O is for Osh.
O is for Osh, in Kyrgyzstan.
Way back when I got a two week assignment to go round Kyrgyzstan with my two intrepid colleagues, Mr. Orange – the writer and’bag man’- as he carried the wad of cash which was our expenses account, and also with Mr. Pink, our translator.
It was the type of assignment you hope for, 2 weeks in a foreign climate, out the hotel every day exploring, reporting, photographing, and then at the end of the day eating great exotic food, drinking beers with names you’d never heard of, and chatting, planning the next trip, the next adventure. And it was all work, with two great travelling companions, all being paid for, and all on a day rate. Somedays you count your lucky stars you ended up in such a job.
The city of Osh was one of those places where I’d never heard of before I went, but now carry a longing to go back to. A one time hugely important city on the Old Silk Road, nestled in the Ferghana Valley, and home to the famous Jayma Bazaar, one of the largest markets in Central Asia.
As Mr. Orange, Mr. Pink and I walked through the market the tannoy blared a woman’s voice, speaking a monotonous tone of Russian. Over and over. To me, a non-Russian speaker, it added to the appeal of the place, helped make the already incredible market feel even more like a movie set, exaggerated the foreignness of it all. To Mr. Pink- a native Russian speaker, and Mr. Orange- who could hold his own in Russian, the tannoy announcements were a drone. The voice read on and on, and I loved it, but to them all they could hear was “Two room apartment for rent, near station, 300 dollars. Four room house to rent, near river, 600 dollars….” On and on. The tannoy woman’s voice read the small ads in the local paper, or some such thing. Over and over, in Osh.
As I photographed women in the market selling plastic bags, one woman asked “why are you photographing me ?”. Mr. Orange, Noo Yawk born and bred and ever quick and witty, replied in Russian, “Cause you’re a babe”. The crowd of bag sellers doubled up in laughter, the ‘babe’ hid her face in embarrassment. After all, this is an Islamic region, flirting with Western men wasn’t the most common thing to do in the market.
On our way out of the market we each bought a local-style hat, an Uzebk style low skull cap, or the higher standing Kyrgyz style. We each bought on, and bought from different stalls. We had a spoken rule on our travels of spreading the money we spent, never favouring one market stall, or one shop. I don’t think we ever wore the hats, at least not in any seriousness. And now mine, a green Uzbek style, sits atop a shelf in Scotland, another momento of foreign travel, immediately conjuring up places and people, smells and noises.
We climbed Suleyman’s Mountain, or Suleyman’s Throne as it’s also known. And being infidels we carried bottles of beer with us to the top, enjoying the view over the Ferghana valley as we enjoyed the beer, before being told to move by a caretaker of the Holy site. A tad indiscrete on our parts I admit.
We crawled all over the top of the mountain in search of the petroglyphs carved into the rock, the outline of a foot etched as prehistoric man also sat enjoying the view, noticed his own foot, and carved around it.
At the end of each day, after our reporting and shooting photographs of Osh, we’d retire to a tea house. We found one on a street corner, big tables sat upon bigger tables. We’d sit, shoes off, legs crossed, and lounging on cushions, drinking pot after pot of tea. The local tea boy realised he was onto a good thing with these three foreigners with big thirsts and healthy appetittes. Pot after pot of tea, and plate after plate of roasted chicken. The tea boy, wearing his white overcoat and skull cap, knew we weren’t regulars and he lavished his good service on our table, and was duly tipped for it when the bill came. I think we may have eaten there for two or three nights.
Incredibly these trips I did through Central Asia, to shoot photographs of Kyrgyzstan, Kazakhstan, Uzbekistan and Tadjikistan, the images from them never ( to my knowledge) really got used well, if at all, by the client. All in all a month or so through the bazaars, NGO’s, universities, mosques and streets of the famous cities of the Silk Road, photographing all in black and white. All paid for, hard work done in hot Central Asian heat, expense accounts justified with every receipt given by every hard working tea-boy in every tea-house we ate. But the pictures never appeared, never got used, not in any great way.
