Barskoon Valley
Posted on 2 October, 2023 by Dan Vonk
On my recent trip to Kyrgyzstan, one of the highlights was the beautiful Barskoon Valley. On the south shore of Lake Issyk-Kul, sits the town of Barskoon and this road brings you up into the Tien-Shan mountains and beyond. Somewhat unusual for Kyrgyzstan, is that this road doesn’t totally suck! We managed to do about 90 km/h in our UAZ on this dirt track, while we could only manage about 20 km/h when we were travelling in the south of the country around Naryn.
The reason for this, is that it is maintained by the company responsible for operating the open-pit Kumtor Gold Mine on the other side of the mountains. Keeping to the touristy area around in the valley, we saw no other signs of it. However, this is one of the largest gold mines in the world and is responsible for about 8% of the country’s entire GDP. In fact, the country also has large reserves of copper, silver and mercury due to its location on the Tien-Shan Metallogenic Belt. This particular mine has been controversial for a long time, with it spilling cyanide and other pollutants into the water supply and ultimately Issyk-Kul. It’s always difficult to judge these situations, as the mine does provide a large amount of revenue and it’s clear that the country is not going to develop tertiary industry and become the next Switzerland any time soon.
Also noteworthy of the valley is that after Yuri Gagarin became the first man in space, he was presumably pretty worn out and vacationed in this valley when he came back. There is a statue here dedicated to him but I don’t have a picture of it!