Avoid this Soviet Exclave!

up on the wall behind me is an old soviet map showing some of the resort towns that once upon a time soviet tourists would have visited here on the shores of lake isikalpakrovka however what this map does not show are the numerous exclaves belonging to uzbekistan and tajikistan that dot the southern part of this country of kyrgyzstan let me tell you a little bit about the history of those exclaves before we begin our journey in the 1920s joseph stalin as people's commissar of nationalities had the task of drawing up the borders of the newly formed soviet republics in a region as linguistically culturally and ethnically diverse as the ussr this was never going to be an easy task and many people suddenly ended up living in republics that they had no connection to due to the arbitrary stroke of stalin's pen the diverse fergana valley in soviet central asia was one such case in point villages which were populated by uzbek or tajik people had found themselves placed without their consent within the soviet republic of kyrgyzstan and that's how things stayed for 30 years however when stalin died in 1953 people could suddenly more openly voice their grievances regarding the borders that had been drawn up around them and asked for some kind of redistribution of the boundaries a decision was made to create a number of exclaves of some of these diverse regions thus creating little pockets of tajik uzbek and kyrgyz villages and lands completely surrounded by other republics and separate from their homelands this of course was not a problem in soviet times as there were no internal borders a person for example living in an uzbek exclave within kyrgyzstan could easily visit relatives in uzbekistan however then the ussr collapsed and these exclaves found themselves cut adrift behind barbed wire people suddenly needing to pass borders and regulations to leave their village or re-enter it i decided to visit one of these soviet geographical anomalies to see what life was like there for people cutting drift from their motherlands randomly choosing the uzbek exclave of shohi mardon situated in southern kyrgyzstan purely because the only photo online of the place showed an old soviet cable car except for that there was zero information about entry rules or anything else but i thought i'd try and investigate right then we are off off in search of an ozbeck exclave not every day you say that is it but we're doing it let's get out of caracol get onto the highway bumpy old roads of caracol flipping like has there been a landslide recently why are they just boulders all over the road i've got a little secret for you don't tell anyone it's just between you and me and that is that when i was in my apartment in europe recently coming on this adventure i picked up what i thought was my driving license but i actually picked up my old expired provisional learning license with a big red alpha learner and so i hope that if or inevitably when i get pulled over by the traffic cops they don't understand what the big red l stands for [Music] we've come to the little known town of tunga where i'm going to show you a little piece of interesting soviet history wow check it out we're at the sanatorium where yuri gagarin stayed after his space flight look at it the old hammer and sickle wow wow we're walking the very same path that yuriki guardian walked all those years ago in 1961. wow the soviet entrance let's go and have a look up here these steps that we're now climbing on and this sanatorium in fact was built by german prisoners of war taken from satellite island in the 1940s in 1961 on his return from space the soviet top brass sent your guigar in here to recover on the waters of lake issikul yuri gagarin climbed these very same prisoner of war built steps he used to come up and down here every day on his way to the to swim in the lake let's see if we can't see and take a look around that sanatorium where he stayed all those years ago [Music] wow what an interesting little soviet time warp this place is if it wasn't for the kyrgyz techno music i can hear in the background some lads are playing i'd feel like i was back in 1950s ussr this is the accommodation block where yuri gagarin stayed you can imagine him coming out onto his balcony on a summer's morning taking in some fresh air feeding some of that fresh earth air for the first time how good he must have felt here up in the up in the mountains wow not much has changed and what's interesting is that they didn't really put me in any fancy accommodation he was the biggest star well the biggest on the world for a period of time and they brought into this simple accommodation block here you can see they're not too bothered i'm the only one bothered that yuri gagarin came here no one else seems to care well as we descend these japanese built steps towards our car we should remember yuri gagarin a man who not only went on an amazing journey into space but maybe more importantly than that was the first man that the west the first man from the soviet union i should say that the west fell in love with with his good looks and his charm he humanized the soviet union after yuri gagarin and his journey maybe people didn't associate the soviet union just with stalin and berrier and the other henchmen but he started to see the soviets as people probably not very different from us in the west anyway let's continue our incredible journey south towards the