Afghan Yurt Stay

Amongst Afghanistan's numerous ethnic groups are a small number of Kyrgyz herders who purportedly fled Stalin's purges in the early 20th century and became trapped in the Wakhan Corridor once international borders closed. Fewer than 1400 of these nomads remain, eking out an existence with their flocks in the remotest mountain valleys.

Bozai Gumbaz is the furthest point on our trek. It is a Kyrgyz yurt settlement and as far from civilisation as I have ever been. The wind whips icily around the felt yurts as I sit shivering in the last few rays of sunlight. Within a few days the Kyrgyz themselves will have left the mountains, retreating to lower ground during the bitterly cold winter months.

Our shelter tonight is a traditional felt bozui or yurt. We were initially offered room in a brand new plastic yurt but had to decline - it had the insulating properties of a bin bag. Felt is much warmer and the natural oils in the wool make it largely waterproof.

We were shown instead to what normally serves as a storage yurt. There is a dirt floor, partially covered with a plastic tarpaulin. Light enters the yurt through an open cartwheel in the roof known, as in Kyrgyzstan, as a tunduk. This hole also lets out smoke from the fire. Three breeze blocks hold in place dried yak dung cakes and a coarse, fragrant bush whilst they burn. The dung is surprisingly odourless and the small amount of smoke is a small price to pay for the warmth.

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Building and maintaining a smoke-free yurt is an art form and, sadly, not a skill that I have acquired.  Once our army of small boys had satisfied their curiosity and departed for bed, we were left to our own devices. Within fifteen minutes we may as well have been sitting inside a bonfire, only without the advantage of being toasty warm. The heat managed to escape through the tunduk and also through the now-evident holes in the wall and roof. Thick, slightly acrid smoke lingered in the air, burning our eyes and catching in our throats. We buried down in our sleeping bags, scarves across our faces, to spend a cold and not very restful night in the yurt.

Bed Sharing in Song Kol

Hand on heart, I can honestly say that I have never before awoken in bed with five men. Neither had I nose-dived into a ditch so violently that the windscreen fell fully out of the car, nor filtered my morning tea through my teeth to keep the bits out. Kyrgyzstan was always going to be something out of the ordinary. 

Until forced settlement at the hands of Soviet Russia, the Kyrgyz people were nomads. In the twenty years since independence, a number of people have returned to the land, and a special few are willing to share their life with visitors. Two hours from the main road and equipped with neither running water nor electricity, the yurts (felt and animal skin tents) of the Kyrgyz nomads can hardly be described as 5* accommodation, but  a single night provides you with more insight into Kyrgyzstan’s history and culture than could be gained from a year in the capital, Bishkek. 

Yurt stays are organised by Community Based Tourism (CBT), a co-operative organisation which puts tourists in touch with local people. We booked our yurt by calling into the CBT office in Karakol and drove on with three backpackers in tow: public transport is decidedly erratic. We drove up into the mountains, heading for Lake Song Kol, where dinner, our yurt and nomadic family awaited us. The sunset dancing across the surface of the lake turned to inky darkness, and a thousand stars burst out brilliantly overhead.

Having spent ¾ of an hour driving aimlessly in the dark, completely unable to find a turn-off to our yurt, a elderly man driving a rusty Lada took pity on us and offered to show the way. Out of politeness I squashed into the passenger seat, forgetting for an instant the Kyrgyz penchants for drink driving. I wasn’t to forget for long. The Lada hurtled along like a thing possessed, bouncing across potholes, rocks and small streams and sliding sideways across slick patches of mud. In the bleary light of the headlamps barely anything was visible.

Suddenly, as if from nowhere, a mound of earth appeared to rear up in front of the car. The Lada hit it with a thud, the driver swore, and we plunged down the other side with a sickening crunch. Tiny shards of glass scattered across the dashboard and front seats before the entire windscreen collapsed out of its rotten frame, breaking further as it hit the bonnet. The engine spluttered, the headlamps sparked, and we were once again swallowed by the blanket of night. 

A short while later, now towing our guide and his invalid Lada behind our car, we pulled up at a semi-circle of yurts camped on the lakeside. Smoke and the smell of dinner cooking wafted from holes in the roofs across the grass, and half a dozen excited children came shrieking out to greet us. With the darkness had come an icy chill – winter was fast approaching – and so we were ushered inside almost as soon as we stepped out from the car.

A yurt is built in a circle around a fire. A wooden lattice around the walls supports a pointed roof, animal skin keeps it watertight, and thick layers of felt from the nomads’ own flocks keep winter winds at bay. We left our shoes at the door – you should always enter a Kyrgyz home barefoot – and sunk our toes into thick felt rugs and quilted blankets. At a low table in the center of the room, dinner was waiting: hot, oily soup with lamb and potato, freshly cooked unleavened bread with jam made from wild berries, and steaming green tea to wash it all down. Our hostess grinned as she served each dish, flashing her numerous gold teeth, a sign of wealth, in a wide open smile. 

When the final mouthful had been consumed, we lounged back on stacks of blankets, each one a patchwork of primary colors and geometric designs. Where the table had been, a bed was laid out with yet more stacks of rugs and quilts. It was not until the bed was nearly complete that I noticed its unusual shape: it was little over 6ft long, as one would expect, but a good 12ft in width! Realising the intended sleeping arrangements, my eyes skated around the room, taking in the horrified expressions of my fellow visitors. They were clearly not amused when I, the only girl in the room, took up my place at one end of the bed and began to hum the children’s song “There were ten in the bed and the little one said…”