Sights in Kyrgyzstan
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Ala-Archa Canyon
This grand, rugged but very accessible gorge is a state nature park offering dozens of walking and trekking possibilities, including hikes to glaciers and, for the serious mountaineer, treks to the region's highest peak. There are basic shelters scattered throughout the park but the best way to enjoy the area is to bring your own tent and supplies.
You can use the Upper Ala-Archa Mountain Ski Base as a starting point from which to ski on glaciers, even in summer, though lifts only operate during the December to April winter season. Bishkek travel agents can arrange excursions to the canyon or you can make your own way there by car or by using the local buses. A small fee…
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Lake Issyk-Kul
Lake Issyk-Kul is a huge dent, filled with water, folded between the 4000m (13123ft) peaks of the Küngey Alatau and the Terskey Alatau ranges. It sits 1600m (5250ft) above sea level and measures a huge 170km (105mi) long and 70km (43mi) across, making it the second-largest alpine lake in the world after Lake Titicaca in South America.
The main reason to come here is to soak up the lakeside ambience, enjoy the thermal springs and remaining spas, explore some of the best hiking trails in Central Asia (from the town of Karakol) and try your hand at catching the local trout - allegedly bulking up to a prized 35kg.
Mountain wildlife includes big cats, ibex, bear and wild…
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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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State Historical Museum
Sure, there are yurts, a mummy, carpets, embroidery and even open-air balbals (Turkic totemlike gravestones) in the State Historical Museum, but the highlight is the mural-cum-shrine to Lenin and the Revolution upstairs. Former US president Ronald Reagan is immortalised wearing a skull, astride a missile and grinning wildly. Nazi Germany is depicted as a rampaging bear while (surprise, surprise) Mother Russia as a beautiful woman clutching a white dove. English and lighting is minimal.
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Osh bazaar
The city has three daily farmers' markets, all fairly distant from the centre. Osh bazaar, 3km to the west on Chuy, though not very colourful, offers a glimpse of Kyrgyz and Uzbeks from the more conservative south of the republic. Produce is sold inside the main bazaar and all around the outside of the complex. There is a separate clothes market south of the main produce bazaar. To get there take trolleybus 14 on Chuy, bus 20 or 24 on Kiev, or 42 from Soviet.
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Jayma Bazaar
The thunderous daily Jayma Bazaar is one of Central Asia's best markets, teeming with Uzbeks, Kyrgyz and Tajiks dealing in everything from traditional hats and knives to pirated cassettes, horseshoes (forged at smithies in the bazaar), Chinese tea sets and abundant seasonal fruit and vegetables. It stretches for about 1km along the west side of the river, and crosses it in several places. It's most dynamic on Sunday morning, and almost deserted on Monday.
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Dom Babura
Local people call it Dom Babura, if you speak Russian, the friendly Uzbek caretaker will tell you more, and offer you a prayer for a few som. The steep 25-minute climb begins at a little gateway behind a futuristic silver dome on Kurmanjan Datka. The promontory offers long views but little to see except for a vast Muslim cemetery at the foot of the hill. Dusk is a good time to visit.
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WWII monument
Victory Square is a weedy plaza where an immense yurt-shaped WWII monument, erected on the 40th anniversary of the end of the war, sprawls across an entire city block. On cold evenings you might see a knot of young men passing the bottle and warming themselves at its eternal flame. On weekends it's the destination for an endless stream of wedding parties posing for photographs.
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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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Dubovy Park
Dubovy Park, full of strollers on warm Sundays, has a few open-air cafés and some neglected modern sculpture and funnily enough, century-old oaks. Where Erkindik prospektisi (Freedom Ave) enters the park, there is an open-air art gallery. Nearby is the Erkindik (Freedom) Statue, formerly a statue of Felix Dzerzhinsky, founder of the Soviet secret police.
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Solomon's Throne
A jagged, barren rock that seems to loom above the city wherever you go, Solomon's Throne has been a Muslim place of pilgrimage of some importance for centuries, supposedly because the Prophet Mohammed once prayed here. From certain perspectives it's said to resemble a reclining pregnant woman, and is especially favoured by hopeful mothers.
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Frunzwe House-Museum
Is this thatched cottage really where the little Frunze played with his toy soldiers, or just the Soviet way with history? In any case the meticulous two-storey Frunzwe House-Museum engulfing it - showcasing Frunze as a military and family man, plus the requisite posters, weapons, flags and statues - has itself become a piece of history.
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Dordoy Bazaar
Dordoy Bazaar (nicknamed Tolchok, which means 'jostling crowd') is a huge weekend flea market of imported consumer goods and junk about 7km north of the centre. You might strike gold with the occasional North Face jacket here. Buses 185, 132, 25 and 200 run to Dordoy from the northern corner of Soviet and Chuy.
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Historical-Cultural Museum
With typical Soviet subtlety, a hole was blasted in the side of this sacred mountain into one of its many caves, and a grotesque sheet-metal front stuck on - a carbuncle now visible from great distances. Inside is a series of badly lit exhibits of potsherds, old masonry, rocks, bugs and mangy stuffed animals.
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Ala-Too Sqare
This sea of concrete ceased to be called Lenin Sq in 1991. Lenin enjoyed centre stage on his plinth until August 2003, when he was relegated to the square behind the museum and replaced by (yet) another statue of Erkindik (Freedom). The Kyrgyz flag in the square is lowered every day at dusk.
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Historical Museum
The Historical Museum, built during the Osh 3000 celebrations, is the best of the three Historical Archaeological Museums. It's strong on local archaeology and ethnography but has little info in English. There are some great weapons, displayed as if caught up in mad whirlwind.
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Dom Druzhby
The conspicuously older structure northeast of Ala-Too Sq at Pushkin 68 was the headquarters of the Central Committee of the Kyrgyz ASSR, declared in 1926. It's now home to the Dom Druzhby community centre for advocacy and self-help groups, as well as a drab zoology museum.
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'White House'
An unmarked marble palace full of chandeliered offices just west of the square, the 'White House', is the seat of the Kyrgyzstan government, including the president's office and the republic's parliament. Behind this is Panfilov Park, full of rusting rides and arcades.
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State Museum of Fine Arts
The decaying State Museum of Fine Arts, also called the Gapar Aitiev Museum of Applied Art, features Kyrgyz embroidery, jewellery, utensils, eye- popping felt rugs, works by local artists, and a startling collection of reproduction Egyptian and classical statues.
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Historical Archaeological Museum Complex
Near Solomon's Throne are three museums collectively referred to as the Historical Archaeological Museum Complex, although don't expect the locals to recognise such a mouthful of English. All three keep the same hours.
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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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Zhirgal Banya
Buy tickets for the Zhirgal Banya from the kassa (ticket office) around the side. Old ladies sell birch twigs outside the baths for those into a bit of self-flogging.
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Three-Storied Yurt
The giant Three-storied Yurt, part of the Historical Archaeological Museum Complex, has a collection of national clothing, traditional textiles and shyrdaks.
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