exclaves you speak english [Laughter] this man's going to show me where we're going to find a yuri gagarin statue there is one here i knew there had to be what a legend is [Music] [Music] is [Music] um on a summer's day whilst uh we're staying down at sanatorium in the lower half of the valley he hiked up here it's okay i can do it yeah he hiked up here and he stood on this rock here and afterwards of course the great yuri gardens still on this rock they wanted to commemorate the moment and so they brought someone to sculpt out of the rock yuri gagarin's face in his helmet and his general stars yes the great yuri gagarin once stood on this rock there he goes back to his soviet sanatorium where gagarin once stayed all right let's continue our journey across kyrgyzstan is i've taken a detour on the road to osh to visit once again the town of balikchi which i visited about two years ago where i disturbed a man taking a kakushka in a building and then i put it online for millions to see and so i bought my little present to say sorry hopefully he'll find it never take a kakusha in an abandoned building when there's a vlogger about can ruin your life hey imagine if he was in here doing a dump again and we caught him filmed him twice can anyone be that unlucky in life i doubt it let's leave him some bog roll anyway to say sorry for filming him the first time there was it was here wouldn't it anyway but what the hell helene chick what are you doing here nothing special just using the toilet i'm going south do you want to come with me on a drive to osh yeah but let me finish first okay take that i will need things remember to wipe afterwards flipping egg what a small world imagine bumping into a lean chick randomly in the abandoned building taking a dump all right then let's see if she wants to come with us down to osh and to the exclaves when she's finished like akashka are you coming did you wipe yeah it's all fine all right then let's go let's continue the journey down to the uzbek ozbeck exclaves and wash your hands you dirty buddy flip your neck the gang's back together elinchik welcome on board nice to see you again nice to see you how have you been what you've been doing anyway in kyrgyzstan without me uh just sitting in this abandoned smelly building waiting for you i knew you will come over there i always find the smelly abandoned buildings uh and before i was skiing in caracal ah skiing in caracal cool all right then you're ready for a little adventure south then yes through then through the mountains of kyrgyzstan let's go indeed we didn't time that right but okay let's go high five oh don't pull me over coppers don't pull me over whoo the first roadblock with the dodgy license is passed wow check out that house got hammer and sickle we've just pulled off the road in the middle of nowhere because there's a farm house here that's got a big old hammer and sickle painted on the side of it let's go and take a closer look wow what a place this is real rural kyrgyzstan check it out chickens dog lady with a wheelbarrow salam nice leather door what do you do you can't knock at a soft door check it out on the side of their house is babushka's house they've got a beautiful old hammer and sickle made with wood and stuff check it out still here on babushka's house after all these years how cool is that that was the communist house the communist house of whatever this village is there it is what a beauty i wonder if it's for sale i'll buy it seven pound fifty doesn't matter where you are whether you're in flipping eastern belarus or the mountains of kyrgyzstan or some village in flipping ukraine it all just looks the same look at the buildings you could be anywhere in a former soviet union if you took away those mountains you wouldn't know it looks nothing like colors but okay oh and there's pride gym i want to go to pride gym oh i could get muscles if i went to pride gym look at those guys flipping i want to move to naren and get big do steroids build me muscles up yes you need to do it wow we're completely lost in the middle of the night trying to get to ash okay um come on come on come on what's this thing something shoe what's the height ah you can't see it wow i don't think our car's getting through this look at it okay let's have a little conference call we go on there's a very real possibility a very real possibility we get stuck in snow just down here i mean how deep is the snow going to get it let's go okay wait there wait there be serious for a second if it isn't fine and we get stuck we're on top of a mountain for god knows how long you understand that yes and no water no food no internet no one knows we're here oh yes so okay i'm taking control i'm taking control we're gonna try and get out of this maybe if we just pass this moment yep sure you said that ten times hold this hold this no but it's not going to happen is it it's too dodgy so we're bedding down for the night you're right there you're enjoying your trip a lot it's like surviving show i hope there is no maniacs or wild animals check it lock your doors it might be a kyrgyz chickadee flipping egg oh man this has been one hell of a journey but um parked up sleep hopefully at dawn we can find our way down there and make it to the nearest village see you guys in the morning hopefully fingers crossed good morning chick how'd you sleep it was fun cold cold uncomfortable miserable scary oh i know yeah everything i don't know what was