We had one last stop in Osh before heading to the Krygystan-Uzbekistan border and that was a visit to Sulayman Mountain, another UNESCO World Heritage site. It was a place of pilgrimage in pre-Muslim times and is still so today for Muslims, especially pregnant women who come to pray for a healthy child. Historians believe the site marks the midpoint of the Silk Road. More practically it perches high over Osh and provides a wonderful view of the sprawling city.  Unfortunately, even at 9am, when it opens and when we arrived, the heat of the day made the climb up the innumerable stairs challenging.  I would have liked to visit the adjacent museum but the timing (since we were a day late visiting and had to press on with today’s itinerary), did not allow it.  After finishing out visit at the site, we climbed down a different set of stairs, piled in the van (a new one) and made the short 30-minute drive to the border saying good-bye to our Krygystan local guide, Olga, who was heading back to Bishkek later that day.

The border crossing between Krygystan and Uzbekistan was fairly simple. For locals it is really straightforward, in both directions, because there is a lot of commerce between both countries in this area—they just walk through and flash their passports.  Both the Kyrgyzstan border guards and the Uzbekistan border guards were friendly.  I imagine they do not see so many Americans, let alone one who speakers Russian that they can talk to easily.  The Krygystan guard asked me where I went and my favorite part of the country and also asked if I tried kymyz, and seemed really delighted that I had. I had a conversation with several Uzbekistan border guards who were waiting to search luggage while I waited for the group.  After asking me the standard questions, they then proceeded to quiz me on my opinion of every American president since Clinton- a conversation I will not share here.  It was quite funny!

The difference between Krygystan, a still developing country with strong dependence on Russia, a community of people based on nomadic culture, and small population and Uzbekistan, a country that is self-sufficient, based on an agrarian culture and roughly five times more populace, was immediately obvious.  We emerged from the Uzbekistan customs process and our van and driver were waiting for us.  As we started the drive to Margilan, two hours away and our first stop for the day, the state of the roads, the buildings, cars, and landscape all indicated wealth, government organization, and prosperity.  It was all very modern.

If you look at a map where Kyrgyzstan, Uzbekistan and Tajikistan meet you will notice that the borders are very intertwined and weirdly complicated.  Udim pointed this out to us and explained that the reason is because of the importance of the Fergana (also spelled as Ferghana) valley.  The valley has been the breadbasket of Central Asia for centuries growing fruits, grains and vegetables to support a large number of communities.  When the area came under the control of the Soviet Union, Stalin dismantled the existing kingdom (which I will learn more about tomorrow), separating the communities, more or less, by ethnicities and gave each new state a portion of the Fergana valley to ensure that each had access to an agricultural base.  When the Soviet Union disappeared, those demarcations became the border between the three countries. I mentioned earlier that there was a lot of commerce between Krygystan and Uzbekistan in the region and that is because there remain a lot of ethnic Uzbeks on the Krygystan side (and of course, the Uzbek side is more developed….).

Lunch was a full sample plate of Turkish food. Lots of meat!!

While we were in the car, Umid took the opportunity to provide some history about Uzbekistan, including how the country transitioned to independence after the fall of the Soviet Union. The first president worked very hard to remove criminal elements (mafia) and bring the economy out of the “shadow” (black market) to set the foundation for an independent country. It was a story that was eearily familiar, having witnessed some of the same dynamics, but not as successful, when I was in Russia in the late 1990s. I won’t go into the details but suffice it to say that there is a LOT to learn about Central Asia, not only historically, but even the dynamics of modern times— we don’t get much information, naturally, about this region in the U.S.!

We were headed to Margilan to visit a silk factory to learn how silk is made- something I was very excited about.  Along the way we stopped at a Turkish restaurant for lunch as a change of pace from the traditional food we have been having up to this point.  Udim ordered “smorgasbord” plates which had a bit of everything from the menu.  The food was great although it seemed that half the plate was meat.  It was delicious though!  We had another hour after lunch before we got to the silk factory, which turned out to be a family run enterprise, employing only 50 people. Small businesses are typical, apparently, as the tax structure is such that you pay more, percentage-wise, as the size of the business increases.

Silk worms hanging out in the mulberry leaves.

