Ruin Map: Destinations for Disaster Tourists, Urban Explorers and Soviet History Lovers

This article, written by Steven Hermans of Caravanistan, is republished with permission. Steven is very interested to add to this list of abandonned industrial sites in Central Asia. Please contact him directly.

Ruin porn, who can resist it? Our imagination gets sucked in by the crumbling walls, finding the memories of older lives carelessly abandoned on the floor. The ultimate demise of all that is, splayed out in front of us in an orgy of dust, cement and reinforced steel peeping through the cracks.

If I know anything about the Central Asia traveler, I know this much: she can appreciate a good ruin. Visiting ruins is a great way to learn about the recent history of the region, the Soviet program of industrialisation and collectivisation, the Lenin cult, Modernist architecture, etc. This map should get you on your way.

Kyrgyzstan

Smiling nomads in yurts and horses galloping on the jailoo? Perhaps. But in equal measure: abandoned mines, factories, collective farms and Lenins, and a couple of radioactive waste sites spreading like spilt milk.
    •    Ak-Tuz: Ore-dressing and processing enterprise. Now 4,7 millions cubic metres of radioactive waste is buried here.
    •    Inylchek: Top ghost town. Population from 15 000 down to 15. Impossible location. Permit needed.
    •    Min-Kush: Very depressing former uranium and coal mining town
    •    Jergalan: former coal mining town
    •    Mailuu-Suu: Uranium wastes buried in former mining town
    •    Balykchy: Former industrial port

Inylchek, Kyrgyzstan: Top ghost town. Population from 15 000 down to 15. Image: Yuri Boyanin

Kazakhstan

Ruins of collective farms can be seen all throughout the country, and unused factories can be found in pretty much every town and city, big or small. For ghost towns, the north of Kazakhstan is a treasure trove. We have listed some of the most famous objects like Alga, Balkhash-9, missile defense complex Argun and Baikonur Site 110 on the map.

Visiting military facilities is of course highly illegal, and buildings in disrepair are prone to collapse. Visit at your own risk.

For the Aral Sea: On the Kazakh side, there are still a few remains of ships in the desert at the Ship Graveyard, but most have been taken out. Visiting the Uzbek side is more cost-effective and perhaps more interesting/atmospheric/depressing.

Kurchatov and the surrounding Semipalatinsk Test Site are the sites of the atomic bomb tests of the Soviet Union. Possible to visit, with a permit.

Alga - another ghost town. Once a famous Soviet, chemical phosphate plant in Kazakhstan. Image: Red Fury Star

Uzbekistan

    •    Aral Sea: A few puddles remain on the Uzbek side, otherwise it’s desert everywhere.
    •    Angren: former coal mining town, now largely abandoned
    •    UzBum : former Soviet paper factory, in Tashkent. Possible to visit with special permission. Tours occasionally organised by X-Places.

UzBum - Tashkent's closed paper factory. Image: Eugene Panov

Related posts:
Holidays in Soviet Sanatoriums 
Tashkent Nostalgie - Eugene Panov's Exhibition, Tashkent
Uzbekistan's Decorative Architectural Panels 
Seismic Modernism - Architecture and Housing in Soviet Tashkent
Lenin Still Points the Way in Bishkek, Kyrgyzstan

Sumalak, Kyrgyzstan's Nowruz Treat for the Pure of Heart

A team from the folk group Sary-Ozon prepares the dish

Spring New Year - Nowruz - celebrated on 21 March, is Central Asia's biggest festival.

Families and neighbours come together for the festivities, that last several days.

This article, written by Danil Usmanov, was originally published by Eurasianet on 22 March and is republished with permission.

Sumalak, the gooey germinated wheat-based treat made to mark the spring equinox festival of Nowruz across Central Asia, is more than food.

It is an institution whose preparation is freighted with ceremony.

This year, people were invited from around Kyrgyzstan to attend a sumalak-cooking marathon in the Lenin district of Bishkek. Groups arrived on March 20 at the venue, set in an crumbling ethnographic park intended to serve as a center dedicated to the study of the national Manas epic poem.

Yurts were erected and holes dug up for the placement of kazan, the cauldrons in which the sumalak is prepared.

Women try the finished sumalak. Tradition dictates it be sampled by finger
and a wish be made.

The only basic ingredients are water and germinated wheat, which is grown to a few inches in height in the days and weeks before the festival.

Tradition states that only those pure of heart are able to grow the plant properly.

Cooking proceeded through the night, as passages of the Manas were read out aloud and musicians sang folk songs to the accompaniment of accordions and komuz, the national string instrument.

In the morning, when the sumalak was done, elderly women divined fortunes on the surface of the sticky brew. People lined up with bottles to claim their share of the sweet grain treat.

The rest of the day was reserved for musical performances.

Related posts:
Nowruz Spring Festival – Part #1
Nowruz Spring Festival – Part #2
Celebrating Nowruz - Spring New Year in Uzbekistan
Samarkand: Recipes and Stories from Central Asia and The Caucasus

The oldest woman in attendance reads patterns on the sumalak. Some believe the future
can be predicated by reading the surface of the finished dish.