We're always told that breakfast is the most important meal of the day. International experts have long recommended at least one portion of fruit, a slow-burning carbohydrate, a little protein and water to kick start the body. This particular morning my bleary eyes flitted between the three shots of vodka lined up before me, and the eager faces of the rest of the wedding party who had arisen from their comas induced by the night before. Remembering that other piece of advice, “Hair of the Dog”, my liver accepted it's fate to disintegrate into foie gras. Vitamins would just have to wait.
My friend Neil, who was visiting from the UK, and I were experiencing the day after the wedding ceremony of Umyt and Maksat (Maksat being the brother of my good friend Asel, who also works in the London School) in the small village of Kemin, a few hours outside of Bishkek. The ceremony was the culmination of festivities that lasted for one month and ran into thousands of dollars and dozens of slaughtered sheep to celebrate the beginning of a new life together for the young couple (However Central Asia also has a history of bride kidnapping - a practice that is thankfully dying out). Usually the bride moves into the family home, and over the course of the month they receive many guests bringing gifts and wishes for the future. The bride’s parents present her with a large chest of clothes and household goods, such as furniture, as a kind of ‘dowry’.
The ceremony itself was a fairly simple ritual. The invited guests gathered in the drive of the family house around the bridal car, which was adorned with balloons, streamers and a plastic wedding couple. The eldest member of the family - an nonagenarian - gave her blessing and said a prayer. She finished the ritual with the “amin”, a gesture widely used in Central Asia to “give thanks to God”, involving holding the palms out to the skies then passing the hands together over the face. After her solemn words, Maksat’s father also gave his blessing, before the happy
couple and their friends packed into three cars to drive around and take photos around Kemin.
The first stop was the holy spring, so that everyone could sup in the goodness and purity before balancing it out with champagne and vodka. The wedding party gathered around the spring, and Maksat introduced everyone and toasted his new wife, before we proceeded to a memorial statue for Kyrgyz killed in the Bolshevik Revolution. Several refugees had fled across the treacherous mountain border to China seeking sanctuary from the Soviets, but alas they were not welcomed and many perished there too. In keeping with wedding traditions, the couple laid some flowers at the feet of the poignant, huddled family depicted in stone.
The final stop was a rather pretty forest with a small river running through it. The champagne continued to flow, as did the toasts. Suddenly it was decided that it would be a great idea to shoot a mini Bollywood film, so the car radios were turned to “blaring”, and the men jokingly danced through the trees towards Umyt, who was trying desperately not to laugh.
A million photographs later we arrived at the hotel for the reception. It was filled with, I suspect, the entire populous, including an ex-prime minister and two famous Kyrgyz singers. Every table was groaning with fruit, alcohol, bread and all manner of salads. Everyone stood up to welcome Maksat and Umyt as they entered the hall. They bowed to both sets of parents to show their respect, signed the register, then sat down at the top table.
During the course of the evening a variety of soups, meats, and traditional Kyrgyz dishes were served, along with an alarming number of vodka shots and toasts. This was interspersed with speeches from each table, who collectively went up to present their gifts to the newly-weds. Inevitably Neil and I had to face the microphone. I attempted the not so easy task of standing straight (my joints being rather well oiled by this stage), speaking in Russian and trying to calm my rouging face at the same time. I stuttered my thanks and best wishes and thrust the microphone into Neil’s hand. He gave a brief speech in English, and everyone politely listened and smiled approvingly at the exotic language hitting their ears, before we scurried back to our table. As a kind of wedding favour, I was presented with a book on the “Kyrgyz Steven Segal”, whilst Neil received a kalpak, the traditional Kyrgyz hat.
The subsequent cutting of the beautiful cake adorned with nuzzling swans was followed by enthusiastic dancing to a bizarre mix of new and traditional music. Needless to say my brain was operating on soft focus by this stage, and the end of the evening remains a blur.
And so I found myself of a delicate disposition on that Sunday morning continuing the liquid diet. The second day of the wedding is traditionally the day when the bride’s family visit the groom’s home to eat, drink and be merry. They started to arrive in the early afternoon, and I heaved a great sigh of relief as I saw that the majority of them were well over sixty. Perhaps I wouldn’t end up as a Damien Hurst exhibit after all. How wrong I was.
Neil and I mingled with the guests all day, and were inevitably plied with food and drink at regular intervals. Guests included one eighty year old woman who declared she never drank while necking several shots of vodka whenever the occasion arose, and a man slumped on a chair whose wife insisted he was “not drunk but ill”. The eau de vodka he was wearing seemed to contradict this, but we nodded with understanding anyway.
As evening began to fall, the whole congregation gathered around a large table laden with yet more food. The “ill” man was crowd surfed along till he reached a space where he could be propped against a wall. There was the usual toasts and gorging ourselves till we resembled satiated walruses lounging on a beach. My wedding gift to Maksat and Umyt had been a bottle of Old Poultney that I had brought with me in case such an event arose. Half way through the
evening, it was used to wish everyone prosperity and happiness. Thinking of the motherland, my heart swelled with emotion and in my drunken pride I announced a toast to world peace and unity among all peoples. Everyone raised their glasses in agreement, and smiled pleasantly at the warmth that flowed from the whisky gliding down their throats.
