Winter snow and shortages come to Bishkek

Winter has come to Bishkek. Every day this week Channel 1 has shown footage of deserted, snow covered petrol stations. The Kyrgyz som has just fallen against the dollar, so prices for imports are increasing. Petrol has already gone up by 7 som (12p) a litre.

At Osh Bazaar, the women have bundled themselves in layer upon layer of shawls and cardigans to stand all day ankle deep in muddy slush, their bulkily stockinged legs crammed into cheap plastic galoshes. 

The cold winter in Bishkek has brought a healthy scarlet glow to the apple cheeks of the Kyrgyz women, but the Russian faces are grey and pinched with cold. 

Food shortages

There’s a shortage of milk and no local cheese at all. The expensive imported cheeses from Holland and Russia are running low as well. 

Despite the cold, lots of people are milling about on Ala-Too Square. The photographers are hunched under the red and yellow umbrellas that used to shade them from the sun; now it’s winter in Bishkek they’re keeping the snow off their cameras. 

Families and giggling groups of girls are posing for photos, their faces flushed with cold and framed by fur-trimmed hoods. There’s an excited holiday mood in the air. 

During the week it snows again. The weather follows a regular cycle here: it snows heavily for a few says, then the sky clear and the ice gradually thaws, then it starts to rain, and the rain turns to snow, and the whole process starts over again. 

Mini-kilt challenge

On Friday I have the morning off and, although the temperature is well below zero, I decide to go to Dordoi in search of one of the colourful mini-kilts trendy young women in Bishkek have suddenly started wearing. 

Sometimes the bazaar can be a frustrating place to shop. Nothing is organised. It’s impossible to go to a single section and say ‘here are undies’ or ‘here is sportswear’. Apart from which I am constantly dodging barrows while being pushed into wet gutters by barging babushkas and pushing the garments hanging from overhead hooks and bulging off overflowing clothes rails out the way. 

All the while, I’m moving rapidly forwards, eyes darting left and right in search of that elusive kilt. I know that if I go away to think about a purchase I’m likely to be swept away on a tide of shoppers and never find the stall again. 

This dark December morning, frozen drizzle is floating between the blue tarpaulins covering the walkways to add to the slushy mess underfoot. The clothes are drab in the half-light, and the traders are too busy huddling round their electric heaters to be the aggressive sales people they usually are. 

Dordoi has none of the saucy (but expensive) minis I’ve seen in TSUM, but I find a shortish kilt that fits, in black and white plaid with a faux suede waistband and a tasselled belt. 

Frosty night

That night I wear it to a friend’s leaving party. When I exit the bar, the street is white and cold and deserted outside. The streetlights reflect off the falling snow, giving each flake an eerie brightness. I march down to the taxi rank on Chui Prospect, the high heeled winter boots I bought on an earlier trip to Dordoi driving sharply through the soft snow.

The next morning it’s stopped snowing and on the pavement the soft flakes have already been trodden down into dark, shiny ice. It’s so slippery that I need my spike heels to peg me down as I walk, like crampons. I have to tread slowly and carefully, putting my whole foot down to avoid skidding, and holding my back straight to keep my balance. Sometimes the ground is so glassy I fall forwards and slam down onto the ice. Inside their fur-lined gloves my hands are so cold they’re aching and swollen.

I concentrate so hard on staying upright, At 3pm it’s as bright as it’s ever going to be today, with a single watery ray of sun showing through a chink in the clouds. The snowy boughs overhead gleam white against the overcast sky.