Reading Woke in Son Kul

Escaping from Disenchanted Modernity

The woke worldview has not yet conquered Kyrgyzstan, notes M.L.R. Smith.

‘There’s no electricity or internet there, you know?’ Lola, my wife, called out to me as we packed our things for a short trip into the hinterlands of Kyrgyzstan. ‘Oh… in that case I might actually need to bring my NOB’, I replied. I could detect Lola’s scepticism. Ah, my NOB: my much travelled but Never Opened Book, which I quixotically, but habitually, pack every time I go abroad.

For each long journey away from home my NOB is a choice volume selected to accompany me across hundreds if not thousands of miles but destined to remain resolutely unread. I convince myself that I’ll have the luxury of relaxing, kicking back, and becoming engrossed in its pages. It never happens. Variously, I find myself too tired, too lazy, too jet-lagged, too hot and bothered, too distracted… too drunk.

The unfortunate candidate for this year’s NOB was Joanna Williams’s How Woke Won. For good measure, the book cover had already been mauled by Ponchik (Russian for doughnut), our adopted ginger kitten. While returning from an earlier excursion we found him abandoned at a wayside café, covered in dirt and fleas. We couldn’t help but take pity.

Ponchik’s handiwork made the book appear suitably care-worn and well thumbed. Nothing could be further from the truth, of course. But into the luggage it went, ordained once more to bear witness to our exotic travels without ever being caressed.

Our destination this time was Son Kul, a remote lake high in the mountains to the south of the Kyrgyz capital, Bishkek. The place is accessible only at certain times of the year through twisting mountain passes, and rutted dirt tracks. Getting there is a feat in itself: a long taxi ride to the nearest large town, Kochkor. Then haggling frantically outside the local bus station for another ride in a ramshackle 4 x 4, to take us the next fifty miles up into the mountains. Six, dusty, bone-rattling hours later, we finally arrive in pitch-darkness at our campsite on the lake.

In the light of day, Son Kul is overpowering in its splendour and simplicity. It’s easy to overdo the ‘unspoilt by tourism’ bit. The moment any tourist sets foot on a beauty spot they subtly, if unintentionally, disrupt a natural eco-system, and any absolute authenticity is lost. Throughout the summer months Son Kul attracts its share of foreign visitors willing to wander off the beaten track to experience its charms. They stay in yurt camps, of varying sizes and amenities, dotted along the shoreline. Around the larger camps you don’t have to stroll far before encountering the human debris of discarded beer cans and vodka bottles, scattered along the periphery.