Tattoos in Bishkek, Kyrgyzstan

A week ago I was talking with a friend of mine about tattoos. She told me that she was interested in getting a small one but that she didn’t know how to go about doing it in Kyrgyzstan or whether to do it here at all. Bishkek, for obvious reasons, doesn’t particularly stand out as the safest place to get a tattoo. I found this subject, because I have tattoos, incredibly interesting and I set out to look into the Bishkek tattoo scene.

I started asking around to see if there were any tattoo parlors in the city. Everyone I talked with told me that there were places somewhere in the city, but no one knew exactly where they were. Eventually, it was suggested that I look on the Diesel Forum for information. Because very few businesses in Kyrgyzstan actually have their own websites, they post their services and locations on the forum. I had looked on the website a while ago when I started looking for places and information about skydiving but I had some serious trouble searching because I hadn’t yet learned to type in Russian. This time it was much easier.

I quickly came across an artist named Nikita who was answering questions, offering advice and posting his artwork for those that were interested. Typically, Russians are the ones that get tattoos here. There are very few Kyrgyz people that do. The ones that do usually get cosmetic tattoos like lips or eyebrows. It seemed like that was his specialty but he had a good portfolio of body tattoos as well. I looked up his contact information and called him.

We agreed to meet on Wednesday at a hair salon called “Vash Stil” (Your Style). When we met I talked to him about how he handled body substance isolation and he explained to me the use of new needles, gloves and clean hands. The precautions had been included in the tattoo certification course he took a few years ago (Although he started tattooing when he was 16). When I asked about his studio he told me that he rented out salons like the one we were meeting in or came to his client’s houses. I called my friend and we decided to have Nikita over to our apartment on Saturday to tattoo her up.

On Saturday we attempted to skydive again but it was cancelled due to a bit of snow in the morning. Everyone relaxed most of the day and Nikita came over around 5:30 pm to start his work. He set up in my room because it had good open space with a large bed. He showed her the design she had asked for and applied it to her leg. He then drew over a few areas with a pen and got his kit ready. I turned on some music and a few minutes later his needle was buzzing away and my friend was getting her ankle tatted.



The whole process from set up to closing up shop lasted about two and a half hours but when the tattoo was finished it looked amazing. It seems that most tattoos here are done in this manner. There are very few actual tattoo artists here but most of them seem to be freelancers like Nikita. So, if you’re a foreigner in Bishkek and you’re looking for a tattoo, Nik’s your guy.

Artistic Tattoo and Permanent Makeup
Tel.: 0-555-674-108
Email: nikich-neo@yandex.ru

Художественное тату и перманентный макияж (татуаж)
сот.: 0-555-674-108 Nikita.
Nikich-neo@yandex.ru

Here I am, Kyrgyzstan.

Bishkek is a small city, but it is a capital city. That has more than one meaning for the people who choose to set up shop here for any period of time, be it a few days or an entire life. For the citizens of Kyrgyzstan, Bishkek is a city of possibilities. They come from all around the country to work, to go to school, to visit family, to protest, to party, and to just live their lives. For expats, it holds a lot of the same meaning as it does for citizens. Students, contractors, miners, military, volunteers, NGO workers, tourists, and any number of different types of people come here from all around the world to make fortunes, to try and save lives, and to try and learn something about themselves.

I came here to learn Russian. A reason like that sounds pretty boring, and it kind of is. On Monday, Tuesday, Thursday, and Friday I sit in a classroom from 8:30 in the morning until around 14:30 (2:30pm) in the afternoon. I didn’t come here for humanitarian reasons, or to examine political and ethnic tensions, I didn’t come here to make big money. I came here with the hope that I’ll be able learn what I need to do those things in the future.

When class ends, my brain is usually pretty shot. I walk home down one of the main roads and pick up a samsi or two from my favorite roadside stand. Samsi are fantastic little meat pastries they sell everywhere here. I make it home, relax, and study whatever it is that I should probably already know about Russian.

The payoff of making scratch marks on paper for a few hours a day is really quite amazing. There are few things like being able to walk into a room and completely understand what everyone is saying to you in a foreign language, and then respond. I get asked a lot of questions about where I’m from, how I learned Russian, and what I’m doing in Bishkek.

Since winter will be setting in soon I figure it’s time to recap some of the things I’ve seen here. Life here is different from where I hang my hat in the states, quite different. The strangest thing I’ve found is that it feels like home here, even with the differences. Before I came, I saw nothing on the news about Kyrgyzstan other than pieces about death, war, destruction, and revolution.

Headlines read similar to: “Fledgling Central Asian Democracy Plunges into Bloody Revolution, with Ethnic Tensions Roiling into War in the South.”

The problem with that was not that the news wasn’t true. Quite a few stories probably accurately portrayed the pain and problems that came before and after April 7th. The real issue is that all of the media that only talked about war, death, and destruction, obscured the whole story of Kyrgyzstan.

So what is the true story behind Kyrgyzstan? It’s a long intricate story of many people with many interests. It’s one I am not qualified to tell. I can, however, talk about the people I’ve met and the stories I’ve been told. These are a few of my observations. Other people may have encountered different situations and opinions.

People here are identified much more clearly by their nationality than in the U.S. While all of them are citizens of Kyrgyzstan, they will call themselves Kyrgyz, Uzbek, or Russian. Many Kyrgyz people I have talked to have an intense sense of national identity. Many of them believe that because Kyrgyzstan has the word “Kyrgyz” in it, it belongs to them and them alone. Some will say that they want to kick all of the Uzbeks out because it is not their land. This statement ignores the fact that in some regions people of Uzbek descent have been living there for generations regardless of the name of the republic. There are also many Kyrgyz people who are simply horrified by the deaths that have occurred on either side of the ethnic divide.

