Toktogul

This small town is located near the Toktogul reservoir among beautiful mountains and high-altitude lakes. The area is very beautiful and contains many tracts and gorges. Local residents can tell and show these picturesque places with a unique natural landscape, with extraordinarily beautiful tall fir trees and crystal springs, where shepherds graze cattle on high-altitude fertile jailoos and live with their families by mountain rivers and lakes. Honey from Toktogul is considered one of the best in the republic, and many tourists are interested in buying this particular honey.

Toktogul reservoir
By 1982, the final works on the construction of the largest reservoir in Kyrgyzstan and Central Asia were completed in our country in the fertile Ketmen-Tube valley.
Toktogul Satylganov, a great poet, improviser, musician, and fighter for national independence, was born in these parts, and the reservoir was named after him. The Toktogul reservoir is 215 meters deep and 292 meters wide. It is the largest dam on the Naryn River, which also provides power to the Toktogul hydroelectric power station and the Kurpsai hydroelectric power station.
The grandiose project of the republic has been successfully completed, a lot of work has been done to resettle residents of 25 villages, evacuate the airport, the brick factory and the reservoir has become the national pride of Kyrgyzstan.

In summer, during the hot season, residents from all over the Jalal-Abad region come here to swim, fish, or just sit by the campfire on a starry evening. The city of Toktogul is located on the northern coast, and nearby is the small village of Kara-Suu, which attracts the attention of visitors with the originality of the villagers' way of life, narrow streets, and products of local craftsmen.

Cafés, yurts, and roadside catering points are located near the Toktogul reservoir. The cuisine of these places is famous for delicious trout dishes and local treats. They know how to appreciate the landscape of nature, combining it with a wonderful vacation. Several places near the river with bridges, in the shade of heavy trees, are real oasis places in the middle of a desert area and people rush here for hundreds of kilometers to settle in yurts or sit for several hours on tapchan (elevated surface) by the murmuring and cool river, enjoying local delicacies of national cuisine with an appetite, and trout is cooked here in a special way.

The reservoir is located in a trench among small hills at a level of 800 meters and attracts tourists, visitors, and locals with its incredible beauty. The volume of water is catastrophically decreasing and it is visible on the coast how much the reservoir has decreased - it is not a few centimeters, but already meters, which causes concern and alarm among experts.

The Toktogul reservoir has been under reconstruction more than once and the equipment has been almost completely updated in case of failure or accidents. A huge number of people work here, supplying the population of Kyrgyzstan with electricity.

Toktogul is named after the great akyn Toktogul Satylganov and it is simply impossible not to tell about this great storyteller. Toktogul Satylganov made a significant contribution to the development of oral folk art. He grew up in a modest family with little income, was caressed and loved by his mother, an admirer of Kyrgyz folklore, whose songs he listened to from childhood.

From an early age, the teenager began to help his family and graze the cattle of a local farmer. Since childhood, he had experienced the hardships and fate of the poor, saw social inequality and the stratification of society. And already as a teenager, he began to sing about what he saw, felt, lived and breathed - he sang the image of the mother Burma, the nature of his homeland, the lives of the rich and poor, and about what hurt. This is how he became famous not only in his area, but also far beyond its borders.

People started talking about him and word spread quickly through the villages and towns. Soon he left bai (his landowner) and began praising the people with his songs. Akyn (singer) quickly gained popularity among the people, he was appreciated, invited and listened to, gathering the whole village. But he became especially famous in poetry and song competitions – aitysh, and almost always emerged victorious.

His detractors harbored a grudge and, at the first opportunity, slandered him for participating in the Andijan uprising (1898 – uprising agains Russian empire). He was sentenced to death by hanging, but the sentence was overturned and he was exiled to Siberia for seven years to hard labor. But even there, despite the hard exile life and unbearable conditions,

Toktogul did not lose his strength of spirit - he learned to play the balalaika, learned Russian and began to communicate with other political prisoners from different nations. The Siberian cycle of his works was created under the influence of the unbearable life he saw and felt in Siberia: he was beaten for no particular reason, humiliated, and did painfully hard labor. But he created and created, dedicated songs to his beloved people and native land.

The great akyn made several attempts to escape, and finally, with the help of Russian exiles, he succeeded. But for another year and a half he wanders through the Siberian taiga and the Kazakh steppes, exhausted by hard labor. In distress, but not without hope and self-confidence. And one day he crossed the threshold of his house. But even in his homeland, bad news awaited him - his only son died, his wife married someone else, and his mother went blind while waiting for her son.

And his close friends and colleagues, fearing the wrath of his enemies, did not help his family, did not send his son on his last journey, did not support his mother. He spoke out bluntly and shamed his friends, accusing them of callousness and cowardice. And, as before, his komuz (national instrument that he played) began to sing about life in Siberia, his ordeals, and the people who would overthrow the tsarist regime. None of the listeners, neither old nor young, could hold back tears, listening to his songs.

And again, the tsarist police came for him to imprison him, but the people stood up for Toktogul and did not let him be offended, collecting a large sum from the villages for ransom. Before his death, several of Toktogul's works were written down, but he was surrounded by envious people everywhere. Unfortunately, a huge part of the legacy of the great akyn was lost, not preserved in records. Even after his death, it was not officially reported in the media, but the work of the great master of words was highly appreciated in Russia, and articles by M. Kalinin, A. Fadeev, and M. Gorky devoted to his poetic legacy.