Postcard from Bishkek

For the the second time in less than a week, my feet felt frozen and I thought my toes were about to drop off as a result of the cold.

The first occasion was a result of standing in a hilltop cemetery on Sunday as we said goodbye to Nikolai Stepanovich, the kids grandfather who died on Friday after a heart attack, just days before his seventy fourth birthday.   It was a bright day and the sun shone but the ground was covered with snow that hadn’t had the chance to melt as the temperatures hadn’t risen above zero for a couple of weeks.  the sunlight on the snow gave a dazzling glint.  A fair sized crowd had made the journey from the city centre to pay their last respects, but I couldn’t help feeling both admiration and sympathy for the gravediggers who had to excavate the grave from the frozen earth.

This reason for this second occasion was more prosaic, although it was anything but a commonplace experience.

In the Orthodox tradition, January 19th is a festival commemorating the Baptism of Jesus in the River Jordan by John the Baptist.  Every year, members of the faithful take part in ceremonies to mark the occasion … and that can mean re-enacting the event.

Special services are held in the churches, but where ever there is a suitable venue, a river or pond, then the Church organizes a Baptism.  Tatiana, my accountant, decided that this year she would take part and invited me along.  In fact, she asked if I wanted to take the plunge myself, but I tactfully declined, although I did agree to go along and offer moral support.

She did manage to talk one of her friends into joining her, and as Rohat is a doctor I felt a little easier about the whole affair.  All the same, I remembered how I always cringed whenever I saw people plunging into the ice waters of the Serpentine in London’s Hyde Park and was extremely grateful that she had accepted by decision so gratefully.

So, on Wednesday we gathered and drove in a minibus the fifteen or so kilometres towards the Kazakh border, to the village of Leninskoye, where there is a newly built church and a small lake where the ceremonies were to be held.  The church, financed in the main by donations from the village, was only completed last year.  It’s basically a brick structure in a courtyard with a fairly large and bright hall, about 15 meters square with a high ceiling.   As usual, there is a large wooden screen, decorated with icons, at one end separating the Altar from the congregation.  Around the  walls were a number of other icons and a number of candelabra for the faithful can place their votive candles.  To mark the opening some bells were installed and President Bakiev’s Russian wife, Tatiana, attended the dedication ceremony.

For the record, the village is quite large and also hosts a new mosque of similar proportions.

There were lots of cars outside the church and quite a crowd inside – including the press.  The majority were carrying plastic bottles or canisters in which to place holy water once it had been blessed.  Several seemed to have twenty litre bottles, but I have no idea what they were going to do with it once they got it home.  Although Lisa had a bottle with, she decided the wait would be too long and she would get hers from the cathedral in Bishkek later in the day.

We wandered back outside and the snow still lay on the ground.  The steps were marble clad and incredibly slippery but at the sides they had anti-slip mats so everyone was avoiding the central area.  We made out way back to the bus and set off for the lake on the outskirts of the village.

There, we discovered several hundred people gathered round a wooden set of sets that had been erected  on the banks of the lake, or rather to the frozen ice which covered the lake.  At the foot of the steps was a platform flanked by two plastic tents which were to serve as changing rooms – one for the men and the other for the women.  A hole about a meter square had been cut through the ice about ten meters out where the faithful were going to be “dunked”.

For some reason, Ded Moroz, (Santa Clause), had decided to make an appearance and was welcoming everyone. There were stands selling hot tea, and other refreshments … shashlik … and the inevitable vodka.

There were lots of other people in traditional dress as well.

On the way we had heard a news report on the radio of a similar event in Moscow, where the police and emergency services had provided backup support.  We had seen the police outside the cathedral on our way to Leninskoye, but here the people in uniform offering security were from the local community of Cossacks.  The uniforms were modern, and I couldn’t help wishing that they had been the traditional garb rather than modern olive green uniforms and combat trousers.

In the background there was some rather incongruous pop music baring through some loudspeakers.

As we made our way down the steps and onto the ice to join the throng of onlookers, I tentatively scraped at the snow with my shoe and, sure enough, there under a very light covering of soft snow was the glass like ice, which looked remarkably thin.  I was reminded of the opening scenes of the film Jumpers – where the hero walks out on to the ice to recover something that has been thrown out there, and then fell through the ice.   If that made me feel nervous, then the constant pleadings of the Cossacks to move back didn’t help, especially when there seemed to be a loud crack as if the ice was breaking.  They tell me that under the hole in the ice, the depth of the water was about four meters – I’m glad that they told me after I had walked off the ice and was safely back in the bus!

As it happens, I needn’t have worried.

A small choir sang hymns and the priest intoned prayers and then the queue of the faithful, (including Tatiana), formed to take part in the main event.  One by one they approached the square hole in the ice over the water, had a sheet tied to their wrists, crossed themselves and jumped into the water.  The stewards holding onto the other ends of the sheet pulled, and the supplicant’s head came back above the surface, only to descend below it again, to be be pulled up once more and then submerge a third and final time.  They all seemed to be propelled from the water as the stewards pulled them out before turning their attention to the next in line.

And the line was quite big.  There were men and women of all shapes and sizes … and, so it appeared, all ages.  There weren’t that many people of pension age but there were a few who were well out of their youth, as well as kids who were, maybe, only ten or twelve.

One of the things that struck me in particular was how many men there were.  Usually churches are populated mainly by representatives of the female of the species, but here there were just as many men as women, and they probably outnumbered the women.

When she had been well and truly “dunked”, Tatiana stood around for a while before returning to the tent to change out of her swimming costume and back into her street clothes.  Her hair didn’t look out of place or even damp and one of our group, Luba, who had missed that particular moment, asked if she really had gone in.

Just like it had been on Sunday, it was a bright and sunny day.  Given that, and the fact that there was no biting wind to talk of, it was still bitterly cold.  They tell me that, although the water temperature was +4, the air temperature was -25.   I think that might well have been an exaggeration because the forecast had promised just single figures, (closer to zero), but the lack of feeling in my toes made me think that they might have got it right after all.

I couldn’t help wondering if these “brave and hardy”,  (or should that be foolhardy?), people would have come out if the weather had been more inclement.  Somehow, I think the answer is “yes, of course” and, in fact, to be honest, I think that they might well have preferred it that way.

Me?  I am glad that I declined the offer to dunk myself, but I am getting a little anxious about this time next year … maybe I am going to find something urgent that is going to need my full attention next January 19th …

Tags: Calendar, Expat, Life_in_Kyrgyzstan, Religion