Tash Arabat is a large stone fortress/guest house/who knows what that stands in one of the greener parts of Naryn. By greener, I'm referring to the grass. I saw no trees in all of Naryn province that were not planted. The mountains have snow one them, but they are completely bare of any vegetation besides weeds. From Naryn, you drive for about two hours through reddish-brown dust and gravel to get to the turn off for Tash Arabat. You drive about ten minutes and you are suddently in a shady green valley with a nice river running through it. Another 10 minutes and your at Tash Arabat.
No one really knows why it was built. One legend says that a father and son were building it when they heard a woman's voice laughing. The son wanted to look for the woman, but the father told him he must not. The son didn't listen, and the woman turned out to be a jinn (or Shaitan, depending on who tells the story). The work on the building stopped right then and there.
A slightly more believable story, one that is favored by some of Kyrgyzstan's archaeologists, is that the fortress belonged to a robber who got rich by plundering the silk road. He died shortly after the place was built, and then it was (ironically) appropriated to house merchants during their travels.
It looks like the building was built before Islam came to the area. The few pieces of moulding that still exist on the inside look more Buddhist (lotus patterns) than Islamic (geometric patterns). But I'm far from being an expert on the matter.
Posted by Schaun
at 1:36 PM
