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In relay style, a new author has taken over.
So there we were, washing our teeth next to a stream, next to a stadium. In Tortogul (spelling?). It was like a scene out of Hitchcock's The Birds, with Biblical numbers of crows circling overhead, making industrial volume squawks, only it was based in Tortogul. Which wouldn't really have worked for the film script, given most inhabitants of Tortogul probably spend most of their time secretly begging to be hacked to pieces by renegade crow armies, so dull is their location, and so depressing are their surroundings.
Take, for example, the stadium. A sign at the entrance proudly announced that this was no less than the 1980 Olympic Stadium (GCSE Russian still firing away in those synapses). "Bejesus!" I thought...."I had always assumed that the 1980 Olympics were held in Moscow." Had Allan Wells really won his famous 100m sprint gold on this track in front of me? Cos if he had, he was a better runner than I originally thought, given the state of the track (potholed tarmac).
The stadium was perhaps symptomatic of much of what we have seen in other Kyrgyz cities. Grand and lofty ambitions; an ideology looking to announce and justify itself to the outside world, and its own inhabitants; a desire to make a mark...but look closer and you see decay; inability to live up to the original vision; perhaps the triumph of ideology over pragmatism.
However, whilst these experiences make amusing anecdotes, they are not what Kyrgyzstan is about. The guide books readily told us that we shouldn't expect too much from the country's towns and cities - the Kyrgyz people were predominantly nomadic until the end of the 19th century (many still follow their flocks around the hilly pastures now), and so it would be unlikely for them to leave many architectural achievements given this transhumant lifestyle.
Rather, Kyrgyzstan is all about geography. In fact, geography students would probably find themselves in a state of arousal if they were just to study a map of the country. Stunning green hilly pastures are everywhere as soon as you leave the cities. And if you look to the horizon, snowy peaks are there, as far as the eye can see. And they are properly high - most have snow all year round, and are home to such exotic species as the Marco Polo sheep and snow leopard (very rare, but making a comeback). The people who inhabit in this environment live in yurts (Kyrgyz tents), and move around the country with their flocks (sheep, cows, kangaroos, goats (can you spot the deliberate mistake?)). It's a lifestyle that is alien to me, but once you see their environment, you can begin to understand why they life in they way they do.
NB It turns out the Totrogul stadium was a practice stadium for the 1980 Soviet Olympic athletics team (high altitude and all that). So don't go editing the history books.
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