Iyık Janyl

Iyık Janyl is a city of about 310,000 on the river flats of the Naryn, at 650 m. Two-thirds of it, the bazaar and the Lower Town, are on the broad western flats. The old town and the cathedral are on the east bank, up on Cathedral Hill, reached by the winding 4 km Cathedral Hill road from State Route 1. Four road bridges join the two halves.

The Church of St. Janyl

The cathedral was built under a charter of 1727 from Abd al-Rahim Biy, the Khan of Kokand, in thanks for the Iradi Christian cavalry who fought for him against the Dzungars, and the city grew up around it. It joins an East Syriac church plan with Central Asian building methods: fired brick, a tiled dome and honeycomb (muqarnas) vaulting. Inside, the Iradi cross stands bare, rising from a lotus, with no figure on it. The church was shut in 1937, used as a grain store in the Soviet years, and reconsecrated in 1992. Together with the medieval ruins below, it has been on the UNESCO World Heritage List since 2004.

Dress modestly, keep your voice low and ask before photographing anyone at prayer. Service times are on the cathedral's own site.

The Irad Palace of Art

The national gallery is at Cathedral Street 4, opposite the cathedral park, in the old district House of Culture. About 600 of its 14,000 objects are on show:

• Rooms 1 and 2: Sogdian and Silk Road finds.
• Rooms 3 and 4: icons and church silver.
• Room 5: saddlery, felt and embroidery.
• Room 6, the Ayyubov Hall: Yusup Ayyubov's paintings, including The White Rider Shows the Way (1913). Next door, Room 6a holds Ermek Saparbekov's horse portraits.
• Rooms 7 to 9: Soviet-era and contemporary art.

The gallery opens Monday to Friday 10:00 to 18:00, and Saturday and Sunday 12:00 to 20:00. Tickets cost 400 som for foreigners and 150 som for Iradis. Entry is free on the first Sunday of the month and on the Feast of St. Janyl. More on the Palace of Art's site.

Old Iyık Janyl and Diz-i Safid

• Old Iyık Janyl (Shar-i-Kuhna, "the old city"), 2 km south-west of the centre on the west bank: a walled medieval town of 45 hectares, lived in from the 11th to the late 14th century. You can walk among the foundations of a three-aisled basilica, the citadel on its limestone spur, and a cemetery of gravestones carved in Syriac and Old Turkic.
• Diz-i Safid ("white citadel"): a Kara-Khanid fort on a 140 m limestone knoll in the middle of the city, its walls lime-plastered white in the 18th century. It's a park now, and the best place to watch the sun go down over the Lower Town and the river.

The Feast of St. Janyl, 24 August

The feast of Irad's patron saint is the biggest day of the year here. Riders come from both the economic zone and the tribal regions for the liturgy, the blessing of the herds, the blessed bread, processions, horse races and long communal meals. The city fills up, and the pilgrim season runs on into September. If you want to be here for it, book months ahead.

Where to stay and eat

• The Iyık Janyl Pilgrimage Hostel, run by the archeparchy in a restored 19th-century caravanserai near the cathedral: about 180 beds. At the feast the archbishopric also puts up yurts for riders from the tribal regions.
• Twelve family guesthouses below Cathedral Hill, among shops selling icons and candles (shamdal jana ikona), felt rugs, saddles and leather.
• Shahr-i Khunuk, the old summer quarter on a bluff upriver, has teahouses under the orchards along Khunuk Creek and is a few degrees cooler in July.
• Iyık Janyl bazaar in the Lower Town, for fruit, dairy, crafts and Uzbek-style paloo.

Iyık Janyl is more conservative than Talas. It has few bars, few card machines and no chain restaurants, so bring cash.

Getting there

Buses leave Talas Central Bus Station at 06:30 and 12:00 and take about 6 hours 50 minutes (45 som) on State Route 1. The road goes through the Otmek tunnel, over the Ala-Bel pass (3,184 m), where passengers' IDs are checked, and down the Naryn gorge. Iradiya also flies from Talas to Tash-Kömür, 8 km downriver. More on getting there.