, no”, I replied, truthfully and somewhat baffled.
“I’m a champion”, she informed me, somewhat proudly, confirming my earlier suspicions. “In Dezember, in Spain, last year!”
Hierarchy thus established, we had a great time together, practicising a honeyhole entries from reverse De La Riva Guard (Or so Fred tells me. I was just happy to recognize and not completely fail at reverse DLR). She was as good as her money and helped me, as well as the other pair of girls training next to us, a lot. She told me she was 18, while the other girls were 17 years old. She was quite astonished to here how incredibly old I am. She asked if we had kids- and was predictably shocked when I answered no.
“Why not?”, she asked, clearly deeply consternated. I honestly think we’re leaving a trail of Central Asian people behind us who are all convinced we have some undisclosed medical condition leading to fertility issues. That is, after all, the only reasonable explanation why we don’t have kids, right?
Afterwards we sparred for quite a long time, king-of-the-hill-style. It was good fun, noone was spazzy and the people were very technical. Though I feld I could not really hole a candle to any of them, as the skill level was really high. People came and went, took rest rounds and relaxed as they liked, yet the mat was always full. I hung out a bit with the other women and we chatted a bit, taking the obligatory selfies. One girl was there with her father, who was also training, and he wandered over, enquiring about my name. I told him and he nodded.
“Skandinavski!”
“Erm, no”, I politely informed him. “Actually, Helga is Scandinavian, Olga is the Russian version!” As we have been told multiple time on our journey so far, as people always assumed I’m from Russia upon hearing my name.
“No,” he insisted, “Skandinavski!”
His daughter, obviously delighted that someone was disagreeing with her father, jumped in. “Let’s google it!” She did.
“It’s Russian!”, she crowed triumphantly, delighting in proving her Dad wrong.
He waved it off and wandered away.
All in all it was a very wholesome experience. The people were very nice, very good at their sport and we would definitely reccommend this gym to any traveler!
We had our third BJJ lesson of the trip in Shymkent at Advance BJJ. Shymkent is a city of over a million people but only has one BJJ gym. Luckily for us, it was a good one. Shymkent does not see many tourists (for a reason) so visitors are rare. We were welcomed very warmly. We had a great session with hard rolls at the end (and some scratches to prove it). One new thing for me was reserving rolls. Before I even started the first round I was asked for the third round. I might take that habit home. Our third BJJ lesson in Central Asia was in Advance BJJ in Shymkent. Shymkent has a million inhabitants but only one BJJ club. Not many tourists come to Shymkent, so the people at Advance BJJ welcomed us warmly. We had challenging rolls and Fred had some scratches on the nose to proove it. Fun times. One peculiar thing I had never experienced before, was that people reserved partners for the next rolls. Fred got asked if we roll in third round before the first started. Maybe we’ll take that habit home – seems very efficient. I was asked by several fellow blue belts, all of them men. I was yet again outclassed, one of them in particular taking a great delight in heel-hooking and footlocking me, something which I have no defense against whatsoever. He seemed to enjoy lecturing me extensively on that subject. Oh well. We chatted with the owner quite a bit after the class, talking quite a bit after the rolls about politics, BJJ, travel, clubbing and even got a ride home. We had a fantastic evening and our hope in humanity and egalitarian gyms was fully restored.
If you like, give them all a follow, they will be delighted!
Cavorting in Kazakhstan
After our Bishkek trauma, we hopped on a bus (again) and rode it all the way into the next country- Kazakhstan.
Kazakhstan ist known to be the wealthiest of the “Stans” and it’s the 9th largest country on earth when it comes to pure size. Its capital, Astana (or Nur-Sultan, as it is still sometimes called), is in the far North of the country, and we didn’t make it there.
Its arguably most popular city however, lies very close to the Kyrgyz border and is called Almaty, and that is where we were headed.
Almaty is a beautiful city, circled by mountains, still lush with greenery and quite warm. We spent several relaxing days strolling up and down the boulevards. Almaty is swanky, it has an almost mediteranean flair and invites you to stop inside one of the many cafes along the avenues. To us, the biggest attraction was probably the BJJ gym with excellent athletes who graciously invited us to join their training. It was a lot of fun! Almaty is a city with an almost European flair- there’s E-scooters and bikes for rent via app everywhere, and you can get a cab easily and very cheaply by an Uber-like application called Yandex Go.
And of course, there is a famous bazar. It’s called the green bazar after its green roof and had lots of food, up to and including cows tongues and beshbarmak- horse sausage. Horse is quite the common meat here and the national dish a horse meat stew named after the horse sausage, beshbarmak. There were also a lot of clothes and Fred got himself a pair of pants.
