Lake Issyk Kul

The drive was beautiful - if rather uncomfortable – all along the north shore of Lake Issyk-Kul. The lake is in the northern Tien Shen mountains and is 182 km long and up to 60 km wide, covering an area of 6,332 km². This makes it the second largest alpine lake in the world behind Lake Titicaca in South America. Located at an altitude of 1,620 m, it reaches 702 m in depth. Unusually for a land locked country the lake is slightly saline and remains ice-free in winter – hence its name, meaning “warm lake” in Kyrgyz. It is fed by springs and snow melt-off, and it has no current outlet. Here ends the lecture.

During the Soviet era, the shore became a popular holiday destination, with numerous sanatoria, boarding houses and holiday houses along its northern shore. The lake, with its salinity making it comparable to the sea, also served as a secret testing ground for Russian torpedoes (must have been fun for those taking a dip on their holidays….) but this infrastructure is rapidly falling to pieces and there are now only a few settlements that are becoming more and more traditional with communal water pumps on street corners and groups of siblings sharing a single horse on the way to school.

The legend of how the lake was created is also typically Central Asian weird. In Islamic folk lore, the local king of the Ossounes had ass's ears. He would hide them, and order each of his barbers to be killed so as to keep his secret. One barber just had to tell someone, so he yelled the secret into a well, but foolishly forgot to cover it up. The well water then rose and flooded the kingdom which is today under the waters of Issyk-Kul. Other legends say that four drowned cities lie at the bottom of the lake; and in fact, substantial archeological finds have been made in shallow waters of the lake.

Herds of horses were grazing the low lands between the lake and the mountains (over 200 strong in parts) and people were industriously gathering in the harvest of carrots, onions and potatoes (which then reappear in gallons of broth.) Orchards lined the lake forming one of my most beautiful memories of Kyrgyzstan as their leaves turned to scarlet and gold, accented by stands of birch trees with silver bark and bright yellow autumnal leaves, all set off by the backdrop of jagged snow clad mountains and a brilliant azure sky.