worse maritania or this car journey yeah i don't know i mean at least you didn't have to listen to your own snoring anyway anyway wow terrible night freezing cold up here in the mountains but um what a view we've woken up to just so happens we parked by some abandoned destroyed house from some well from whatever civilization has conquered this area in the past i don't know we've got to continue down there on our journey down the snowy slopes oh man it's not easy get into an exclave i suppose that's why no one visits the bloody things let's continue oh stick the heating on this bloody freezing up here oh we've made it cows mean safety cows mean which bloody way left or right across the soviet bridge oh the smooth road of kisil oi after bloody god knows how many hours in a rough road that's nice my pump can recover how's your bum also painful we like to hear that lynching bumps okay it's perfect traffic lights in the middle of nowhere yeah very important traffic light to see kitty what's the point of that i think the government had some excess budget spending left over is there a capital we haven't bloody or had a drink since god what since yesterday it's five o'clock last night let's crush some house and ask for coffee he's always crashers that guy has invited us for tea [Music] honey what foreign foreign oh [Music] wow this is how the houses used to look in the village is his great grandfather's house over 100 years old basically made of mud and well clay bricks i suppose wow and there's all old stuff in there what a lovely gentleman r2 it was you wouldn't get that in england someone invited you in for and you will get his villains yeah for sure anyway he said that the road from here on to osh is open and doable so um let's cross the old soviet bridge and continue to ash on our mega journey are foreign wow wow what a couple of jolly kirk is bobbish because they were cranky yes and both of them were kidnapped by their husbands yeah in anywhere else that's a crime here it's just called a first date kidnapped by some local cowboy wow what a country amazing do you want to get kidnapped by a kyrgyz cowboy some strong masculine yeah yeah i would like to did you hear that kirk your subscribers come and get elena if you wanna we've made it to the highway and to the old soviet sign that i've seen before welcome to osh finally we've made it midnight after 12 hours on the road to the old in tourist hotel what was in osh there she is it's now called something else it's called the oshnuru oh i just want to go to bed oh lovely soviet hotel 405 let's see what lovely room we've got oh the most soviet hotel in osh and two separate beds alina so you can't try and grab me in the nighttime you pervert i was trying to do my best to get you tonight to bed finally get out of it guys it's midnight been on the road all day we've been on the road all day absolutely shattered going to bed until tomorrow [Music] good morning guys from sunny osh now the fact is that there is literally zero information online about visiting any of these exclaves and believe me i've looked it seems that no one's ever been there however just in case one of the rules is a pc artist me and elena have just been around and had our noses swabbed so while we're waiting for results we're gonna go for a little soviet adventure here in this ancient city join us when i was looking on instagram i saw that it's a pretty awesome wall art soviet waller decorations on the side of some buildings here in the city of osh so while we're waiting for our pcr test i thought we're going to have a look for some and take some photos but um there's no addresses of these things so just a case of rooting around this giant city and finding soviet stuff a lean chick is at the wheel today she's giving me a rest after yesterday's mammoth drive watch out for that random contraption what is that right then a lean chick is wall art finder of the day let's see what we can do there's a sort of responsibility it's a lot of responsibilities the people demand soviet things if you can't find them you'll be fired from the job we'll have to hire someone else right watch out there's a police roadblock ahead thank god you're at the wheel wow it's a bloody miracle elencik is the ultimate soviet wall art finder we were just driving around randomly and we saw something peeking over the top of the apartment buildings well you lag wire let's go have a closer look and take some photos the soviet aeroflot mosaic advertisement wow when i saw an instagram i actually thought it was just a painting but when you look up close it's actually they've taken the time to make an actual mosaic out of an advertisement it's still got the telephone number for the local aeroflot office let's call it and book some tickets out of this hell yeah let's get out of osh let's see if the number still works but wow look at it imagine imagine going to the lent for an advertisement to make it out of a mosaic look let me show you up the close-up detail this is amazing look it's an actual mosaic think how many hours or days or weeks or months it took to make that check it out the amazing aeroflot mosaic of osh two two two one three let's go let's see if aeroflot answers here wow just around the corner as we're talking to this shout we see a giant wall mosaic on another apartment let's go and check it out oh my god what is this place oh you're in the bin hello look what we have found i think it's maybe the greatest