Soon, however, we left Almaty and headed West. Halfway to our destination we stopped in a city called Taraz a middle sized city on our route. We did some sight seeing and looked at mausoleums, archeological sights and the pretty plaza at the city center. Turns out there was a city festival happening. We got to watch a televised event and listen to Kazakh pop music- not all of which was very good. We also witnessed a slapfight between two women in the crowd. All in all, a memorable experience.
Going even further to the West, we ended up in Shymkent. After a day of travelling and some issues with getting in booked flat we decided to go to the nearest restaurant for dinner. Turns out, this was probably the fanciest restaurant in town and we were seriously underdressed in aour sweaty and dusty travel outfit compared to elegant evening dresses. It was the type of place with fish tanks with huge sturgeons, mussels and clams. We got pizza.
We spent a day in Shymkent- again, not much to see, except for the BJJ gym. We met a local geography teacher named Dina in a restaurant who was eager to practice her English with us. We talked a lot about her six kids, school and life in Kazakhstan. As her English was extremely good, we could ask more detailed questions about living in Kazakhstan. She told us that she earned about 1000 USD per month, as did her husband. Turns out, childcare is subsidized by the state in Kazakhstan, so she and her husband pay 50 USD per child for childcare or school, respectively. This way, both she and her husband continued to work full-time. She said that having many kids was popular in Kazakhstan. All in all, it was a very interesting and pleasant conversation.
However, Shymkent was but a stop on our way to Turkestan, which housed a whole plethora of ancient monuments. Some of these were built bei Amir Timur himself. And we saw our first camels! All in all, a sucessful trip. Enjoy the photos!
Bishkek Blues
So after all that nature stuff – hiking, horse riding, eagles, mountains and such – we thought we were ready for some city time. So we actually went to Bishkek. Bishkek is Kyrgystans capital and the biggest city with roughly one million inhabitants. It’s also conveniently located on the way to our next destination, Kazachstan and the city of Almaty.
However, Bishkek and us were just not meant to be. It started with the little things.
Due to increased demand from Russian draft dodgers we had to sleep in seperate dorms. Fred shared his dorm room with 9 Russian men and when you sleep in a room with ten people there is good chance at least one guy is snoring. And if you are a light sleeper like him, this means bad nights. Also, the fact that 90% of the other people in the hostel are actually refugees fleeing from the war does not make for a particularly cheery athmosphere.
Also, Bishkek is butt ugly. I’m sorry, but it’s the truth. There are some nice places, such as the Ala-Too plaza and the surrounding parks, but all in all, it’s an ugly, dusty and smoggy city. To be honest, I couldn’t wait to leave, but as the hostels and hotels in Almaty were just as overbooked as in Bishkek, we had to wait.
In middle of all this big-city-dirt was one delightfully precious gem. And that was the Bishkek National Museum. Located in an imposing, marble, Soviet style building was a wonderful exhibition detailing Kygyzstans history from the first stone-age settlements, through the nomadic empires all the way to the occupation in Soviet times and up to the recent independence and democracy. Turns out, the Kyrgyz state is only 3 months older than I am.
The museum does a marvellous job of telling the story of the Kyrgyz people and lands. By the end, I was thouroughly invested in knowing as much as possible about Kyrgyz history, which shows just how good the museum is. We’ve enclosed several pictures of the artifacts we found interesting. Enjoy!
The museum starts with petroglyphs and typical stone age tools but the museum really shows the breadth of life from the early iron age. The Saka people had a nomadic life style based on pasteuralism but they left us some really impressive metal artifacts. Highlights for me were the beautifully crafted metal “altars” adorned with animal figures used for burning offerings.
The museum further documents the various cultures living in Kyrgyzstan over the centuries. The Gögturks left us some of the more spectacular artifacts: Stone pillars carved with lifelike faces, limbs and tools to remember their deceased. The real strength of the museum are the variety of artifacts. From the various religions which were in the area during silk road times (Zoroastrians, Muslims, Buddhists, Hindus, Jains and Christians) over various household items, clothes, weapons, jewelry, coins to old board games. It is nearly overwhelming and you could definately come a second or even a third time and see interesting stuff you previously missed.
The second floor deals with Kyrgystans history from the 20th century. The museum shows great photographs of the age and tells the history of the tribes that form the Kyrgyz nation, including the story of a woman queen. There are exhibits about soviet revolution and repression, soviet heroes, world war 2, independence and even recent heroes. This was definetly one of the highlights of our trip to date.
We also did some shopping at the Osh Bazar which was fun. But seriously, aside from sleeping badly we did not do much in Bishkek. And we were happy when we left the loud, smelly and dusty city for Almaty, Kazakstan.