Day 2: Supara
In order to get the idea about the traditions and the culture of Kyrgyz people, I was adviced to visit Supara. Supara is a place in the mountains, not far from Bishkek that was buid to immitate the Kyrgyz settlements when the whole country area was a part of Turkestan and a famous Silk Road. Hence, Supara is an authentically build village-style restaurant spread over several ackers of land and serving the traditonal cuisine to locals, who either just enjoying the day with their families, or celebrating special occasions like weddings or birthdays. And because I was visiting it on a Saturday, a got a great opportunity to watch local traditions up-close and personal.
The huts, called yurta, that house the guests are build in traditional style from cotton and leather and can be quite small, just fiting 3-4 people...
... with the interior of a living room and a "kitchen" fused together...
... and a place to relax while the dinner is being made.
The traditional food is very tasty and offers a large variety of meat both cold and hot, fresh vegetables and pastry. This are my all time favorite baursaki!...
... and some vegetables and meat are barbequed on the hot stones (nothing else is required) exactly the way it was done for centuries before.
From old and traditional to new and contemporary. At Supara you can watch and experience Kyrgyz traditional wedding. The weddings are usually big with lots of relatives and friends attending. Despite the modern toys used to show off the family wealth, the traditional elements are a must. This picture below says it all :-)
Another fine example of old & new fusion Kyrgyz style!
At a wedding you can expect a lot of food and drinks offered to the guests to celebrate the important event and it all tastes great!
The food served outside as well as inside and for wedding parties the large yurta is used with the interior as amazing as the next luxury club and able to fit up to 200 guest, may be more.
While the adult guests are entertained with traditional life music and occupied by consuming huge amounts of food, the children are playing outside on the swings. At least they try to do, but they often face strong competition from adult party goers who after a couple of drinks start to see themselves as children again ;-)
For those of us who are in love with bits and pieces of actual history, at Suparu they managed to collect some artifacts from a couple of centuries before and now are proudly displaying them to the visitors. One of the locals told me that most of the artifacts were found right their during the built, but I have my humble doubts on how true this story can be.
This is the modern execution of traditional drawings on leather canvas.
All together, it was a great day to spend outdoor, in the mountains, and it made me feel that I learned just a little bit more about this very friendly and hospitable culture.
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