Sary Mogul, Kyrgyzstan: An Unlikely Hamlet at 12,000 Feet

There isn’t much space devoted to places like Sary Mogul, Kyrgyzstan in guidebooks.  Sary Mogul is one of those places that is typically seen as a stopping off point, or a place to have a sort of layover, perhaps in the midpoint between two more noteworthy destinations.  But for whatever reason, I was immediately struck and fascinated by the place.  Neat rows of one-story mud houses, free-roaming cows and pigs, a lack of vegetation (save for the odd potato plant), and the curious people made it very hospitable, and I found it to be an absolute delight to explore and photograph.

Places like Sary Mogul, traditionally, shouldn’t exist in Kyrgyzstan.  Sary Mogul, like it’s larger neighbor to the east, Sary Tash, were founded in the 1940s by Soviets in an attempt to supply nearby Murghab with potatoes and livestock.  Murghab was a strategic point along the Pamir Highway, connecting the major parts of the southern Soviet Empire with the relatively more Russified Kazakh and Kyrgyz Soviet Social Republics.  Thus, Sary Mogul came to existence to support another town that wouldn’t exist if it were left to the rules of traditional Kyrgyz nomadism.  It was truly a manufactured place, and in that respect, it had been given a blank canvas for independent cultural development.

There was no precedent for permanent living in the high altitudes of Kyrgyzstan’s Alay Valley.  Instead, the area south of Osh north of the Trans-Alay tributary of the Pamir Mountains was left solely to the most intrepid of Kyrgyz – typically bringing their herd to graze in the jailoo (pastureland) during the warmer summer months, and returning to the relatively warmer climate of the less dramatic altitudes at other times of the year.

Sary Mogul today, however, is a different story.  It maintains a sort of modern feel, despite being home to only a few thousand people. The population, in typical nomadic tradition, ebbs and flows with the seasons – but tourism has now surpassed traditional agriculture in the village as the biggest revenue earner.  We arrived on market day just past 2pm.  Turning off the main road that, further afield, leads to the Tajik border (the road north is perhaps more interesting, passing through the Uzbek exclaves of Sokh and Vorukh before reaching the supreme Kyrgyz backwater of Batken), it’s a dusty path leading to the dusty town square.  It’s dust in most directions, with randomly placed shipping containers and mud structures housing the town hall, Community Based Tourism office, shops, and residences sprinkled over a few square miles.  There is still agriculture, in the form of donkeys, cows, horses, pigs, and potato fields.  A coupled pair of ducks greeted us as we unloaded our car, and our joints creaked from being crammed into a rusted 4×4 for the duration of the three hour ride from Osh.  Shops in the town’s square sold typical sundries, but no alcohol, as residents of the extreme south of Kyrgyzstan adhere to a stricter brand of Islam than the more liberal Kyrgyz living in Bishkek, and even Osh.

We were greeted by the manager of the local branch of Kyrgyzstan’s Community Based Tourism (CBT) organization, who took a break from working the potato fields to show us our guesthouse.  We settled in to our rustic accommodations for the night, but couldn’t help but wonder how strange it was that a guest house could have Wi-Fi but no running water.  I suppose these days Facebook trumps plumbing anyway.

We shared our accommodation with two groups of unrelated Dutch tour groups – both headed by young people conducting anthropological research in the region.  There certainly weren’t any other “tourists” like us staying there.  As it was September, the tourist season was practically over.  But flipping through the guestbook of the CBT house where we were staying, it became apparent that tourists were sparse regardless.  As off the beaten path as Kyrgyzstan is, Sary Mogul and southern  Kyrgyzstan are even more so.  The lion’s share of tourists in the country typically stay in the north, within a travel day or two from Bishkek, choosing to trek around the relatively better known Song and Issyk Kul.

We were happy to be alone, though.  We’d spent the past week among greater crowds in Almaty, Kazakhstan, then Bishkek and Osh, Kyrgyzstan, working our way both southward and into less-traveled places simultaneously.  We’d ended up at Sary Mogul, where children followed us through the streets, asking for us to take their pictures, and then demanding a view of the LCD screen.  At night, after being treated to a soup of cabbage, potatoes, and carrots (what I would learn constitutes standard vegetarian fare in rural Kyrgyzstan), we enjoyed one of the finest sunsets I’ve ever seen, only to be outdone by the sunrises and sunsets the following three mornings and two evenings.

Though we only spent one night in  Sary Mogul, I still feel very connected to the place.  My husband, of the two of us, is far and away the more woo woo mother nature type.  I am generally more connected to the places with interesting human and cultural histories.  And Sary Mogul, with its relatively short history compared to the rest of Central Asia, taught me that a place doesn’t necessarily need thousands of years to develop a unique character.  In fact, when one’s timeline of human development is sped up, it can make the effects of that development all the more dramatic and disparate from the surrounding landscape.

Sary Mogul is located about three hours southeast of Osh, Kyrgyzstan’s southern capital.  To get there, you can hire a ride, or get a ride as part of a package with CBT.  We organized our ride several months in advance – the total cost of our three night, three day tour to Sary Mogul and our trek around Peak Lenin (highest mountain in Kyrgyzstan, a stone’s throw from Sary Mogul) was $200 per person, and we were very well taken care of.  Market day is Thursday – but when we arrived it was already pretty dead.  Likely the fact that we were there at the tail end of the season contributed to the lower activity in town.

In summer, many alpinists use the town  as the jumping off point for climbing Peak Lenin, the peak that dominates the view south (toward Tajikistan) from Sary Mogul.  Expect greater crowds from June through August – maybe necessitating making plans ahead of time.  There is Wi-Fi in the village, but good luck finding a flushing toilet.  JK, don’t waste your time, there isn’t one.