Seeing the Sights in Historic Osh

It may be hard to believe, but we did do a little more that just work during our time in Osh. Even though the city was basically torn down by the Soviets, it still retains much of its 3000 year old charm. Though there aren't a ton of things that will have tourists lined up for miles, it has its share of cool things to do.

First, we toured Osh Technical University with our fellow volunteer Ed. The school itself was not terribly impressive, but it was interesting to see the Soviet approach to education. OshTU was one of the last Soviet universities built before the fall. They must be doing something right because I saw a supply and demand schedule on one of the chalk boards. The professor did mislabel the X-axis (it should be Qd, not Q), but all in all it seemed like the new what they were doing.
The next stop on our journey was the Osh outdoor bazaar. Some people have told me that it is the largest outdoor market in Central Asia. It is large and it is outdoors, but I'm not sure about the title. It seems to me that larger cities (Tashkent, Samarqand) would have larger ones, but maybe they have made the transition to indoor markets. Either way, they had all these colorful fruits that I have not seen since September. I was taking pictures of bananas! I ended up buying some Uzgen rice for my host family, which is supposed to be awesome and unavailable in Naryn. I would guess that we walked for 2 hours in the bazaar and didn't buy very much. That should tell you about the size of what we were walking through.

We walked through the city park which was filled with really scary Soviet-era park rides. I don't think pictures or words can accurately describe how freaky these things were. Next, we walked to the park near the city center. Usually this wouldn't be worth mentioning, but then we saw a camel. He was the saddest creature in the world. If a camel somehow ended up tied to a tree in an American park, he would at least be supervised by someone or someone would be interested in it. Nobody was interested. There were several children playing in the park, but nobody cared out the poor camel. We named him Simon.The Lenin statue was the next stop and it was awesome. Again, this one was claimed to be the largest of Lenin in Central Asia, but this time I think they might just be telling the truth. It was freakin' massive. It certainly did not disappoint. One of the Osh volunteers who is organizing a kite flying program in the city square is planning on tying a kite to his raised hand. We can only hope.

Last on the stop was Mount Sulayman, the third holiest site in Islam (again, according to locals). The city of Osh lies in a large valley and then this giant mount jumps up into the sky. It is certainly an interesting geographical phenomenon. On the top is a small mosque built in 1510 and a "fertility slide" that granted those who slid down healthy babies. The problem for me, however, was that no one told me what the slide was before I went up, so I slid down it a couple of times for fun. Apparently, I was supposed to slide down 7 times in order to gain fertility and healthy children. I guess I will get one or the other. I really hope I don't have mongaloid children.