Song-Köl. Yurts and Emptiness
Flashbacks to Kyrgyz highland
On the lost plateaus pinched between Tien Shan ridges at 3013 meters above sea level, the Song-Köl lake is located. This is the north part of Naryn oblast, one of the less populated in Kyrgyzstan. There are no towns or villages on the lake shores. Only yurts appeared around it in the summertime for tourists and true nomads. In one of them, we had to spend a night on our road trip through Kyrgyzstan in June 2019.
Summer, in the usual sense, doesn’t exist here. Any permanent building or tree doesn’t exist here. Dozens of kilometers around is only emptiness cut with rivers and ridges. Nonetheless, this place left almost the biggest impression of Kyrgyzstan, maybe because I imagined it exactly like this. Almost cosmic cold and silence as far as the eyes can see, and a low sky which never was so close.
All who want to see the lake need to overcome a long road. It is dirt and bad in varying degrees. Occasionally, it’s possible to get stuck in purely local traffic. Especially if the herd moves in the same direction as you need.
The last village on the way is called Tolok. It’s so tiny that it isn’t marked on Google maps. Notice the local fuel under the fence: it is lamb shit.
Further, there is only a deserted road that breaks through a gorge.
The road leads to a pass at 3600 m above sea level. It’s opened only since May end. Before, it was overwhelmed with several meter layers of snow, and snow could fall again in June. On the highest point of the pass, we noticed two small riders:
The thickness of the snow cover:
The fantastic serpentine road was left in the valley behind us.
And two black points we saw moving toward us appeared to be two Swiss girls who explored these mountains on bikes.
The Song-Köl plateau appears after the pass. The first wonder we could see there were yaks. They are huge and hairy bulls. They don’t mumble but grunt like pigs. They wouldn’t survive in a warm flat climate; their place is here, in the eternal cold. The number of yaks is small now; generally, you can meet them only here or in Tibet.
And disappointment: the river between them and us. It looks narrow, but with powerful current and no ford for hundreds of meters around. Ultrazoom helped me but couldn’t replace close contact…
Finally, we arrived at the yurts town. There were our apartments for the nearest night:
Mattresses mean luxury! In previous years, people slept on the floor covered by carpets. The warmth is also provided by an oven working on the lamb shit. Near morning time, the temperature outside is less than 0 C.
Earlier, nomads lit a fire in the center of the yurt. Smoke went away through the round hole in the roof called “tunduk.” Nowadays, these holes are closed for the warm economy, and people can’t see the starry sky above anymore.
Behind the camp, we finally saw the lake surrounded by mountains and low clouds.
We had enough free time on site, and I, with a fellow traveler (he hoped to find yaks again), walked around the neighborhood. After the hike, I guessed with the navigator that we had passed as far as 16 kilometers. It’s not a massive distance for flat places, but not for highlands, with rarefied air, changeable weather, and especially the total emptiness. We didn’t have anywhere to hide from the storm or ask anybody for help.
Last yurts at the camp edge. Some were not ready yet, because life only began here in June.
On the way here, our minibus struggled in the mud like this, and we had to push it.
We withdrew not so much, but the camp was far behind us. The number of yurts was considerable; most tourists were from Europe. Meanwhile, rain began above them.
And soon, the camp disappeared over the horizon. And only immeasurable spaces left around us. With visibility of dozens of kilometers limited only to afar, mountains and herds scattered like dots on the edge of vision and close to us.
We got to the same unluck river but on the opposite coast. But yaks disappeared about their business, of course.
Local yurts aren’t for tourists but for true nomads. About 10% of Kyrgyzstan citizens (more than half a million people) keep a half-nomadic lifestyle. In the summertime, they leave their houses and move to such plateaus (“jailoo”) with such portative cottages.
The rain caught up with us finally, wet us, and moved somewhere forward. But it meant nothing then, so captured I was by the beauty around. Time stopped; space, mountains, sky, and even horses froze and became an incredible picture.
The mountains at that part of the plateau are surprisingly pretty and textured.
Clouds lay so low that it seemed I could come closer and touch them. Of course, it was an illusion, and the distance to them could be more than one hour of footwalk. In such places, you can’t believe your eyes.
We returned by another road which was not interesting. Soon we saw familiar white dots on the horizon.
After returning and resting, I went to the lake. From the north side, it has a small bay separated by a thin ground strip. We lived near this bay coast.
It looks like parts of the lake are similar, but really the main part is much broader than the bay. Mountains on the opposite coast are more than 11 kilometers far from us. Tiny figures were visible on the strip.
This ground strip is a nature reserve. The entrance is closed by a fence as effective as the Windows firewall. Also, it is a watershed: the bay was calm, but the lake had a storm.
And finally, the sun broke the veil of clouds for the first time that day.
Yurts are located half a kilometer from the lake. From the coast, it becomes clear why: it is completely loose and swampy.
In the evening, we had some photo hunting on local children who willingly teased tourists, hiding from cameras.
And then I had one of the strangest overnight stays in my life. The weather had changed radically during the night, and the plateau looked unfamiliar in the new colors.
But not for a long time. Low clouds were crawling again from the south, and they could change everything in a few minutes. It’s normal for this place, and this is the best weather in it. But we had to go further and didn’t see what happened next. And miniature flowers of the mountain tundra greeted the arrival of their short cold summer.
If you don’t want to miss out on my new stories, you can subscribe to updates on my blog. If you appreciate my photos or tellings, you can buy me a coffee.
