Sights in Karakol
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Holy Trinity Cathedral
The yellow domes of this handsome cathedral have risen from the rubble of Bolshevism at the corner of Lenina and Gagarin. Karakol's first church services were held in a yurt on this site after the town was founded. A later stone church fell down in an earthquake in 1890 (its granite foundations are still visible). A fine wooden cathedral was completed in 1895 but the Bolsheviks destroyed its five onion-domes and turned it into a club in the 1930s. Serious reconstruction only began in 1961.
Services are again held here, since its formal reconsecration in 1991 and again in 1997. Listen for its chimes marking Sunday morning services (07:00 to 11:00).
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Animal Markets
This is no match for Kashgar's Sunday Market, but is still one of the best Animal Markets in Central Asia. Locals like to load their Lardas with livestock - quite a spectacle if the beast in question refuses to be pushed into the back seat. Fat-tailed sheep, worth their weight in shashlik, don't come cheap. Depending on its age, sex and size, a sheep can cost as much as US$120. Horses start at around US$300.
The market is divided into two compounds, one for sheep and goats; the other, for horses, cattle and the occasional camel.
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Chinese Mosque
What looks for all the world like a Mongolian Buddhist temple on the corner of Bektenov and Jusup Abdrakhmanov is in fact a mosque, built without nails, completed in 1910 after three years' work by a Chinese architect and 20 Chinese artisans, for the local Dungan community. It was closed by the Bolsheviks from 1933 to 1943, but since then has again become a place of worship.
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Regional Museum
Karakol's modest Regional Museum is in a sturdy colonial brick building, once the home of a wealthy landowner. It's of limited interest with exhibits on the petroglyphs around Issyk-Köl, a few Scythian bronze artefacts, a Soviet history of the Kyrgyz union with Russia, some Kyrgyz applied art, and photographs of old Karakol - all of it better with a guide.
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Pushkin Park
The leafy Pushkin Park by the stadium, four blocks south of the centre, includes the collective grave of a squad of Red Army soldiers killed in the pursuit of basmachi.
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