Traveling to KYRGYZSTAN in 2024¿ You NEED To Watch This Video!

My friends, I hear you're interested in going to Kyrgyzstan. This place in Central Asia is incredibly unique and a place that I'm super glad that you're interested in traveling to. I spent like about a month there living as a digital nomad and it's an amazing place. There's so much to offer. So in this video I'm going to tell you everything you need to know before you go. All the details for exploring this strange ex-Soviet Turkic enclave in the heart of Central Asia. If that sounds good, let's get right into it. All right, Kyrgyzstan. What does it mean? Who are the people? Let's do a little country overview. First and foremost, Kyrgyzstan is located in a region called Central Asia, aka the Land of the Stan. To the north, it's bordered by Kazakhstan. To the east, a bit of China. To the south, Tajikistan. And Afghanistan. To the west, Uzbekistan. This is a place that is just at the crossroads of history. Nomadic warriors, Turkic peoples, Chinese traders going from east to west. A lot's passed through this land which has really defined the people, the place, the language, and everything connected with modern day Kyrgyzstan today. Historically speaking, Kyrgyzstan has been inhabited for thousands of But the main characters who I'd like you to picture in Kyrgyzstan are nomadic horse peoples, very similar to the Mongolians. These horse peoples, while being similar to Mongolians, have their own flair. They typically live in yurts, they hunt and seasonally move with the animals, and they never really got into agriculture. So if you're looking for historic buildings, Kyrgyzstan is not one of those places because the people really weren't living in cities until the Russian Empire took it over in the 1800s. The modern Kyrgyz Republic is shaped as being a part of the first Russian Empire as they established a bigger city, like a actual place where people lived for longer than just like a season. That was called Bishkek, which is now the capital city. Since then it's been incorporated into the Russian Empire, into the Soviet Union as a Soviet Republic, and then after the dissolution of the Soviet Union in 1991, the Kyrgyz Republic was formed. Now they did want to remain as part of Russia, like an independent autonomous republic, but the Russians didn't want it, and so Kyrgyzstan became a country. This particular history, especially the nomadic history and the mix with Russia, has really left an imprint on what modern Kyrgyzstan is today. If you're talking about the people, they're one of the most unique peoples that you can find around the world. The thing that really confused me there is that everybody looks a bit Mongolian, a bit Chinese, as they are definitely Asian looking, but the aesthetic and the vibe that you find with the cities, with the way that the people act and interact in the major cities of Kyrgyzstan is very, very Russian. Just how the women dress, how the men sort of act, the way society sort of functions, the block housing, all that stuff, it's all very Russian, very Soviet. So it's where really this Asia and Russian vibe meet, and it really is very specific. It's almost confusing to see a person who looks Chinese, but they're speaking Russian fluently, and then the language of Kyrgyz, the language of the native people, is actually a Turkic language, which is very close to modern-day Turkish. The Turks actually come from these people as the people of Central Asia pushed west, taking over a lot of the general area between Persia, Turkey, and then moving, of course, into Europe. It's quite the place, and it throws you really for a loop because it's really not what you're expecting, and I think that's what's beautiful about Kyrgyzstan. That being said, as you get out of the capital city and go to some of the smaller rural village towns, this is where you see some of the architectural aesthetic of Russia spill over into these like little dacha houses that a lot of people live in. This is kind of a Russian standard village house, but then everything else in the village, especially the people's language, the food, the culture, is very Kyrgyz. They're also Islamic, so you have Islamic Turkic-speaking people eating nomadic meat dishes, speaking sometimes Russian and living in Russian-style dachas. It's quite the place. So now that you know a little bit about what to expect, let's get into some of the practical details so you can have an amazing trip in the land of many mountains. So let's talk about visas. If you're from the United States and you go to Kyrgyzstan, you do not need a visa. I believe you can stay for 90 days, and Kyrgyzstan is a weird place where you'll actually meet a lot of other American travelers because the United States used to have a large military base located, I think, near Bishkek. The ports of entry that you'll probably be coming in through is Bishkek, the capital city, which has a pretty good connection flying through Istanbul or Dubai, or you can come into a smaller airport in the southwestern city of Osh on the Uzbek border. They are about 12 hours away by bus, so it depends what kind of trip you want to do because they're quite far away. Talking about money now, the Kyrgyz use the Kyrgyz Som. It's about, right now, 87 Som to one U.S. dollar, and this is a very inexpensive country. Typically, you can eat for, like, two or three dollars. You can get groceries for really, really low prices because the average Kyrgyzstani person earns between 300 and 500 U.S. dollars, and that's only in the capital city. Transportation is pretty cheap. I think the only thing that could be expensive is maybe domestic flights. As I saw, the flight from Bishkek to Osh was not the cheapest flight that I've ever seen, but that's probably because it's not so common of a route for anybody but Kyrgyz people. That being said, Kyrgyzstan is definitely a cash-based society. I think using a credit card works at some places, but you're definitely going to want to withdraw cash because most restaurants don't accept card, and you're going