Email from…Bishkek
Saffia Farr from Bristol moved to Bishkek, Kyrgyzstan, due to her husband’s job as a water engineer. She tells voyager what daily life is like there AFTER LANDING IN BISHKEK about four years ago, I quickly figured out how to navigate the city, as the streets are designed in a grid system after Russian military planners of the late [...]
Saffia Farr from Bristol moved to Bishkek, Kyrgyzstan, due to her husband’s job as a water engineer. She tells voyager what daily life is like there
AFTER LANDING IN BISHKEK about four years ago, I
quickly figured out how to navigate the city, as the streets
are designed in a grid system after Russian military planners
of the late 19th century subsumed the land now known as
Kyrgyzstan into Tsarist Russia. Walking around, I often look
south, hoping to catch a glimpse of the majestic Tien Shan
mountains which skirt Bishkek’s southern districts.
Usually, my walks see me stopping by my local baker,
Umarzak, to buy lepioshka (round, flat bread), which is usually
eaten with every meal. I watch Umarzak slap a lump of white
dough onto a rounded board, working it quickly with his hands
and stretching the edges before placing it inside his domed
clay oven. He removes the cooked loaves and scatters them
out for customers like me to grab a fresh one and leave a five
som note in the box. As you rip the hot bread in the chilly air,
it wafts a fragrant steam – one of the city’s simple pleasures.
Turning the corner onto Manas Prospect – the main northsouth
artery flanked by grandiose universities and shops – it’s
good to see that Umarzak still maintains his traditional craft.
All around me, white Slavic cottages with wooden eaves
painted green and blue are being bulldozed to make room for
high-rise blocks. This is how Bishkek is being modernised: with
large shopping malls, while new Mercedes cars overtake rusting
Ladas, and young men wear leather jackets and caps rather
than the conical white felt hats, ak-kalpaks, of their forefathers.
For the older generation of Kyrgyz, ak-kalpaks are more
than just hats – legend has it that a man cannot be killed
when wearing his ak-kalpak. The shape has not changed over
the centuries, designed to reflect the high, snowy mountains.
Wearers say that the shape is practical too: the air trapped
inside keeps the head warm in winter and cool in summer.
alt="Women of Altyn Kol make a shyrdak, felt carpet">
The ak-kalpaks are hand-crafted out of felt. The story goes
that a poor boy stuffed holes in his shoes with wool – after
a few days of walking he’d created felt. In Kyrgyzstan, felt is
still painstakingly hand-made, a process taking days. First the
wool is washed, dried and whipped with long willow sticks
on an outspread hide. Then it is teased into fluffy mounds
and dyed in boiling cauldrons of roots and leaves. Next it’s
laid thickly on chiy, mats of woven reeds, sprinkled with hot
water and rolled up. The roll is bound into hessian cloth with
rope and hot water, before being dragged up and down by a
small boy or horse while others stamp on it. Then the bundle
is unravelled and rubbed with soap – to seal the felt and
brighten colours. Lastly, teams of women meld the felt with
more hot water, rolling and pressing the fabric with their
forearms while on their knees, until it is smooth and thick.
It’s seriously hard work, as I discovered on a felt-making day
organised by Altyn Kol, an enterprising group of women who
are labouring to continue their grandmothers’ traditions at the
same time as earning a wage with products aimed at tourists:
cushion covers, slippers, handbags and mobile phone cases.
Twice a year, in May and November, the museum on Ala
Too square hosts an exhibition where you can watch the
women of Altyn Kol at work making shyrdaks, or felt carpets.
The patterns they sew are ancient stories of nomadic life, and
the dominant design is the kochkor muyuz – two curved horns
with a prong in the middle representing a ram.
Saffia Farr’s new book, Revolution Baby: Motherhood
And Anarchy In Kyrgyzstan (£8.99), describes her
recent years in Bishkek. It is available from selected
bookshops or through www.saffiafarr.com
