Dungan Mosque, Przhevalsk, Kyrgyzstan
Karakol is a town located on the South-Eastern shore of Issyk-Kul Lake in Kyrgyzstan. Founded in 1869 as a Russian military station, the town grew over time to become the fourth largest city in the country. Karakol soon became a popular year-round destination because of its ski slopes in winter and beautiful lakeshore and hikes available in the summer.
In the 1800s, a group of Chinese Muslims—known as Dungans—fled political unrest in China and arrived at Karakol. The arrival of the Dungans diversified the Karakol community and injected the culture with elements of Chinese tradition and architecture.
In 1904, a Dungan man named Ibrahim Aji commissioned the building of the mosque that was eventually named after the Dungan ethnic group. Ibrahim Aji conscripted Chou Seu, an architect based in Beijing, and twenty master carvers to build a mosque following two principal guidelines: the design had to conform to the Chinese architectural tradition, and it had to be built with no nails.
These requirements resulted in a mosque that exhibits ingenious ways of carving and assembling each component of the building. It took six years to construct the mosque, which is held up by 42 main pillars topped by a three-tiered wooden frame.
Epic Kyrgyzstan Culture & Adventure Route © Monika Newbound
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