to be shopping at markets. You're going to be shopping at outdoor sort of places that aren't super card-friendly. Talking about SIM card and internet, Kyrgyzstan has a lot of different connections with Russian telecommunications providers. I'm not sure if this has changed since the sanctions against Russia, so maybe look for that yourself. But the SIM card within the city works pretty well with 4G connection, and the internet, for example, at my apartment, was good enough to work at, good enough to do online meetings. So as long as you're in one of the bigger cities, it's good to go. If you're in a smaller city or going someplace a little bit off the grid, I would probably assume that the connection is not going to be that great because it's a very mountainous country, and I'm sure the signals get caught amongst the snowy mountains. The infrastructure in Kyrgyzstan definitely could use some work. The roads aren't great. When you're in the city, it's fine, but when you're out of the city, I'm not sure. So I think that kind of goes with the internet infrastructure as well. Transportation. So getting around Kyrgyzstan requires a little bit of finesse and a little bit of travel know-how. If you're traveling in Bishkek, they have Yandex Taxi, which is basically like the Russian version of Uber, and it's super cheap and super easy to use, which is fantastic. If you want to get around the city using a local bus, you can also go for it. The buses are really old school. It's really hard to determine where the buses are going, and if you don't speak Russian or Kyrgyz, it could be a problem for you using it, to be honest. If you want to travel around the country, you can, of course, go to the local bus station. Again, really old school in a lot of ways. It's hard to tell when the buses leave, hard to tell where they're going. If you can't read Russian Cyrillic, sometimes it can be hard. So you have to ask a lot of questions, and not a lot of people speak English. A lot of the vans that go city to city are actually marshutkas, which are these old sort of like Soviet-style city to city vans, which are not like proper buses. Kyrgyzstan is super mountainous, so the roads are pretty bad. They take a long time to traverse, and there's a lot of traffic police, so people get pulled over all the time, and they have very weird like speed limits. So traveling in Kyrgyzstan is kind of a challenge, to be honest. If you want to go to Osh, you can also fly. As I said earlier, that's a good way to do it, but you kind of miss all the cool mountain passes, and the whole experience is really driving through the mountains. So you're going to want to get in the marshutka, but be aware that like it's not the most comfortable, and there's sort of a rumor that a lot of Kyrgyz drivers drive kind of drunk, especially the bus drivers. So take that information as you will. My experience was fine, although I did rent a car, which is totally possible, but we got pulled over five times by Kyrgyz traffic police, and that was incredibly annoying. If you want to hear about that experience, you can click on the link up here and check out my time in Kyrgyzstan when I was there. As far as safety is concerned, I would say Kyrgyzstan is incredibly safe. Any ex-Soviet country that I've been to, it's like, it's very chill, it's very relaxed. Kyrgyzstani people were super nice, super friendly. I even made friends with somebody when I was walking around, and he invited me to his house for dinner. His mother cooked and my friend and I dinner for just they wanted to welcome us into their home. I don't really know where else that would happen. I've also been invited for tea into people's houses, and it's just like, they're very nice, very friendly, and I wasn't sketched out at all. There's very little, if any, homelessness. There's very little, if any, street and petty crime. I think as you, you know, travel in general, you should be aware, but easily one of the nicest, friendliest, and chillest places that I've probably been anywhere in the world. Talking about the language, it's a really interesting mix, because if you know any Turkish, or you know any Russian, or you know some English words, all of the things can help. So here's an example. I ordered a dish, and I wanted a little salt. So I was trying to say the word in Russian, but the person just wasn't understanding me. I said it in English, didn't help, but I learned a little Turkish when I was traveling in Turkey. I said the word in Turkish, and the salt miraculously appeared. So if you know some Russian, it's definitely helpful, like travel, basic Russian, nothing super crazy. If you know any Turkish, even basic Turkish words, they understand them as well, also super helpful. And then a lot of the younger Kyrgyz actually speak English super well. So getting from place to place, or meeting young people is actually totally fine. They have lots of trendy bars, and restaurants, and cafes where you can meet other expats, and also people that speak English who'd like to engage with you, which is super nice as well. So, and as I said, since they're so friendly, really the language isn't an issue, but getting around the country without knowing some Russian, or just basics, super super basics, you could have a little trouble. But you know, I think also the thing is the literacy rate in Kyrgyzstan isn't super super high, so sometimes if you show somebody like Russian words, they might actually have trouble reading them. Take that as you will. If you're saying hello to somebody, you can of course go the Russian Zdravstvuyte, or you could go the Kyrgyz language, which is Salam, which they use in a lot of different places that are like Muslim majority. And if you want to say thank you, you can say Rahmat. That's pretty much all of the Kyrgyz that I learned, and besides salt, which is tuz, if you ever need that one. And besides that, anything Russian kind of goes. All right, now we're going to talk about my favorite section, which is food. Kyrgyz food is hefty. It's thick, and it is especially lacking