Uyghurs With Attitude

My trip to the Tajik embassy really opened my eyes to the Bishkek reality.  It really is just an overgrown village with little planning.  I got into a local marshrutka that was apparently going to a nearby village so by the time I realized I should have gotten out I was way outside of Bishkek and there was cattle grazing all over the roads.  It made for an interesting walk back and I found myself remarkably close to where the embassy was.  The embassy process was quick.  $60 for the embassy and for a $10 top up fee, I had access to the GBAO region as well.  No intense psychoanalysis like in NK, just a casual fee paying and that was it.  One handwritten visa and a special stamp later, and all that Tajikistan had to offer was proffered before me.  I asked, "Oh, is the border along the Surkhob river open?" thinking that it was the most natural point of entry to Taj.  He gestured that it was and that it was a stupid question to have asked.  Of course all of Tajikistan is open.

I left triumphant, and with my natural air of hubris I emerged out into the dusty and concrete wasteland of south Bishkek to make my way back into the centre.  An old man, looking rather polished, approached and demanded angrily where the nearest shoe repair was.  For some reason I actually tried to offer advice based on previous shoe repair kiosk sightings, at which point I realized he just needs to get it together and look around him.  They are absolutely everywhere in Bishkek.  The entire city is a playground for shoe repair kiosks, and sometimes there aren't even kiosks, just a small machine on the sidewalk that does aggressive stitching.  And on my way meandering back to the city centre I walked through a market where there was a table selling a variety of pickled vegetables manned by a 7 year old boy with chopsticks who continuously ate from each tub of pickles.  I reflected on how glad I was that the Kyrgyz weren't eligible for EU membership because they would shut this shit down.  

His mom ran out of a nearby cafe and hollered at me if I wanted anything and I thought, "Ummmm, no, I'm fine thank you. 

Then, on a walk through the main street Chuy, I was pulled aside by a police officer who wanted to have a little "chat."  This caused me to have a total panic attack, as I don't interact well with authority figures in the best of circumstances, much less in Kyrgyzstan because our moral compasses are often so misaligned.  When he asked for my passport, I savvily told him I didn't have one, which was a lie I quickly covered up with, "it's in the hotel."  And then he asked for some money, which was not forthcoming.  He then invited me for a coffee - his treat - but my sharp instincts tipped me off that perhaps this wasn't going to be his treat at all.  In fact, somehow I would end up paying for it.  It was just a hunch, but I did everything I could to excuse myself from being in his presence, all the while trying not to reveal any knowledge of Russian.  

And then I encountered two drunks carrying about 4 litres of homemade vodka through a small city square, and they asked me how I was and if I would take pictures of them.  I have a photo essay below which documents this experience.  

This moment was so real.  

And then finally in the evening I met up with a Couch Surfer who was an American studying Central Asian politics at the local university.  He had also spent a year teaching English in Martin, Slovakia, a few years ago, so all of it was pretty interesting and I am glad to have met him.  When we arrived at this great bar, Devyashka, we encountered an American girl who was also studying at the local university and whose father was visiting so the four us grabbed a table and the two students ate horse meat or brain or something with noodles, and I lapped up some lagman, and I have no idea what the father ate but it's not really central to the story.  The father was awesome and was an urban planner from one of the cities in the US.  Washington, or Boston, or somewhere in between.  He told me that the original city plan for Philadelphia was actually submitted as one of the plans to rebuild the City of London after the great fire of the 1660s.  It turns out it came in second so they shipped it off to the colonies like all the other riffraff.  Isn't that interesting?  The girl, on the other hand, was insufferable, and had taken on that smarmy and unimpressed air of a 13 year old girl who has decided that sarcasm is going to be her thing and can't have a fluid conversation because she always has to say something rude and dismissive.  Look, you terrible human being, no one wants to talk to you, none of us want to be here, but I'm just trying to follow social convention and power through this because we're all in this together.  Why do you have to be so awful?  Anyway, the pros and the cons of this evening basically evened out, and once again I am no better off than I was before I had woken up.  

I also ate some fresh bread.  That was pretty good.  

*Yeah, I guess none of the people I dealt with in the first week were actually Uyghurs, but I'd be very, very remiss if I were to pass up an opportunity like this title.