Osh city

Osh has been a student city, a centre of education,science and technology for the last one thousand years. Osh is located in heart of the historically famous Ferghana valley.

Second largest city in Kyrgyzstan. Osh, is administrative centre of the southwestern Kyrgyzstan and capital of the Osh province, near the border with Uzbekistan. It is separated from Bishkek by high mountain ranges.

Osh sits on a major highway from Bishkek through Dushanbe and Khujand in Tajikistan. Coal, lead and zinc mines surround the city, There are several flights a day between Bishkek and Osh – There is also the spectacular Bishkek-Osh highway and then continues past the Toktogul reservoir and hydroelectric power station. The Ak-Buura river runs through the city North to South and to the west is mountain ‘Sulaiman Too’ (“Sulaiman’s mountain”), which dominates the city. At the top is a flagpole and a mosque built in 1497 by the 14 year old Babur who had been recently crowned the King of the Ferghana Valley and later went on to become the founder of the Mughal dynasty in India and Babur’s house on the top of the mountain. This is a small oriental style house that was built by the emperor Babur Also worth visiting, the 16th century built Rabat Abdul Khan Mosque – which is one of the main mosques and receives about 1000 constant visitors everyday and CENTRAL IMAM AL-BUKHARI MOSQUE is one of the largest and oldest mosques in the Central Asia.

There are a lot of places for refreshment activities, a sports stadium, sports centres, swimming pools, billiard clubs, winter sports centre with skiing tracks and other winter sports, a number of cinemas with latest English,Russian and Indian movies. Spare time can be spent in clubs, drama theatres, concerts of famous Russian and Kyrgyz singers are often held at concert halls of the city. There are a lot of café, restaurants in the city, with fast food, Italian, Russian, uzbic, Chinese, Pakistani and Indian cousine. As Osh is a mountaneous city, a hill station, summers are very beautiful. People come from other cities to Osh to spend their vacations and enjoy the beauty of nature. Weather in osh is continental with temperature in summer ranges from +15 C to +30 C and in winter ranges from – 5 C to +15 C.  There are the boulevards and parks with lots of trees.

The city has several monuments, including one to the southern Kyrgyz “queen” Kurmanjan Datka and one of the few remaining statues of Lenin. Second largest mosque in the country and the 16th-century Rabat Abdul Khan Mosque can be found here. The only World Heritage Site in Kyrgyzstan, the Sulayman Mountain, offers a splendid view of Osh and its environs.

The Russians came into the region during the 19th century, and after that life style in Osh is heavily influenced by the Russian way of life and Soviet architecture. People in Osh prefer to live in apartments. There are multi storey buildings with apartments in the city. About 80 percent population is living in apartments and 20 percent in private houses.

The city is especially famous for its bazar, which is about 2000 years old and ever since has been on the same place on the two sides of Syr-Darya river. There you find just everything, from the vegetables, fruits and nuts the Ferghana valley is so famous for, over food, to clothes, household, souvenirs and so on. Just go searching!

Osh is definitely a city where you could walk around for hours, just to get to know the culture and try to feel it yourself. Reputedly three thousand years old. Osh is one of the oldest city in Central Asia. In the middle ages Osh was a point of intersection for commerce from India and China to Europe. One of the branches of a Great Silk Way – the Major Trade of an old age passed through the city connecting East with West.

Other important page of a history of city Osh is connected with a name of the representative of Timurid’s dynasty Zaheriddin Muhammad Babur (1483-1530.) Babur knew the city Osh well and had left many flatter lines about it.He built a mosque in Osh and his house is still present today.He was born in Andijan (45 KM away from the Osh) In the middle ages,with Bukhara and Samarkand, Osh was the largest and advanced city of the Central Asia and in 1762 it joined the Khanate of Kokand and became on of the six trading centres with the Khanate.

Assimilated into Tsarist Russia, the city expanded onto the left bank of the river and European style houses started to appear. In short, Osh is a modern city with an ancient background.

Osh Sights:

The most famous sight in Osh is Sulaiman Too, a large religious mountain in the center of the city. Sulaiman Too is protected as a UNESCO World Heritage Site because of its historical, cultural, and spiritual significance, and is the only World Heritage Site located entirely in Kyrgyzstan. At the top of Sulaiman Too is a mosque, a reconstruction of a mosque originally built by Babur in the 1400s, and at the bottom of the mountain is the mausoleum of Asaf ibn Burhia. Built into one of the caves in the side of the mountain is the most unique museum in Kyrgyzstan, the Sulaiman Too National Historical and Archaeological Museum.

There is a path walkway around the mountain, which makes an interesting walk. Along the way you will probably see pilgrims praying at a little cave. Inside the cave, water droplets drip from the roof, and it is said that these are the tears of Suleyman. Pilgrims come to pray to relief from illnesses and for help in solving problems. For some reason (apparently, in profile some people think it resembles a pregnant woman lying down – but you have to be some distance away and in the direction to see this), it is also revered by many women who have been unable to bear children. There were erected many Muslim religious constructions, including mazars and mosques built from 10th and 11th centuries till the beginning of the 20th century on the foothills, slopes, and even on the top of Sulaiman-Too.

There are several museums in Osh that are also worth visiting. The Great Silk Road Museum, at the base of Sulaiman Too, has exhibits about Kyrgyzstan’s history, nature, and people that are interesting to visitors, and the Kurmanjan Datka Museum is a three-story yurt filled with textiles and paintings.

The bazaar, which stretches along the banks of the Ak-Bura River, is one of the oldest and most picturesque in Central Asia. The bazaar is a great place to just explore and find foods and handicrafts for sale. Stop into the Shaid Tepa Mosque, the largest mosque in Kyrgyzstan. The original mosque was built between 1908 and 1910, but was used for blacksmiths and stables in the Soviet era. Recently, the mosque was rebuilt using funds from Saudi Arabia, and now has room for 5,000 worshippers.

Head out of the city to visit the mausoleums in Uzgen, or take a deep breath of fresh air in the juniper forests of Kyrgyz-Ata National Park, a protected area since 1992.

 

Climate:

Under the Köppen climate classification, Osh features a continental climate, with hot, dry summers and cold winters. Osh receives on average roughly 400 millimeters of precipitation annually, the bulk of which typically falls on the city outside the summer months. Summers are hot in Osh, with average high temperatures routinely exceeding 30 °C. Winters are cold with average temperatures below freezing during a good portion of the season. Spring and autumn are transitional seasons, with temperatures rising during the course of the spring season and falling during the course of the autumn.

We invite You to study at the Medical Faculty, Osh State University. We’ll be glad to see you in our picturesque city.