vegetables, because the hard mountainous kind of region that they're in doesn't allow them to grow a lot of vegetables at all. So like really traditional Kyrgyz food, you can find it something called an Ashkana, which is also called a Russian Stolovaya, which is like a cafeteria where you can try lots of different like Russian Soviet dishes alongside Kyrgyz food. Kyrgyz food is somewhere in between Asian food without so much spice and so much soy sauce and Russian food. It's like somewhere in there. So some dishes you can find along the way are Beshbarmak, which means five fingers. It's like a noodle dish served with sort of like stewed beef or horse or sausage that you eat with your hands. It's like the national dish of the entire Central Asia region and pretty damn delicious. Something from the nomadic times that's very interesting is a little snack called Kurut. Obviously these people were on the go. They didn't have a lot of time to really store food, and they couldn't grow and preserve stuff the correct way. So Kurut are little dehydrated milk balls. They eat them as a snack with beer. They smell kind of rancid, but people love them. And I tried them and they're kind of salty and it's like a weird, it's a weird thing, but nonetheless very good. They had a lot of really good Korean food in Kyrgyzstan because they have a really large Korean expat community from the Soviet Union Koreans that were living near North Korea, and they were moved to Kyrgyzstan by Stalin. So basically you can find kimchi, you can find a lot of Korean cabbage related things, you can find Korean noodle dishes that are very similar to what they eat in the old country to go with the already kind of Chinese-y Mongolian style food that exists in Kyrgyzstan. If you don't like any of that, they have all the Soviet Russian food that you could like, you know, mashed potatoes and kotlet, you know, like fried, I don't know, fried chicken nugget kind of situation, which is also pretty unique. The one thing that they eat a lot in Kyrgyzstan, which might freak people out, is horse. It's like one of the national dishes because they were not beef cattle farmers, there's nowhere for them to graze. So goat and horse are kind of like big staple items, and if you go to any sort of beef butchery area, they're going to be selling horse meat and that's going to be like one of the main meats that they eat in the country. So I really like Kyrgyz food, it's something different, it's not super spicy, and it has a lot of like interesting flavors that you might not find anywhere else. Lastly, here are my top five things you should definitely do on a trip to Kyrgyzstan. Number one would be spending time in the capital city, Bishkek. I think it's the best place to see what Kyrgyz society is, what they've built, and who the Kyrgyz people are as far as city dwelling people. You get really nice Soviet style buildings, really like big old school Stalin-esque and then later Soviet style kind of like architecture. I always really like that stuff. They have really cool hip modern cafes, bars, really good nightclubs, and the restaurants are awesome. One of my favorites was going to this German pub where they played really loud like techno trance music while you're eating like German sausage and everyone's like dancing, very strange. You can really feel the vibe of modern day Kyrgyzstan, you can see where the city is going, like what's the future for Kyrgyzstan there as well, and you know you get to see a bunch of old weird cars drive around and like just meet some really cool people. Gotta go to Bishkek. Number two is you can visit the eye of Central Asia, a lake called Issyk-Kul. It's amazing blue waters completely surrounded on both sides by these really jagged snow peat mountains, and they've also built a lot of like rest centers where you can go enjoy the water, chill out, and stay the night. Super beautiful, you get that mountain vibe, the like lakeside air, eat some good fish, and just kind of like relax and enjoy the beauty of being outside in Kyrgyzstan. So the third thing you can do is you can go to a city called Karakol, and you can visit a city that's kind of notably different than the rest of Kyrgyzstan because of the presence of people called Dungans. Dungans are ethnic Chinese Muslims that ended up in Kyrgyzstan due to various Chinese policies throughout the last 200 years, and you can see a different side of Kyrgyzstan with different food, a different architecture, and also kind of Islamic temples that look like Buddhist temples, which is I've never seen the crossover, but because they're East Asian Muslims, it's a vibe. Super beautiful, also in the mountains, and I think the second or third biggest city in Kyrgyzstan. The fourth thing you can do is just get out of Bishkek and go south. There's lots of beautiful high-altitude lakes in the mountains, as well as old Turkic karavansarays, which were used during the Silk Road times. You can see kind of the deserts, the mountains, the lakes, and sort of the paths that people have been walking for thousands of years. I mean, how cool is that? The last thing you can do is visit the city of Osh. Kyrgyzstan's second city is notably more Kyrgyz than Bishkek is, as Bishkek is quite Russian-like vibe. You can eat really good authentic food, and you're also very close to the Uzbek border if you want to hop across when you're done with the beautiful land of many mountains. So that's gonna be it for me in this video today, guys. Thank you so much for joining me. I really hope you have an awesome time in Kyrgyzstan. It's one of the top five or six countries that I really fell in love with on my travels because it's so different, so unique, and so mystifying for just an average American guy like me. If you enjoyed the video, make sure to like and subscribe. Comment below if you're headed to Kyrgyzstan. I'd love to hear about your travel plans, and I hope I see you guys in another edition of Tales from the Road tells you where to go and what to do. Hope you guys have a good day. See you next time. Rahmat.