Our first stop, the following day, was at an 11th century minaret, the 'Burana Tower', an hour-and-three-quarter drive east of Bishkek. It's the largest remnant of a caravanserai (like a fortified camel/horse motel) on the Silk Road. Again see: In the footsteps of Marco Polo. There is a small museum and a lot of information, in English and Russian, on site (no photographs).
To enable its structure and original height, Burana Tower was built of fired brick. It is believed to be the first minaret ever built in Central Asia after the arrival of Islam in 940 CE. The associated grand mosque has been levelled, along with the other buildings in the settlement, probably because most of it was built of unfired (mud) brick and/or by people scavenging building materials. In excavations, from 1970 to 1974, Russian archaeologists also found the lower remnants of three mausoleums also built from fired brick. The central part of the Islamic settlement was a little over half-a-kilometre square. Some of its towered walls still rise as high as four meters. An outer suburb, rabad, was surrounded by two concentric rings of ramparts, with the outermost one reaching 20 kilometres, suggesting that it was heavily fortified and defended in depth. The complex was in use in the 11th-12th centuries.
Though it once reached a height of around 45 meters, it now stands at 24 meters high (a mini-ret). About a third of the minaret was reconstructed in 1970-1974, during the Soviet period. Then, between 2021 and 2023 the United States funded a project to conserve the Tower including: resurfacing of damaged tiling on the observation deck; seismic evaluation of the Tower’s resilience to earthquakes; and the installation of new video security cameras for the museum territory’s perimeter. Today, the site is funded by the European Union.
Before Islam, the caravanserai site was Zoroastrian, as burials in a nearby graveyard attest, and is much older. It is included in the UNESCO World Heritage List as a component of the "Silk Roads: the Routes Network of Chang'an-Tianshan Corridor," which was nominated jointly by China, Kazakhstan, and Kyrgyzstan. The corridor is a 5,000-km section of the Silk Roads that took shape between the second century BCE and first century CE, remaining in use until the 10th century. "It linked multiple civilizations and facilitated far-reaching exchanges of activities in trade, religious beliefs, scientific knowledge, technological innovation, cultural practices, and the arts."
While it is a still visible stop along the ancient 'Silk Road', little else of that history remains in Kyrgyzstan, which is to the north of the most travelled routes. As a result, Kyrgyzstan is more popular, with tourists, for its 'back to nature' ambience. If you are interested in the history of the Silk Road, I recommend Uzbekistan as the 'Stan' that was most travelled and has been most successful at maintaining; restoring; and promoting important sites (follow the above link to learn more).
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Top: 'Burana Tower' semi-restored ruins of an 11th century minaret
Middle: Kurgan tombstones dating back to the 6th century known as Balbals or stone warriors.
They are often found in ancient Zoroastrian cemeteries and are now believed to serve
as grave markers for the bones of previously 'exposed' ancestors, because
the term "Balbal" is thought to derive from the Turkic word for "ancestor" or "grandfather".
I discussed Zoroastrianism in more detail here: In the footsteps of Marco Polo - The Yurt Camp
Bottom: Mounds in on the site and our first live eagle - of many
Our guide, Chynara, was of Kyrgyz ethnicity, and to prove it she has striking green eyes, a throwback to the 11th century. The Chinese 'New Book of Tang' (1060 CE) descries the Kyrgyz as having "large, with red hair, white faces, and green or blue eyes". Characteristics that have largely disappeared today.
So, she was particularly qualified to give us a lot of background to the interests and culture of the predominant ethnic group in Kyrgyzstan.
That afternoon we were driven, in the Toyota, by our expert driver, over some challenging roads, through some spectacular scenery, to a very comfortable guesthouse in Chon Kemin.
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Around Chon Kemin and the Toyota
Chon Kemin is famous for its gorge and our itinerary called for an afternoon hike to a vantage point but it was raining and there is something incongruous in three inappropriately dressed people carrying umbrellas trudging up a narrow, slippery, muddy, horse track that encouraged us to turn back. Our guide, Chynara clearly thought that we were wimps. Some others had preceded us on horseback and that seemed a much better option to me.
That evening we had a pleasant dinner followed, the following morning, by a very substantial breakfast, before setting out, through more spectacular scenery, to the town of Kochkor where we visited a craft shop run by women, setting their own agenda (remember, this is un usual in an Islamic country) and learned how to make felt from sheep wool.
On the way to our next overnight at the Yurt camp, we passed the 'Keng Suu Valley Observation Point' and the huge but almost empty Orto Tokoy Reservoir. Chynara explained that the government had sold the water, that once flooded this entire area, to Kazakhstan.
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Top left: Part of the felt-making process in Kochkor
Top Right: The Keng Suu Valley Observation Point
Middle: The Keng Suu Valley
Bottom: The Orto Tokoy Reservoir