Postcard from Bishkek

Bubusara was a famous ballerina who in her later years trained several generations of dancers and was one of the founders of the Kyrgyz ballet school.

Born into a peasant family in the village of Tash-Tube (not far from Bishkek) on 17 May, 1926, Bubusara Beishenalieva went to study in the Leningrad School of Choreography at the age of 10. She made her debut on the stage of the Bolshoi Theater in Moscow just three years later. Over the next thirty years she became an eminent ballerina performing in such classics as Swan Lake, Don Quixote, Romeo and Juliet as well as a number of Russian and Kyrgyz national ballets. She starred in the Lenin Film Studios version of a Kyrgyz ballet – Cholpon in 1958.

She married the composer Akmat Amanbaev in 1944 and they had a son, Ermek, and later a granddaughter – Cholpon.

Apparently she had a shy, reserved, character – fond of simple pastimes such as sewing, knitting, playing draughts and cooking traditional dishes such as beshbarmak, plov, lagman, borsok and chakchak. She also sang and played the piano.

Elected as a member of the Supreme Soviet of the USSR and the Kyrgyz SSR – she was awarded the title “National Artist of the USSR” in 1958 as well as several other prestigious prizes and titles.  Teaching in the Kurenkeev school of choreography – her talent, charm, kindness, understanding and sense of responsibility made her popular with adults and children alike.

She died six days before her 47^th birthday in 1973. Since then there have been two International Festivals of Ballet held in her memory in Bishkek. She is one of only two ballerinas to be to have statues erected in their honour in the former Soviet Union – it is to the South of the Theatre of Opera and Ballet – currently in the grounds of the Hyatt Regency Hotel in Bishkek. (The statue was the cause of a dispute between the hotel and the city authorities in 2008 – when the fence was demolished at the order of the Mayor so that local citizens could have unrestricted access to the statue.) She also has a street named after her in Bishkek – running North to South at the Eastern end of Osh Bazaar.

She was buried in the Ala Archa cemetery on the Western side of the city centre along with other notable Kyrgyz personalities.