Shamaldy-Sai settlement by the Naryn River (KYRGYZSTAN)

Most cities in the world developed along rivers, since these play an important role in urban life.  Water is a vital substance not only in the ecological sense, but also in the social sense.  This is especially evident in people’s interactions with rivers, which are the most populated water bodies in the world. When people interact with water, it ceases to be simply a molecule of H2O and takes on other social elements. This page will give you some insights into the life of the Shamaldy-Sai settlement on the Naryn River. The social anthropologist and exhibition coordinator Gulzat Baialieva herself was born and grew up in what is simply known as “poselok Shamaldy-Sai”. 

Naryn the Glorious, Naryn the Deadly, Naryn our Future Wealth?

The mountains of Kyrgyzstan are often described as a ‘water tower’ for the agricultural oases of Central Asia.  But while cutting through the valley for several hundred kilometres, the topographic relief of the Naryn allows for little direct use of the river for irrigation or extracting drinking water.  The Naryn has dug out a steep bed in an otherwise quite level valley, often between forbidding cliffs and escarpments. Sometimes, you can hardly see the river hiding in its steep river bed – as on the picture below.