We were warmly welcomed by the family running the silk enterprise and one of the younger sons, who spoke excellent English, walked us through the whole process starting with raising the worms. First he explained that they produce three kinds of silk- woven silk fabric, woven silk fabric with cotton included and essentially, tie-dye silk patterns.  They breed the worms, holding back 30% of each year’s population for generating new worms for the next harvest.  When the eggs hatch, timed for the spring by freezing the eggs over the winter, the worms are fed fresh mulberry leaves from trees that the business grows and maintains.  Once the worms spin into cocoons, after a certain amount of time they take 60% of the cocoons and put them in steam and then boiling water to kill the worms.  If they do not do this, the worms develop into silk moths and when they emerge from the cocoon destroy any ability to gather the silk from it.  A fun fact is that they get more silk from the cocoons of female silk worms, up to 3km, than male silk worms where they can only extract 800km.  The boiling water serves not only to help kill the worms, but also loosen up the threads of the cocoons so using a tool, the threads can be extracted and placed on a spool, the first step of the process.  The spools of thread are then treated chemically in some secret mix (even the young man talking to us was not old enough to be brought into the secret) which significantly softens and whitens the thread, creating the silk basis for the silk product that we are familiar with.

The unwashed silk thread is on the left; the washed silk thread s on the right.

To make the silk fabric, they bundle 400 threads into a bundle and string 100 bundles adjacent to each other across a large frame. The result is the skeleton of the fabric, which will be 40cm wide and 240m long.  The fabric design is drawn in ash, 2 meters at a time, then prepared for dyeing.

To dye the fabric, bundle by bundle, they protect areas where they do not want a color with cellphone tape (although in previous times cotton was used) before dunking the bundles into the dye buckets.  They use several different natural sources, flowers, bark, nuts etc.. for the source of various colors for the dyes.  After dyeing in one color, they fix the dye with an alum mixture, remove the tape, put the tape in the next area to be protected, then dye with a new color.  Repeat as necessary to finish the design and colors that are planned for that piece of fabric.

Looms are used to weave the fabric— the bundles are placed on the loom in the proper order and the loom strung appropriately, a process that can take a day or more.  They had examples of two looms, one which added a white backing on the fabric so the design was one-sided and another which created a fabric with the design on both sides.  Two women demonstrated how to operate the loom, which I found especially fascinating.  The whole process from start to finish takes several months but at the end you have hand-made silk fabric.  The fabric is sent to another part of the country (which will be visiting) to create clothing.  The the-dye process is pretty straitforward and they demonstrated with several designs and colors, creating some beautiful scarves in just a short time.  I ended up buying a few of their scarves because, well, they were beautiful and inexpensive and I love silk!

Shown in full is a two pedal loom which was the one that made two sided fabric. In the foreground you can see the threading for the 8 pedal loom which makes the one-sided design fabric.

The visit was super interesting and the family very friendly— it was a great time!

Leaving we headed to Rushtan to visit a traditional ceramic factory, another speciality of the area.  The ceramics they produced were amazing, with incredible details and patterns.  The family has been making ceramics for generations and even “competes” internationally, supported by the government, to expose the Uzbek craft globally.  As I actually have some Uzbek dishes already I was not tempted to get anything but it was wonderful to see more examples of this fine craftsmanship.

As it was getting late we left the ceramic factory and headed to Kokrand, our overnight stop at a modern hotel.  I enjoyed the yurt experiences in Kyrgyzstan but have to admit it was nice having a modern, well-equipped, clean bathroom and luxuriously and most improtantly-attached to the room. After a brief break to clean up and relax we headed out for dinner at a local restaurant near the Khan’s palace we would be visiting the next day (which was actually right near the hotel).  The meal, though intentionally simple, was still filling (I need to stop eating!) and the group wanted to take a bit of a walk though the nearby park, which happened to be part of the palace grounds.

A sample of some of the amazing ceramics we saw. Note along the wall is a part of a huge ceramic tile mural that depicts the whole Silk Road from China to Istanbul.

We were surprised, when we got to the park, at 9pm, to find it alive with families and children having picnics, playing and generally having a good time.  It turns out, not only was it a Saturday night, but also because of the heat during the day- it got to 102 deg- people stay inside and come out at night.  The park had all kinds of activities, playground equipment and places for children to play and a festive air permeated the crowd.  We did a circuit of the park, watching everyone enjoying themselves and we, in turn, we watched because of our “foreign” appearance.  It was a great end of the day.

Saturday night in the park including lots of play equipment for kids, including these small cars they can drive. Everyone was having a great time!