Bridge on the River Chui
Dunlarova Bridge on Google Earth
Once a month I take a trip up to visit our Guest House in Naryn. It’s 360km which means that it takes something like six hours each way.
Although the speed limit outside built up areas is 90km per hour, which would suggest just four hours travelling time for the journey, because we have to travel through mountains and the condition of the road is not perfect, and I always estimate on just 60kpm. As it happens, in built up areas the speed limit is 60kph. In theory, we can avoid most of the towns and villages by using the road that bypasses Tokmok and Kant, and Kochkor, but, even so, we have to travel through several villages and the town of Kemin … and there are also several speed restrictions through Boom Gorge.
There is a choice when leaving Bishkek, between the shorter route through various villages and the towns of Kant and Tokmak or the “New Road”, built some time in the 1960′s a bit to the North which bypasses the towns and joins up with the main road once more just before the town of Kemin. This alternative is longer but allows drivers to maintain higher speeds; it is a major trunk road, dual carriageway for much of its length, tends to be in better condition and as it doesn’t carry local traffic, tends to be less crowded.
For a fair amount of the way, the road follows the course of the Chui River which forms the border between Kazakhstan and Kyrgyzstan. Some years ago you probably wouldn’t have noticed this, but nowadays it is hard to miss the fact. Apart from the observation towers at various points along the route, constructed to try and prevent smuggling, the Kazakhs have erected barbed wire fences along the river banks and both sides have erected customs posts on the bridges that cross the river.
One of those bridges, outside Tokmok, has a large board declaring that is the “Bridge named after Y. Dunlarov”. Each time I pass by the bridge I ask myself , who was this Y. Dunlarov and why was the bridge named in his honour?
A few years ago I was told how he was a local businessman, a successful businessman, “a millionaire” even, a member of the Supreme Soviet who was killed whilst still a relatively young man. Well, this weekend I learned a little more.
Yunus Dunlarov was a member of the local Dungan community who graduated as an engineer from the Technical University on Bishkek. During the 1970′s he became Deputy Chairman of the “Auto Repair” services in Kyrgyzstan, and in the 80′s assumed responsibility for the “AvtoVAZ” unit which dealt exclusively with Lada vehicles – the “people’s car”.
Dunlarov organized the construction of repair shops and service centres throughout the republic and is generally credited with development of this section of the economy.
In the 1990′s, following Independence, the organization was restructured as “Tien Shan Harmony” and was one of the first major corporations of the new state and Dunlarov became a prominent figure in the country. He was elected as a Deputy to the Supreme Soviet, (the Parliament), and took an active role in the social life of the young republic. He was also elected as President of the All-Union Dungan Association.
As an important and influential person, a member of the parliament and prominent businessman, Dunlarov participated in several delegations to other countries.
Unfortunately, he was killed in February 1995, at the relatively young age of 52.
Dunlarov was actually instrumental as a leading supporter for the construction of the bridge that now bears his name. Originally, it simply a bridge joining communities on both sides of a river … and what had once been purely an administrative demarcation … but it is now am important international border crossing point, (albeit one open only to local traffic – i.e. Kyrgyz and Kazakh), with customs posts built on either side.
Bishkek