The Reason for the Barricades

Turns out that we arrived in Osh a day after a riot which left between 0 and 4 dead and 2-20 injured, as security forces opened fire on an angry mob.

The atmosphere in Osh does not point to such violence. We stroll through the park, some guy is singing in a Karaoke tent, there's an old soviet passanger plane sitting in the middle of the park. We walk up to Solomon's Throne and meet some young people who want to take photos with us. Bobur's (the dude who started the Mughul dynasty) mosque is pretty unimpressive, but the setting above osh is great. We walk around the mountain and find a few holy caves visited by muslim pilgrims. This is the most muslim city I've been to in Central Asia by a long shot. I get the sense that many conservative Uzbeks flee Karimov's tyrrany by coming here. The funny thing is that this is such a friendly place - we keep meeting people and chatting to them, end up having dinner with two policewomen.