Topchan, tapshan, chorpoya, seuri, kat, whatever their name, be it hidden under shady vine arbours or urban on the terraces of the chaykhanas, they offer their boards for improvised councils, for sober drinks and for sumptuous banquets, for poetic sleepinesses and nights filled with dreams of the the Silk Road travellers. They are the witnesses of Omar Khayyam's poetry, Nasreddine Hodja's jokes and the adventures of the Thousand and One nights heroine.
A poetic transport(ation)
Sur la route entre Bichkek et Djallalabad.
Four passengers accompany me : a man, a woman and a young couple of lovers students who are going to Och for a wedding. We leave at 8.00 a.m. and I should be arrived in Jalalabad at about 7.00 p.m. Fortunately, the road is pleasant, a velvet carpet compared with Tajiks roads, wet by a drizzle which is transformed gradually into snow. Mountains, blue lakes, trees colored by autumn. Sheep herds, horses with magnificent chestnut coat. They are nervous on this road when the motorists honk to clear a path. A proverb says that horses are the wings of the Kyrgyz people. For these nomads who spent more time on saddle than on the ground, the horse was one of the closest and most appreciated domestic animal. Before Soviet period, writes the review Études Mongoles et sibériennes, centrasiatiques et tibétaines, the social status of individuals was determined by the number of owned horses. Horse has left his mark everywhere. There is no epic, no poem, no song without the horse and it was playing the lead role in games and entertainments. During the seasonal festivities or the rites of passage, took place horse races and wrestling competitions. Among these games, was the buzkashi, a kind of polo where the ball is replaced by an alive goat or a sheep. Joseph Kessel made a terrifying description of it in Les cavaliers. The buzkashi, also very popular with the Tajiks, continues to be practised with fervour, with the difference that today is using an already dead sheep. The Soviets, by decreeing the settlement, ban de facto the race of Kyrgyz horses which narrowly escaped the extinction. Fortunately, its breeding was relaunched thanks to measures for the development of the sector.
At higher altitude, the mist erases the contours, dilutes the colors. The mountain gets covered with a speckled white. Music from MP3 mixes rap and monotonous chants. I feel like I evolve in a bubble sliding in a virtual universe. The taxi becomes flying tapshan in the heavenly mounts country. But for the blooming wild apple trees, it will be necessary to come back in the spring ! The young lovers are Komde and Modan, the Romeo and Juliet de Shahidi. They are sleeping on the rear-seat, embraced. They are dreaming, half lengthened, turned one towards the other. When they wake up, the car fills with their laughter. The timid snow swirls in waves. We are in connivance with each other in the welcoming warmth of a poetic transportation.
The poem ends to Jalalabad. I stay at Mölmöl hotel, another survivor of Soviet time. The wallpaper comes off, a window is broken, there is no mirror in the bathroom where the washbasin has only a cold water tap. On Saturday morning, it is market day. Men wearing the Kyrgyz hat, cotton traders, clothes, boots, the whole street is occupied by sellers of heterogeneous objects who must have passed in hands of several generations of collectors and recyclers. In a corner, dusty billiard tables are surrounded by players. I decide to leave this very day for Arslanbob.
Sur la route M41 entre Bichkek et Jalalabad.
A Chychkan-Suu ("Petite souris des rivière ?"), sur la route M41 entre Bichkek et Djallalabad.
Pause à la chaïkhana de Chychkan-Suu.
Un tapchane joliment décoré, chaïkhana de Chychkan-Suu.
Un autre, plus sobre, à l'extérieur.
Un tapchane du café Maruf à Djallalbad qui ressemble fort à celui de la chaikhana de Chychkan-Suu.
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