No one really knows their Stans do they? I mean those central Asian republics that cause so much brow furrowing at pub quizzes. Even the woman at check-in at Heathrow fluffed it. “You’re going to Bishkek? So, erm . . . Tajikistan?”
No, it’s the capital of Kyrgyzstan, actually, although I shouldn’t be too smug because my computer still insists on putting a red line underneath whenever I attempt to spell it.
Travellers now have more chances to get to know the country — sandwiched between Kazakhstan and China — because Saga has begun offering trips and Regent Holidays launched skiing breaks to the country’s main winter resort, Karakol. If it was good enough for the Soviet Union’s Olympic downhill squad back in the day, it was good enough for my friend Annette and me.
It’s a fair old schlepp to get there, but blue skies, crisp snow and minus 13C in Bishkek were a good slap in the face to jet lag after an overnight flight from Istanbul. My guide and driver was Asylbek Egemberdiev, who scored points for his name and his sunny demeanour.
It’s hard to put a finger on what appealed about Bishkek — its name in Soviet times was Frunze, after a local Bolshevik leader — because there doesn’t appear to be much on the “to-do” list. But it has a laid-back charm with statues, flashing neon signs in Cyrillic script, squat babushkas bundled up in thick coats and Kyrgyz men in traditional, high-crowned kalpak hats.
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There are lots of cheap cafés and restaurants, serving green tea and vodka. Food has influences from Russia, Kazakhstan, Turkey and China, all suited to warding off winter’s chill: laghman (noodles with lamb), manti (steamed dumplings with meat or pumpkin), chuchuk (horse sausages) and plov (rice, meat and vegetables).
The next day we hugged the Kazakh border heading east, past petrol station after petrol station — seriously, I’ve never been to a country that has so many — as well as yurts and shepherds on horseback. Small villages full of ramshackle, tin-roofed bungalows battened down the hatches against the weather. Not much moved apart from people collecting water at standpipes and boys pushing carts of kindling. We stopped at the Burana Tower, where once stood the 10th-century city of Balasagun, and Lake Issyk Kul, the second largest mountain lake in the world.
In summer the beaches heave with tourists: Leonid Brezhnev and Boris Yeltsin had holiday homes here and there were sanatoriums for glorious proletariat from all over the USSR. It was off-limits to westerners, in part because of a top-secret submarine base and torpedo-testing site.
In winter, though, our overnight stop on the north shore was subdued and we shared a hotel with a small group of jolly Kyrgyz who drank vodka in the sauna and then jumped naked into the freezing lake, and a sombre, lanky youth team of triathletes from Siberia. I fell asleep to the somewhat trippy Russian version of Wheel of Fortune, with singing, dancing and gifts of fruit for the host.
The next morning we pressed on, pausing in the town of Karakol, which was founded as a Russian settlement in the 19th century. It has a 100-year-old mosque built without nails and an impressive wooden Russian Orthodox Holy Trinity Cathedral. From here you’re about 100km from China and in summer hikers come to the Tien Shan Mountains, although you need a permit to enter the 50km border zone. The highest peak is Victory (Jengish Chokusu in Kyrgyz) at 7,439m.
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The Karakol ski resort, about 20 minutes out of town, has four lifts, 20km of runs and the opportunity to ski off-piste too. The daily lift fees of about £15 are too steep for most Kyrgyz, although yuppy Bishkekers come for the weekend. It attracts wealthy Kazakhs and Russians, some of whom make the long drive south rather than fly. (It’s 30 hours in the car from Novosibirsk.) Our appearance was greeted with some fanfare. “I think we had some Germans here once, but you’re the first British. Sherlock Holmes! Tony Blair!”
Our base was the Hotel Kapriz, which was a friendly, cosy bustle of families. It was right by the lift-pass office and chairlift. Outside was a small daytime café with a busy production line of pizzas and kebabs, as well as Russian dishes such as pelmeni, a kind of ravioli in soup with dill and sour cream. Après-ski consisted of a sauna and an Armenian crooner belting out folk tunes in the restaurant over dinner. During the day western hits pumped from loudspeakers in the car park: after all, nothing says skiing in Kyrgyzstan like Rihanna. Polite but bored-looking teenagers sat in the hotel corridor trying to pick up free wifi so they could Instagram and Snapchat their friends back home. Some things really are the same the world over.
On our first morning we met our ski guide, 24-year-old Askat Baisynov Orozbekovich, whose fluent English was as handy for questions about life in Kyrgyzstan as for showing us the mountain. Skiing over the rest of the week was fun, if not overly challenging, but then it’s not every day you pause at a peak (3,040m), adjust your poles and look out towards China.
The slopes were gloriously empty, which is usually the case, Askat told us, if you avoid Russian Orthodox New Year, when it’s a total bunfight. He also explained the curious sight of local skiers gliding erratically down the mountain with cushions strapped across their bottoms: a precaution against the slats on cold, exposed chairlifts, it turned out.
Is Karakol going to be the next Courchevel or St Anton? No, But once you’re there it is very cheap. But if you want to see a part of the world that is often overlooked by travellers, especially in winter, and to throw in a few days’ skiing, it could be for you. And actually seeing regions such as central Asia, rather than viewing them through the prism of the 10 o’clock news, can trump preconceptions and stereotypes one piste at a time.
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Need to know
Will Hide travelled as a guest of Regent Holidays (020 7666 1244, regent-holidays.co.uk), which has eight-day winter trips to Kyrgyzstan from £1,250pp, with some meals and guiding, but not flights. Turkish Airlines (0844 8006666, turkishairlines.com) flies to Bishkek (via Istanbul) from £340 return. Ski hire and lift pass at Karakol are about £25 a day, and if you want to hire a ski guide expect to pay £60 a day. Visas are not needed for full UK passport holders