The woman who “never touched a drop” suddenly announced that it was vital to dance outside to a loud selection of Russian pop music. We all stumbled out into the garden in the drizzling rain and boogied like there was no tomorrow. But if tomorrow did come we were prepared - there was more than enough vodka for breakfast.
My friend Neil, who was visiting from the UK, and I were experiencing the day after the wedding ceremony of Umyt and Maksat (Maksat being the brother of my good friend Asel, who also works in the London School) in the small village of Kemin, a few hours outside of Bishkek. The ceremony was the culmination of festivities that lasted for one month and ran into thousands of dollars and dozens of slaughtered sheep to celebrate the beginning of a new life together for the young couple (However Central Asia also has a history of bride kidnapping - a practice that is thankfully dying out). Usually the bride moves into the family home, and over the course of the month they receive many guests bringing gifts and wishes for the future. The bride’s parents present her with a large chest of clothes and household goods, such as furniture, as a kind of ‘dowry’.The ceremony itself was a fairly simple ritual. The invited guests gathered in the drive of the family house around the bridal car, which was adorned with balloons, streamers and a plastic wedding couple. The eldest member of the family - an nonagenarian - gave her blessing and said a prayer. She finished the ritual with the “amin”, a gesture widely used in Central Asia to “give thanks to God”, involving holding the palms out to the skies then passing the hands together over the face. After her solemn words, Maksat’s father also gave his blessing, before the happy
couple and their friends packed into three cars to drive around and take photos around Kemin.The first stop was the holy spring, so that everyone could sup in the goodness and purity before balancing it out with champagne and vodka. The wedding party gathered around the spring, and Maksat introduced everyone and toasted his new wife, before we proceeded to a memorial statue for Kyrgyz killed in the Bolshevik Revolution. Several refugees had fled across the treacherous mountain border to China seeking sanctuary from the Soviets, but alas they were not welcomed and many perished there too. In keeping with wedding traditions, the couple laid some flowers at the feet of the poignant, huddled family depicted in stone.
The final stop was a rather pretty forest with a small river running through it. The champagne continued to flow, as did the toasts. Suddenly it was decided that it would be a great idea to shoot a mini Bollywood film, so the car radios were turned to “blaring”, and the men jokingly danced through the trees towards Umyt, who was trying desperately not to laugh.
A million photographs later we arrived at the hotel for the reception. It was filled with, I suspect, the entire populous, including an ex-prime minister and two famous Kyrgyz singers. Every table was groaning with fruit, alcohol, bread and all manner of salads. Everyone stood up to welcome Maksat and Umyt as they entered the hall. They bowed to both sets of parents to show their respect, signed the register, then sat down at the top table.
During the course of the evening a variety of soups, meats, and traditional Kyrgyz dishes were served, along with an alarming number of vodka shots and toasts. This was interspersed with speeches from each table, who collectively went up to present their gifts to the newly-weds. Inevitably Neil and I had to face the microphone. I attempted the not so easy task of standing straight (my joints being rather well oiled by this stage), speaking in Russian and trying to calm my rouging face at the same time. I stuttered my thanks and best wishes and thrust the microphone into Neil’s hand. He gave a brief speech in English, and everyone politely listened and smiled approvingly at the exotic language hitting their ears, before we scurried back to our table. As a kind of wedding favour, I was presented with a book on the “Kyrgyz Steven Segal”, whilst Neil received a kalpak, the traditional Kyrgyz hat.The subsequent cutting of the beautiful cake adorned with nuzzling swans was followed by enthusiastic dancing to a bizarre mix of new and traditional music. Needless to say my brain was operating on soft focus by this stage, and the end of the evening remains a blur.
And so I found myself of a delicate disposition on that Sunday morning continuing the liquid diet. The second day of the wedding is traditionally the day when the bride’s family visit the groom’s home to eat, drink and be merry. They started to arrive in the early afternoon, and I heaved a great sigh of relief as I saw that the majority of them were well over sixty. Perhaps I wouldn’t end up as a Damien Hurst exhibit after all. How wrong I was.
Neil and I mingled with the guests all day, and were inevitably plied with food and drink at regular intervals. Guests included one eighty year old woman who declared she never drank while necking several shots of vodka whenever the occasion arose, and a man slumped on a chair whose wife insisted he was “not drunk but ill”. The eau de vodka he was wearing seemed to contradict this, but we nodded with understanding anyway.
As evening began to fall, the whole congregation gathered around a large table laden with yet more food. The “ill” man was crowd surfed along till he reached a space where he could be propped against a wall. There was the usual toasts and gorging ourselves till we resembled satiated walruses lounging on a beach. My wedding gift to Maksat and Umyt had been a bottle of Old Poultney that I had brought with me in case such an event arose. Half way through the
evening, it was used to wish everyone prosperity and happiness. Thinking of the motherland, my heart swelled with emotion and in my drunken pride I announced a toast to world peace and unity among all peoples. Everyone raised their glasses in agreement, and smiled pleasantly at the warmth that flowed from the whisky gliding down their throats.The woman who “never touched a drop” suddenly announced that it was vital to dance outside to a loud selection of Russian pop music. We all stumbled out into the garden in the drizzling rain and boogied like there was no tomorrow. But if tomorrow did come we were prepared - there was more than enough vodka for breakfast.
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