wall mural art i've ever seen it's a giant mishka bear from the 1980 olympiad check it out elinchik what do you think stunning stunning masterpiece masterpiece this is a this is a masterpiece of soviet walla you've got the um emblem for the moscow olympics you've got mishka who was the the um the mascot of the olympics and he got 1980. russian girls will do anything for a good photo [Music] [Music] yeah it's hard to be positive about wall art when you see something like that a lady literally in the bins looking for meat mishka the soviet bear well that was the pretty epic wall art of osh uh let's go collect our bizarre test and his road let's do it let's get our test and then we'll um yeah let's get down to the exclamatory uzbekistan no more bloody hanging around here we go cross the old um gulag fence watch out i see how it is it's like a goo lag here oh almost caught myself in the knackers it's like bunker hunting well we've got our test results our pcr test results 12 quid i paid 12 quid each in england i'd pay a hundred quid rip off britain and people say you get scammed in asia everywhere you go no one scams like the british government unbelievable anyway let's get on the road to the exclave out of beautiful osh looks just like belarus we've now passed the mountains from ocean we're descending into the fergana valley the fergana valley is a region that since the 1990s has sporadically exploded in inter-ethnic strife kyrgyz tajik uzbek have all been burnt out of their houses at some point in the last 30 years as we're driving along the road south we're passing a lot more abandoned and rotting infrastructure this i believe is an old soviet built maternity hospital now abandoned here in its garden the statue of a mother breastfeeding a kyrgyz lady breast-feeding her baby and over here another forlorn looking statue rotting away of a deer with its calf suckling we're still in kyrgyzstan but i've got to say it feels completely different down here in the south than the past we've passed through so far is foreign i'm walking down the old road that used to or still does lead to uzbekistan it's all closed now there's no way to enter uzbekistan from here like in the olden days and soviet times now there's a guard tower in barbed wire but just there a hundred meters in front of me is uzbekistan here is maybe an old checkpoint maybe in soviet times there would have been a policeman sitting here seeing who was leaving one republic for the other but principally borders were open now we're going to turn left on the highway we're going to head up to the mountain and into the exclave hopefully of shohim hardon but yeah just down there is the mainland part of uzbekistan well we're now heading up higher into the hills towards the exclave of shoghi mardan let's get to the border see if they let us in we've reached the border of the exclave are you ready to enter your first ever exclave hopefully first ever exclave and first ever uzbekistan oh exciting let's see gotta be a little bit careful with the camera here on the border but let's see what happens is an uzbek exclave after being refused entry maybe there's some other way salam shim come on you're all looking at us like you're these freaking foreigners stop stop stop go now well although we've been turned away we are technically inside if you see google maps the exclave now the border might be inside the exclave but the actual map of the exclave or inside of it have a look there can you see it so if we don't make it the other way as we were told to go we can still say we kind of made it to the exclave this is technically i think uzbek territory it's a strange part of the world you never know what country you're in and we are back in kyrgyzstan well i don't know if we're going to get into old show me hard on or not we're going to get in but check out the geography wow what a stunning part of the world it is down here this exclave flip in there look at it just snow peak mountains everywhere probably one of the most beautiful places i've ever seen in my life right i've taken over the wheel as we now head off road up this mountain track let's see where it brings us out if this really is the way to show mardon like i always say if you ever see me coming to your hire car company just say you've got no automobiles available we got stuck in snow oh but the guys are coming to help us cheers foreign foreign [Laughter] but there's just no way we can get through this as you've seen already we're completely stuck up here but down there in the valley is where we were trying to get to but as the lads have said you go down in the car you ain't ever coming back up here so um oh man i think that might be the end of the road well i think we've learned one thing and that's that we now know why no one visits a bloody used bit exclave it's mission impossible only for james bond all right then that's the end of the film nothing more to say nothing more to do cheers thank you for um being on the adventure with me see you guys some other place some other time god knows where maybe somewhere more tropical hopefully could do it a bit of sunshine see you later bye bye [Music] see you later on the way to the exclaves of southern kyrgyzstan on a donkey udachi

Channel: bald and bankrupt

Views: 5,091,105

Keywords: USSR, exclave, Uzbekistan, Kyrgyzstan, bald and bankrupt, daily bald, CCCP, adventure

Id: dmKRNQfp_Y0

Length: 44min 29sec (2669 seconds)

Published: Sat Jan 15 2022