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Kumys and a Bath
This is a summer camp in the southern Tien Shan range, Kyrgyzstan. We arrived just as the majority of the family was getting ready to leave for the hot springs at Altyn Arashan to take their weekly bath – an hour’s ride down into the main valley. We asked if they sold sour cream. They did, but as custom demands it, we were first invited in and served white bread, butter and freshly fermented mare’s milk known as kumys –the best I have ever tasted.
Laundry dries on the roof of the tent (no yurts up here, just simple Chinese canvas tents), young boys show off their riding skills or fool around testing the strength of a little donkey. Mothers rush back and forth to pack a few things more for the bathing trip, children come to inspect my daughter.
The camp is one of several in this side valley, most of them just above the tree line where the jailoo – the summer pastures – begin but firewood is still readily available. The horses do not belong to the herders; they receive 500 som (about EUR 7 or USD 10) per horse per month plus the milk. The family in this camp looks after 35 horses.
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