A look at Osh

       Osh, so the story goes, derives its name from the world's first man. Adam, on orders from God, was to take two oxen and a plow in order to outline the fields for future plowing. He started in Mekka and spent days, months, and years plowing, driving these oxen, and one day spotted mountains rising up in the distance. Deciding that he had come far enough, he repeatedly called "ush", his customary way of turning the oxen. At this place, where the furrow turned, the city of Ush, later Osh, came into being. It was very fertile, and its borders expanded from year to year.

The Soviet fondness for huge fountains
manifests itself in Osh, in front of Peking
shopping centre and two blocks from
 the Central Market.
Photo credit: Robert Henschel

       And Osh, indeed, is very fertile. The ground is lush with all sorts of fruits and vegetables, and grain, too, grows in abundance. You can buy the freshest fruit for very little money at the bazar: there are buckets of strawberries and raspberries, pallets of plums and peaches and abricots, and truckloads of watermelons. And trunkfuls, too: a farmer had driven up in his well-kept Lada of Soviet vintage, the trunk overflowing with watermelons, and simply parked the car road-side, popped the trunk and was having a smoke while watching his children play on the sidewalk. A comfortably-spent (and hopefully worthwhile) Sunday.
       I first decided to go to Osh upon hearing that its culture is such a different one from Bishkek's, and this really held true. The first and foremost reason lies in the make-up of its population. Depending on which poll you read (and perhaps whether it was taken before or after the 2010 riots) the population of Osh is about half and half ethnic Kyrgyz and ethnic Uzbek, with a slightly larger proportion of Kyrgyz (although I've seen numbers to the contrary). The other 5 or so percent is comprised of Russians, Tajik, and Turks. Adding to these factors the city's distance from the capital and drastic difference in size (it is between 2 and 3 times smaller than Bishkek), a quite different dynamic develops.
       Since I was only in Osh for two days, it would be very hard for me to form an accurate assessment of the city. But first impressions, being just that, are easier to come by, and I must say that my first impressions of Osh were very favourable. For one, everyone was slightly friendlier than in Bishkek. Now this is not to say that people in Bishkek are unfriendly, but rather that, as in big cities in general, shopkeepers, vendors and other people in service industries are often polite, but only polite, keeping their distance. In Osh, I had quite a different experience. Whether it was that people in Osh tend more towards personal contact and conversation, or that I was the only white person in the bazar (where I spent most of the two days) neither a local nor an expensive-travel-gear-toting tourist, or the fact that I was a German-Canadian speaking Russian and being able to negotiate (a very little) in Kyrgyz, or perhaps a mixture of the above: the vendors and hotel or restaurant managers and staff (and occasionally even the taxi drivers) were friendly and showed a personal interest.

A view of Osh from Suleiman-Too. Osh's holy mounatin.
Photo credit: Robert Henschel

       I ended up having to use my limited Kyrgyz quite a lot in Osh, since about half the people I met spoke no Russian. I hadn't really realized it before, but it turns out I could negotiate prices and taxi fares quite effectively in Kyrgyz! Those two days in Osh really did wonders for my Kyrgyz - not that I learned new words or the like, but that much of what I had learned before became more fluent to use. A great advantage of this Kyrgyz haggling was that vendors tended to give me, on average, about twice the discount as when I spoke only Russian; I like discounts, so my Kyrgyz got a bit of a workout.
       The Russian in Osh, quite unlike the Russian in Bishkek, was pretty funny to hear. In Bishkek, everyone I've come into contact with speaks Russian fluently, naturally and correctly. In Osh, none of these are a given. In fact, of the three fluent Russian speakers I had conversations with in Osh, two had really strange ways of pronouncing things: for example, one kept saying язык (iazyk), with the pronunciation on the first syllable rather than, as it should be, on the second, and another repeatedly pronounced сегодня (segodnia) the way it is written, and not properly as sevodnia.
       Another somewhat surprising things is that night time in Osh is quite dark. I had slept much of the afternoon due to extreme heat and some humidity (42º high), and wanted to have some supper at around 9:30. The only lighting was from lit windows; street lights weren't in evidence (in contrast to Bishkek, where they are in evidence but often consider the actual shining of light superfluous) and I had to call on my months of experience wandering Bishkek's sidewalks to keep from tripping. Earlier in the day I had seen a Chinese place down an alley called Шанхай Кафе (Shanghai Café), and so, in the mood for Chinese (which was fortunate, since there wasn't much else open) I headed there. I was the only guest in the café proper, although a private dining room in the back was occupied, but 4 or 5 of the staff (and/or family) were sitting around a table in the centre of the café eating from about 12 half-empty meat and vegetable dishes and a vat of soup; either they had been eating for some time or these were the day's left-overs. In any case, I got a fresh meal, beef with green peppers, rice and tea, and enjoyed it as a Chinese news channel played on TV in the background. When the time flashed on the screen, I was quite surprised to see it was only two hours off the local time. Although I had previously been within 40 km of the Chinese border, the proximity to China hadn't completely dawned on me before.
       Osh, then, in conclusion, is a pretty great place to spend a day or two, or perhaps to live in a while, if you're not intending to study Russian. It was a great place to unwind and recharge; I'd definitely go back.

A look at the city's bazar.
Photo credit: Robert Henschel

The Osh Philharmonic, intended to be the city's cultural
centre. Flowers in Osh were beautiful and bountiful.
Photo credit: Robert Henschel

A long-abandoned building across the street from the
Philharmonic, signs pointing to the toilets next door.
Photo credit: Robert Henschel