Located at the eastern end of Lake Issyk Kul, the village of Karakol was originally a military outpost of the Tsarist army, founded in 1869. The town was designed by an architect from St. Petersburg to make the settlers feel at home in Russia: low houses with windows surrounded by blue, some two-storey colonial buildings and, in the centre, the square, the Gostinny Dvor as in St. Petersburg. Karakol still retains the atmosphere of a small 19th century Russian town despite the inevitable Lenin and the few Soviet buildings in the centre which are far from being an architectural success. Built at the foot of the Tian-Shan, on the northern route of the Silk Road that links Semiretchié to Kashgar, the city bore the name of the Russian explorer Prjevalski for almost a century. The Russians, sons or great-grandsons of the various waves of settlers, see it as the city of travellers, the last stop before Chinese Turkestan, through which all the explorers, adventurers or spies of the Czar and the Soviets passed. The local population is very varied - Kyrgyz, Uyghurs, Kazakhs, Tatars, Uzbeks, Russians, Ukrainians, Chinese - and all live there in peace. Until 1991, the city had remained closed to the West because of the Soviet military zone of Pristan Prjevalski; today, on the contrary, tourists are welcome here, and this privileged site at the foot of the "Celestial Mountains" and on the banks of the immense Issyk Kul Lake is becoming one of the most popular bases for trekking and mountaineering. For a little, the city would claim to have an architectural stamp conferred by the low colonial houses lined with poplars. It is in any case an ideal starting point for exploring the surrounding valleys, passes and glaciers.

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Randonnée près de Karakol au Kirghizistan. Elisa LOCCI - FOTOLIA

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