Sustainable tourism in C. Asia

If you are unable to pick out Kyrgyzstan on a map, do not fear: you are not alone. With a population of little over 5 million, this Soviet Union successor state sits quietly nestled between China, Tajikistan, Uzbekistan and Kazakhstan and, with the exception of its charmingly named ‘Tulip Revolution’ in 2005, has barely made a mark on the western media. The country is largely rural and, until recently, tourists to the region have generally bypassed Kyrgyzstan in favour of package tours to the great Silk Road cities of Khiva, Bukhara and Samarkhand in neighbouring Uzbekistan. Kyrgyzstan cannot compete for architectural splendour, but is slowly fighting back, giving foreigners the opportunity to share in its stunning natural environment and nomadic culture through living, socialising and travelling with the people of Kyrgyzstan. Through this community-based approach, Kyrgyzstan has begun to make its mark as the world leader in sustainable tourism.

The largest ethnic group in Kyrgyzstan are the Kyrgyz, a Turkic people that make up around 70% of the population. They are traditionally semi-nomadic herders, living in yurts (felt and animal skin tents built around a wooden frame) in the mountain pastures during the summer and then bringing down their sheep, yaks and horses to escape the snows at the end of September. When the yurts are in the summer pastures, you can travel from one to the next, staying with local families and using their horses. The Community Based Tourism organisation (CBT) has a network of local guides across the country to help you find your chosen homestay in the seemingly endless mountains, take you trekking and show you the very heart of Kyrgyzstan. They are not professionals in the tourism industry but usually farmers and herders in neighbouring areas, sharing their personal experience without any of the crass commercialism of tour buses, action-packed itineraries and the rest of the West crammed in beside you.

The highlights of Kyrgyzstan have to be the lakes of Issyk-Kul and Karakol, surrounded on all sides by the soaring peaks of the Ala-Too Mountains. Despite its elevation, Issyk-Kul never freezes; it is heated from below by volcanic activity. The warm water has enabled a number of sanatoria with thermal springs and mud baths to develop on the northern shore, but the real attraction in both areas undoubtedly remains the natural landscape. Whether you explore it by horse or on foot with a guide and porters, it is easy to see why this part of the world was so little known until the arrival of Russian explorers partaking in the Great Game.

Kyrgyzstan’s greatest draw is that in a world where the greatest sites are so often spoiled by the presence of too many people, well meaning or otherwise, you can still leave the capital, Bishkek, and enter into a natural environment of awe-inspiring proportions that is still completely untouched by mankind. The few people you encounter, with their temporary shelters, mobile flocks and four-legged transport leave no mark on the landscape when they move on, and so if the country’s tourists were to be any different, it would be nothing but destructive. Kyrgyzstan has, it seems, got the balance right, bringing in much needed tourist dollars and projecting an overwhelmingly positive image to the international community without falling for model of tourism that blights so many other developing countries.