Exploring the mountainous landscapes of Kyrgyzstan on a riding holiday with Alexandra Tolstoy
Life’s chance meetings can occasionally lead to the greatest adventures, which is exactly what happened when I met equine explorer Alexandra Tolstoy at a fundraiser last spring. I confess, back then, Kyrgyzstan was a country I could not spell, let alone place on the map. In the 1920s, when rounding up the remnants of the tsarist empire, Stalin created five Central Asian territories to add to the USSR. When the Soviet tide eventually receded again in 1991, each of these territories – Kazakhstan, Uzbekistan, Tajikistan, Turkmenistan and Kyrgyzstan – emerged as a newly independent nation.
Of the Stans, the last is a mysterious, mountainous heaven that shares its longest border with China. It possesses a Heidi-esque quality – a landscape of dizzying passes and plunging valleys.
The word Kyrgyz means ‘40 tribes’, and the country still has a considerable nomadic population, as has been the case for thousands of years. When warmer weather arrives, they disperse from the villages in which they shelter from punitive conditions over winter and make their way to the summer jailoo – isolated pastures that are rooted in distant peaks. In fact, before the arrival of the Russians in the 1870s, most settlements, including the capital Bishkek, consisted solely of round white yurts.
Bishkek, formerly known as Pishpek or Frunze, is both the capital and the largest city in Kyrgyzstan. The name derives from the Kyrgyz word for the churn used to make fermented mare’s milk. Bishkek holds a jamboree of delicious colours, textures and smells, and we take it all in at the Osh Bazaar, where we buy loaves of lepyoshka (the traditional local bread) and handmade rugs, and at the National Museum of Fine Arts – an unassuming grey block of brutalist architecture crammed with exquisite Kyrgyz crafts and paintings.
The journey from Bishkek to Sary-Chelek Nature Reserve, where we would spend the next week riding, takes a full day, passing through the expansive Suusamyr Valley, full of nomads tending their livestock outside welcoming clusters of white yurts. Nestled in the western Tian Shan mountains, Sary-Chelek – which translates as ‘golden hollow’ – is a charmed land and a destination that even locals dream of visiting.
The people of the mountains are friendly beyond what feels familiar back home, rushing to light fires, milking their cows or mares to welcome you and humbling you with their bread-sharing and openness. Every yurt is an open door and a window into this simple self-sustaining way of life. Their smiles are beacon-like in warmth. I met eyes filled with childlike curiosity, as naive as our own wonderment of this remoteness. And something so deliciously untarnished and innocent that it flooded my soul.
The culture here revolves around horses. The reverence given to riding skill is reflected in their traditional national sports. One afternoon, after a long day in the saddle, our guides were joined by locals for a spontaneous game of ulak tartysh (translating as ‘the struggle for the goat’). This exhilarating spectator sport is part rugby and part polo dash, in a wrestle for a headless goat carcass (stuffed with salt packs to increase the weight), which players attempt to hurl, drop or smuggle over the opposition’s goal line. In this intensity, our team was victorious, winning 6,000-som prize money (around £60) and, more importantly, the goat, which was promptly skinned – no tenderising needed. It was skewered and roasted on the fire for a celebratory feast. Nothing goes to waste in this land where everything is precious.
I need not have worried about Kyrgyzstan’s sustenance. We ate like the hungry horsewomen that we were. Dining on pumpkin dumplings, fresh river trout, dill-laced borscht with bread and comforting chicken noodle soup that lingers in my hippocampus – an array of appealing flavours that drew us into the mess tent every evening with no need of a dinner gong.
A mother and daughter-in-law, both named Irina, washed, chopped, diced, boiled, baked and fried for our quotidian needs with aplomb. Alexandra decorated the tables with Uzbek cotton cloths, bought from the market in Bishkek, while her long-time guide Djuma added adornment with meadow flowers.
Each morning, the back-up truck and staff travelled ahead to set up for our arrival at the next destination. It is a well-oiled schedule that has been refined over the years. Camping is in spacious British three-person tents and a large mess tent for communal relaxation and meals.
One afternoon, Djuma took us to visit his wife and his grandchildren in his summer home – a yurt near Kizel Kel’, on the bank of a clear mountain stream. While the group rested their backs and stretched their legs along a pile of colourful mattresses, his wife Bakbu lit the fire to heat water and stirred her homemade kefir. We were served this delicious yogurt drink and little balls of goat’s cheese that had been dried on a lean-to bamboo roof.
The Kyrgyz travel light, taking only necessary provisions and their livestock. Djuma’s neighbour had a stud of foals and mares that were being hobbled to be milked. This milk is much valued here and churned into a creamy fermented drink called kumis – something of an acquired taste with a smoky, fizzy tang. But the local mountain honey, well, that is another story.
If adventure was what attracted me, adventure was what I got. We cantered through meadows of wild flowers, strode through waist-high rivers, climbed jagged, ear-popping passes and crossed rickety wooden bridges to navigate torrenting waterfalls.
We slept to the white noise of rivers busy discharging their snow-melt to distant oceans far from this landlocked Stan and awoke to birdsong. Teeth-brushing and hair washing were done riverside. And everyone told their stories, sharing laughter and shedding a tear at the uncluttered beauty of this land.
WAYS AND MEANS
Alexandra Tolstoy Travel offers 11-day riding holidays in Sary-Chelek, in May, June and September each year, but bespoke trips can also be arranged on request. Prices for the holidays start at $5,700 per person excluding flights.
Jonathan Gregson1/9The horses are strong, slim-backed, largely good natured and reassuringly sure footed, which helps them to scale the mountain terrain without losing a step, and with just enough oomph to enjoy a decent canter through the alpine meadows.
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Jonathan Gregson3/9After a long day spent in the saddle travelling through the Tian Shan mountains, the riders are greeted with welcome refreshment
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Jonathan Gregson5/9Spacious threeperson tents are pitched beside a river, where the horses can also rest for the night
Jonathan Gregson6/9Traditional white yurts, often with eye-catching patterned interiors (left), are home to the country’s nomadic people, who offer visitors warm hospitality along their rout
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Jonathan Gregson8/9A local Kyrgyz boy travels by donkey
Jonathan Gregson9/9Saddles padded with beautiful local fabrics
