9/16: Karakol's Animal Market, Russian Cathedral, History Museum & Jewelry Arcade

As we were trudging up to Karakol's main street, a taxi stopped and we got in. We had to use animal sounds to convey to the driver we wanted him to take us to the Sunday Animal Market. We wouldn’t have won any Academy Awards but we were able to convey what we wanted and we all had a good laugh over it! After going to the weekly Animal Market in Kochkor yesterday, Steven wondered how different another animal market could be. But since the market is one of Kyrgyzstan’s biggest, we both thought it was worth getting up early to go to as we knew it had started at dawn and would be all over by 10.

The market was huge, with designated areas for different animals;  we mainly saw horses, cattle and sheep.

Scattered among the tightly tethered, complaining livestock were Kyrgyz who had come from all over the region to visit the livestock market to buy, sell and socialize. I read they sometimes travel for days with their livestock to reach the market. I figured this man must have been one of them!

We found out how different this market was from others when, city clickers that we are, we saw a horse shod for the first time! Two blacksmiths worked in tandem, one applying a shoe to the right front leg and the other to the right rear leg. 

 There was a decent-sized crowd gathered around watching the process which took about 20 minutes or so. I found it fascinating as there were so many steps to ensuring a good fit. 

Even though the horse was being tightly held in the front and his legs were tied up, the blacksmith shoeing the rear leg must have hit a tender spot because the horse tried to rear up, obviously in pain. I felt badly for the horse after seeing a bit of blood but was thankful it wasn’t worse.

The blacksmiths' supplies:

The process was about to begin all over again with another horse being shod. 

People must start at a young age in Kyrgyzstan sitting back on their haunches as, in our short time in the country, I had already noticed so many men and women seemingly effortlessly sitting like that. I haven't had that flexibility to get down that low for decades!

We saw one man take a short test trot on one horse and it looked like the seller had an interested buyer here.

The market was extremely chaotic with lots of people and animals everywhere. As it in no way catered to tourists, it felt absolutely authentic. Unlike the market in Kochkor the day before, we didn’t see anything other than animals being bought and sold – no household products, crafts, horse gear, etc.

Christine: Seeing all the sheep made me wonder where you and Mike have bought and sold your sheep over the years?

I was glad we had made the effort to go to the authentic animal market as it was a very good and interesting way to explore a part of the Kyrgyz culture. Thankfully, no one appeared to mind the presence of foreigners or having their pictures taken.

These massive hay trucks looked like they would keel over in a strong gust of wind! 

We had to use our pantomime skills again to get a taxi driver to take us to the Russian Orthodox Holy Trinity Cathedral. When I clasped my hands together in a praying motion, the driver knew right away where we wanted to go! The wooden church, constructed in 1895 to serve the spiritual needs of the new influx of Russian settlers in Karakol, was built atop the foundation of an earlier stone structure that was destroyed in an earthquake.

The lovely building suffered the ignominy of being used as a dance hall under the Soviets who stripped its five green onion domes in the 1930s. Serious reconstruction began in 1961 but the church was only reconsecrated as a place of worship in 1991 and again in 1997.

Though it was originally built without the use of nails, earthquakes had destabilized the building and plenty of nails were visible. 

As you can see from the preceding photos, we took some time to walk around the building to see it from different angles thinking we had plenty of time before services began at 10. But when we entered shortly before then, we realized the service had already begun. We stood in the back for a while to watch as the congregants made the Orthodox sign - with hand to the right and then the left of the chest - of the cross no less than fifty times as the priest chanted and people often responded in prayer. 

I made my way up to the right front to see the choir we heard but the small choir was only barely visible through the narrow spaces in the screen below. Often during the service, the believers would lay their hands on their feet or bend down and touch or kiss the floor in between making repeated signs of the cross. 

I watched as, during the service, people went up and lit candles even though it was clearly not part of the service itself. Being there reminded me of how I miss going to the 7:15 Mass every Sunday morning with Janina and Pat back home at St. Frances Cabrini when we travel.

When the service was over, I wandered around more of the church to observe and admire it and the people. None of them were Asian as the majority of Kyrgyz people are. I remember remarking to Steven how we noticed virtually no signs of intermarriage between the former Russian and ethnic Kyrgyz people our entire two weeks in Kyrgyzstan. 

As I peered up at the ceiling above the nave, I noticed star constellations painted against the blue background!

The church's greatest treasure was an icon of the Virgin that came from the monastery of Svetly Mys where the monks were brutally murdered in 1916 on the eve of the Russian Revolution. The icon is said to have wept tears and blood and repelled the bullets of rebel soldiers. 

Unlike in so many places of worship in Canada and the US, I was struck by the many young families who had come to church.

There were snacks available after the service which reminded me of what our children used to call 'Donut Sundays' at Cabrini!

