Urban Spaces and Lifestyles in Central Asia and Beyond by Philipp Schröder

Author:Philipp Schröder [Schröder, Philipp]
Language: eng
Format: epub
ISBN: 9780367218669
Barnesnoble:
Publisher: Taylor & Francis
Published: 2019-01-17T00:00:00+00:00

Figure 3. Dzerzhinka/Erkindik Boulevard in Bishkek (picture by Philipp Schröder).

At the southern end of Dzerzhinka is Bishkek’s main train station, from which many of Kyrgyzstan’s labour migrants embark on their trips to Kazakhstan or Russia. It is only a three-minute walk from there, over a bridge and across the railway tracks, to Iug-2. Thus, Almaz and his peers often strolled over to the train station and then continued for a short walk ‘down’ Dzerzhinka. After about 500 metres to the north, at the second major intersection, they usually stopped, claiming that this marked the border of an area informally known as upper Dzerzhinka. Everything further north, until the boulevard met Bishkek’s major east–west avenue, Chui, Almaz identified as the lower part of Dzerzhinka, which already belonged to the city centre.

Yet, in the eyes of many urbanites, its proximity to the very central parts of Bishkek did not at all make lower Dzerzhinka a particularly urbanized space. The reason for this was quite simply that due to its exceptional prominence this area usually attracted exactly those who did not know the city well. Tourists or random visitors to the capital aside, lower Dzerzhinka and its vicinity were therefore also known as the most desired destination to stroll and be out for the recent migrants to Bishkek, including the inhabitants of the novostroiki.

The urbanites, in contrast, cherished the upper part of Dzerzhinka as a space to which they could escape from these ‘noisy and unpleasant crowds, creating a village atmosphere’. Such descriptions again exposed the rurals of the city as strangers to the commonly expected public behaviour. Hannerz (1980, 105) has suggested the term ‘traffic relations’ to capture those fleeting interactions that remain ‘minimal’ and ‘unfocused’, precisely because the participants are proficient in going with the regular urban flows and thus do not raise each other’s attention. To emphasize that exactly the opposite was true for the myrki, the urbanites employed the expression ‘without limits’ (bez predel).

‘If you want to see the real Myrkystan’, a friend of Almaz told me, ‘then go to the square on a holiday. This is without limits.’ The ‘square’ here referred to Bishkek’s main square, Ala-Too, which is not far from lower Dzerzhinka and Chui Avenue, in the city centre. Close to Ala-Too are also the Parliament Building, the White House and Panfilov Park, an amusement park with all kinds of games, rides, swings and other attractions. On major holidays, especially on Kyrgyzstan’s Day of Independence, 31 August, the area around Ala-Too Square was lined with all kinds of kiosks offering beverages and food. Most of those who crowded Bishkek’s centre on such a holiday to enjoy a good time and stroll through the city were either recent migrants to the capital or visitors from close-by villages. Almaz’s friend, like many of his urban peers, was nothing short of disgusted by that scene:

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