What are the most beautiful places in Kyrgyzstan?

On our list, Issyk-Kul ranks first, followed by Lake Sary-Chelek and Tash Rabat.

What is a jailoo in Kyrgyzstan?

A jailoo is a high summer pasture. Kyrgyz herders move their horses, sheep and cattle up to these grasslands in summer and live in yurts there, as at Song Kol.

Tash Rabat is a medieval stone building in the At-Bashy mountains of the Naryn region, generally interpreted as a caravanserai on a Silk Road route toward Kashgar. Its thick walls and many small rooms surround a central domed hall.

Where are the Saimaluu-Tash petroglyphs?

They are in the Fergana Range in western Kyrgyzstan, on a high mountain pass covered by snow for most of the year. Thousands of images, many from the Bronze Age, are carved into dark, glacier-polished boulders.

What kinds of places are there to see in Kyrgyzstan?

In our collection, the places in Kyrgyzstan are most often lakes (5), archaeological sites (1) and rock art sites (1).

The 7 Most Beautiful Places in Kyrgyzstan

Kyrgyzstan is a country of the Tian Shan, the Celestial Mountains, and most of its territory lies high above sea level. Glaciers feed countless rivers, earthquakes and landslides have dammed valleys into lakes, and broad summer pastures called jailoo spread between the ridges. People have moved through these mountains for millennia, herders with their flocks and traders on the branches of the Silk Road, leaving behind carved rock and stone shelters in places that still feel remote.

Lakes are the heart of this collection. Sary-Chelek, in the walnut and fir forests of the western Tian Shan, is a deep, winding lake held behind an ancient landslide and protected in a biosphere reserve. Song Kol lies on a wide high plateau where herders set up yurts each summer, its shores open grassland with mountains on every horizon. Above Karakol, Ala-Kul is a glacial lake reached on foot, its milky turquoise water set below glaciers and a high pass. Köl-Suu, near the Chinese border, is a long, narrow lake squeezed into a canyon of sheer rock walls.

Two places speak of people. Tash Rabat is a stone caravanserai tucked into a quiet side valley on the old route between the Fergana Valley and Kashgar, a low domed building that once sheltered travellers crossing the passes. Saimaluu-Tash, high in the Fergana Range, is one of the largest petroglyph sites in Central Asia, with thousands of images of animals, hunters and ritual scenes pecked into dark boulders, reachable only during the short summer when the snow recedes.