There were four or five flower shops on the street just outside the church but they mostly sold fake flowers.

What a scream seeing this huge whatever it was with the ginormous teeth as we walked down the sleepy main street. Steven was such a trooper standing inside the mouth for a picture for me! 

Karakol's colonial past as an outpost for Russian soldiers was still evident in much of its architecture with attractive 'gingerbread' timber homes and old shutters. 

This old home was now an antique shop selling souvenirs of Russia's former glory days. 

It was only about 11 by then and we had already seen what we had 'planned' for the day so decided we might as well pop into the Regional History Museum although it seemed like it might be a bit of a yawner.

The museum consisted of seven rooms. There were some large bronze pots and Scythian artifacts in the Historical Hall.

There was also a display of Kyrgyz felt art and shyrdaks, wall or floor coverings used in yurts and/or homes in Central Asia.

In the Ethnographic Hall was a sample yurt but, having just stayed in a couple, we weren't too interested in learning more about them!

A selection of Kyrgyz musical instruments rounded out the gallery.

What we found most compelling in the museum was a collection of black and white photos taken by Ella Maillart, a Swiss adventurer, travel writer and photographer, as well as an Olympic athlete.  According to Wikipedia, Maillart, from the 1930s onwards, spent years exploring the Central Asian republics of the USSR, as well as other parts of Asia. Her book, Turkestan Solo, described a journey in 1932 in Soviet Turkestan when she was 29. 

In 1934, a French newspaper sent her to Manchuria to report on the situation under the Japanese occupation. It was there that Maillart met Peter Fleming, a well-known writer and correspondent for the The (London) Times, with whom she would team up to cross China from Peking to Srinagar 3,500 miles away, much of the route being through hostile desert regions and steep Himalayan passes. The journey started in February 1935 and took seven months to complete, involving travel by train, on lorries, on foot, horseback and on camels! 

The photo of the Frunze - now called Bishkek - train station lamented the fact that books in Arabic were destroyed and the Arabic alphabet vanished between 1932 and 1942. The Cyrillic alphabet was imposed instead. 

The photo depicted three menaps or tribal leaders in Karakol. Notice the karpet hat the man in the middle was wearing - it's the same hat men of a certain age wear today in Kyrgyzstan.

We just smiled when we saw this decades-old photo of an immobilized horse at the blacksmith's in Karakol because that was exactly what we'd seen that morning at the same Animal Market!

The photo recounted when the church in Alma-Ata, Kazakhstan,  became an atheist museum during the Soviet era.

Seeing this photo again of cotton being picked by order of the Soviet state instead of rice is of greater relevance now to me as I am writing this post from Nukus in western Uzbekistan where one of the world's greatest environmental disasters occurred when the Soviets replaced the cultivation of rice with cotton which helped to dry up ninety percent of the Aral Sea because of the huge need for water to grow cotton. There will be more of the issue when I get to the post on Nukus.

After seeing Maillet's stunning photos, we had to get our heads around the displays of stuffed indigenous wildlife.

The last display was about silver jewelry as metal artwork was one of the most ancient and important cultural traditions in Kyrgyzstan. Long ago, the silversmith was considered a special person, a skilled creator of wonderful jewelry and as someone with the mysterious gift of making fire and iron obey him.

Anyone reading these blogs for any length of time knows how much we are intrigued by local markets on our travels as they give us a sense of what local life is really about and, on a basic level, allow us to find more affordable and a better selection of produce than in a supermarket. Since Karakol's small market, Jakshilik Bazaar, in the center of town was so convenient to our guesthouse, we went there daily to buy the yummy local bread that cost mere pennies, or produce as we made our meals each night.

The seam on the strap of my ultra light daypack needed mending and I also wanted to have shortened the strap of my fabric purse so I stopped in at this tiny seamstress shop to get an estimate. I felt guilty when she told me it would only be a couple of bucks for both and to come back in fifteen minutes and the work would be done.

The market area also had a jewelry arcade which was fun to wander through. As you can see, there weren't stores but rather storefronts where all the items were displayed in glass cases and each case belonged to a different vendor. If you were interested in an item, you would have to point to it and it would be shown through a small window.

Since I got mugged last fall in Quito, Ecuador, and had my gold hoop earrings ripped out of my ears, I had decided to only wear silver jewelry on our overseas trips. After learning about the importance of silver in Kyrgyzstan, I thought the arcade might be the perfect place to look for another pair of earrings. I didn't see anything that caught my eye, though.

Later that day in our room, we laughed, wondering why we had gone to the animal market pretty bright and early when we could have just stayed in our room at the guesthouse and listened to, and seen, the goats right across the street instead!

Next post: A fascinating time learning about another Central Asian adventurer and alone time at the beach with just cattle!

Posted on September 29th, 2018, from Nukus, Uzbekistan.