Karabalta

Last week, in Kyrgyzstan, we did some of our design ethnography work in a place outside the capital. For various logistical reasons we ended up in a city called Karabalta, relatively close to Bishkek. Although we didn’t know it at the time, we found out the day before our visit that Karabalta was a twin city, that half of it was one of the old closed Soviet cities (uranium close by), the cities that had no names but we known only by numbers, like postboxes, so were sometimes called Pochtayali (I’m massacaring that Russian word, I know).

We ended up walking around what had been the closed city, and it was a little slice of the CCCP. Hammer and sickle statuary, including a giant art nuveaux one. A large, silver Lenin, still in a place of honor in the park. Street names and murals remained, and we stayed in a sports stadium that had dorm-like rooms (girls in one room, boys in another) for about $2.50 per bed with a bathroom that defies words, and a shower downstairs that one arranged ahead of time. We were told when we “checked in” that it took an hour for the hot water to be ready, then that was enough for 2-3 people, then it would take another hour to be ready again. We showered in stages. An old man leads you downstairs to a hallway, down which is a large locker room with a smaller room inside with the spigot. He explains that he will lock the metal grate at the entrance to the hallway behind you as a safety measure, and when you are done, you must rattle the bars of the grate and call for him and he will come let you out. Generally speaking, I try not to think about fire codes when I am in this region.

I showered with my shoes on.