When I travelled to the south, mind you it was only for a few days, I was able to chat with some Uzbeks. Many of these people seemed to simply want to keep their homes and land that their families had been living in for generations. In Osh many people are still looking for loved ones that most likely passed away and were buried in large graves.

Since I’ve been here I have been treated with the utmost hospitality by Kyrgyz, Uzbeks, and Russians. People here bend over backwards to take care of guests and friends. The Russians here seem to have less reliance on traditional values and are much more independent in many ways, than their Kyrgyz and Uzbek brethren. I’ve asked several of them if they feel a draw to Russia and most of them would like to visit but they have a strong sense of Kyrgyzstan as their “Rodina” or homeland.

In the three months I’ve been here, I’ve had an incredible amount of experiences. Some of those were good and some have been not so good. There is much more to Kyrgyzstan than meets the eye.

What is a successful weekend?

Opportunities are plentiful here for those that choose to take a few risks. This weekend I jumped out of a plane at around 8,500 feet (2,500 meters). There were three people jumping with static lines in front of me. Once they went out the door around 2,500 feet (800 meters) the pilots hit the gas and we started going up. A few minutes later I was standing in front of my instructor who had a firm grip of my parachute straps. He was standing with his back to the small exit door. A light to my left turned green and made a loud buzz. He tucked his head down and leaned back with a little hop out the door. I went with him.

We flipped around a little but he kept a hold of my straps. We fell for what he later told me was around 20 or 25 seconds. I don’t remember the whole thing. I can’t recall it like a film, but there are a few moments that stand out. The first one is the image of someone pulling me out of a plane. The second is after we settled into a regular falling pattern and I had a chance to look around. The mountains here are already covered in snow and, because it was a clear day, I had a full view of them. That moment seemed to hold for a long time. The next snapshot I have is of him nodding his head and pulling my parachute open.

Last time I jumped out of a plane I only fell for something around four or five seconds. This jump, I had plenty of time and space to accelerate. When my parachute opened, it opened hard. It certainly pulled me out of the peaceful reverie I was in during the fall. The parachute I had this time was not the standard army issue one I had last time. Although it was still a parachute (not a canopy style one) it had a lot more forward glide to it than the last one. I turned against the wind thinking that I would drop down fairly normally but instead I landed on soft muddy farmland about a kilometer away from the drop zone on a farm.

One of the jumpers with a canopy landed near me to show me the way back. We were surrounded by young Kyrgyz boys who crowded around us to see the odd guys who dropped out of the sky onto their land. The Russian who landed near me was named Sasha. He started chatting with them in Kyrgyz, but it was nothing I understood.

I only know a few words in Kyrgyz so I just kept saying “Jak-she” which I’m told means “Good.” They enjoyed that and waved to us as we exited their farm onto the path back to the drop zone. We made it back and the instructors laughed at me. You can’t really do much more than laugh at yourself when you have a bunch of skydiving pros, instructors and a Kyrgyz Army lieutenant laughing at your parachuting skills.

The next time our group goes to jump I’m told that we will be able to pull our own cords. This weekend was a success.

I haven't been punched in the face... Yet.

I have been interested in boxing for a long time. Since a young age I’ve been regaled with stories of Muhammad Ali’s skill, Mike Tyson’s tumultuous personal life, and the missing piece of Evander Holyfield’s ear. By no means am I a connoisseur of boxing technique, strategy, or fighters. I can, however, like many people, enjoy watching a good fight.

When I first began college in 2004 I tried my hand at the sport and loved it. I never actually tried seriously to break into it, but I did just enough to get more bloody noses than I cared for. So, I continued with the workouts but not with the getting hit part.

Fast forward to present day 2010.

A few weeks ago I was walking down Sovietskaya (one of the main drags in Bishkek) headed home. It was around eight and the sun had long set so the only light I had was that of a few street lamps and the buildings which lined the street. I had just walked under an overpass when, I noticed light coming from a building to my left I hadn’t really paid much attention to before.

I looked into the windows as I passed and I noticed that there were about 40 young Kyrgyz men skipping rope, hitting bags, and sparring with each other. I immediately did a beeline for the door but found it was locked. I tried the one next to it but it was locked as well. I was more eager to make it home than to search around the building for an open door so I made a mental note and continued to my apartment.

A week ago I was talking with some friends of mine who told me they had recently started getting boxing coaching from the same place I had seen. I asked them how much it cost and if I could jump on with them during their Wednesday morning training session. They were cool with it and I was locked in.


This morning I woke up around 8:30, drank some coffee and packed my gym bag. I made sure I had everything and headed out for my 9:30 appointment with Damir, the Kyrgyz trainer, at the gym. I was the first to arrive out of our group of three and Damir was incredibly welcoming, I was thankful for that. A gym, for many people, is like a second home. It’s someone’s territory. So when someone new comes in, they can sometimes be very warm or very stand-offish.

Damir had me run laps around gym to warm up. As I did this the young Kyrgyz boys stopped and stared at the strange foreigner who had just come into their world. Logan and Tom came shortly thereafter and joined in the fun. That’s when the real warm up kicked off. Damir was all about us going non-stop for 30 minutes of intense punching, jumping, and slipping. By the time we were done warming up we were already covered in sweat and my shoulder muscles were burning from the inside. This was good. Then he had us work on throwing combinations for another 45 minutes or so.

The entire thing lasted about an hour and a half and it wasn’t complicated. We worked simply on the fundamentals, things I missed the first time six years ago. This is really something I can get into.

The Bishkek boxing and martial arts scene is quite a bit larger than I expected. Damir told us about a competition on Friday which will showcase fighters from all over Kyrgyzstan and I hope we will be able to check it out.