Paper long abstract:

Bishkek mahallas

Bishkek is usually perceived as a Russian or Soviet city with the regular rectangular grid street pattern and Russian or Soviet style buildings. It is rarely associated with traditional Central Asian urban fabric with meandering streets often found in the older Central Asian cities, such as Bukhara, Khiva, Samarqand, or even Osh for that matter. Yet, if we look a little bit closer at the regular grid of Bishkek, we can find in it some islands of irregularity – urban neighborhoods that have more picturesque and irregular streets and more traditional Central Asian houses. City residents call such areas mahallas, similar to how they are called in Uzbekistan, Tajikistan and Southern Kyrgyzstan. In this paper, I will look describe three of such mahallas in Bishkek: Tokoldosh, Kuznechnaya Krepost and Shlagbaum. I will discuss the history and morphology of these unique urban spaces and the stories of people who live there.