The history of us

Osh is one of the oldest cities in the world. It was founded more than 3000 years ago. In the 8th century, it was a center for silk production on the silk road. The Fergana valley in which it is located, is a very fertile land. And many weary travelers on the silk road used to spend a few days here to rest after arduous travels across deserts and mountains. Osh has also been the unfortunate center of ethnic violence in modern days. This area is where a largely ethnical Uzbek population has been living for a long time. But during the Soviet era, the borders were set by the central government. And when the Soviet Union collapsed, those Uzbeks found themselves inside Kyrgyzstan. In 2010, Kyrgyz nationalist decided that Uzbeks didn't belong in Kyrgyzstan. In Osh, they started harassing and attacking ethnic Uzbeks. Some were beaten, and some were even killed. The nationalist violence erupting in both Osh and the surrounding areas forced around 100 000 ethnic Uzbeks to flee the land their ancestors had been living on for centuries. They all fled to Uzbekistan. Never to return.

I love old history. And the older, the better. Seeing artifacts from a time when a flint axe was the pinnacle of technology gives me chills. Today, all the technology we take for granted, has been crafted from knowledge collected and refined over millennia. In those days, just figuring out how to make an axe was basically an act of brilliance. And one of the things I wanted to see in Osh, was the ancient sacred mountain of Sulaiman-too. A place of worship of different gods for at least 10 000 years. And the best of it all : It has a lot of petroglyphs (stone carvings) from ancient people. I was looking forward to looking at the "handprints" of those ancient people. 

But before that, I also took the city in. Went to the bazaar, a local park, and "the tallest Lenin statue". 

I was most excited about seeing the "tallest Lenin statue", only to be disappointed by the fact that the statue itself wasn't really tall. It was just erected on a tall platform...

Lenin getting a makeover

The bazaar on the other hand, was great. I love bazaars. Although I am not very fond of crowded places, the bazaars are kinda different. There is so much to see (and smell), that I tend to forget about the bustle. And my favorite in all bazaars is the spice market. Just walking past the stalls and letting the delightful smells of the spices fill my nostrils? I always walk away with a smile. And I also love the brand fakes. I just had to buy a couple of Calivah Klaun underpants. This is also were I bought my Ak-Kalpak. The traditional hat worn my Kyrgyz men. This hat is even on UNESCO's World Heritage list. In Kyrgyzstan they even have a national holiday in its honor. How could I not buy one?

The park in Osh was lovely. With some joy-rides, a small train and some electric toy cars you could rent and zoom around the park in. I decided not to try any of them... But it was fun watching others do.

What to do when the producer has misspelled the text?

Use some tape to fix it....

Love tunnel

Nice old car on display

The noise of us.

Next stop was Sulaiman-too. I paid the entrance fee and walked up the stairs to the view point at the top. Only to be embarrassingly reminded in what terrible shape I was... I probably sounded like a whale scaling the stairs. Pretending to stop to enjoy the view every time I reached a platform. Gasping for air, I don't think I fooled anyone. 

As I finally reached the view-point on the hill, I looked out over the city. The noise of the city was the usual one. Traffic, mostly. But also some hammering and nail-guns popping here and there. And I thought about this mountain. How people 10 000 years ago would maybe sit here and look out over a totally different landscape. And the only sounds would be of nature. Birds, predators and prey. And the occasional words from others in the tribe. But none of the noise I heard. In our daily life, we tend to surround ourselves with noise. As if silence is dangerous, or at least scary.

And the worst part is that we want so badly to be heard in all the noise. So we need to scream more loudly to be heard. 

And this is also, unfortunately, how we treat those old voices too. I paid my entrance fee to the site. I looked at the map, and saw that the site was littered with petroglyphs. But no matter how much I looked, I couldn't see any. Only modern "I love X", "Y love Z", "I was here such and such date". All over the site. I checked online to see if I could find a better map of the old rock carvings. Only to be shocked to learn that all of the modern scribblings had been painted over by those modern ones. 10 000 year old messages being drowned out by the noise of us. I was angry. 10 000 years ago, someone used a primitive way of communicating ideas. Carvings that lasted 10 000 years onto the future. Our present. And here they are. Being sprayed over by us. Wanting to scream "Here I am! See ME!". A 10 000 year old voice being out screamed by our need for attention.

The only place I could find somewhat preserved petroglyphs were inside a Soviet era museum. But even there, the designers had managed to cover some of it up with a wall structure. 

Only part not destroyed, but partially covered by the wall

All in all, a frustrating and thought-provoking experience.

This was the last stop in Kyrgyzstan. Next stop : Uzbekistan.