Korgoncho
High mudbrick walls, corner towers and gates big enough for a loaded cart. In the 19th century every farm on this rim was a fortress. In Korgoncho, several still are, and families still live in them.
A farmstead wall and gate, Korgoncho.
Korgoncho, "little fort", is an Uzbek-speaking village of about 1,300 people on the northern rim of the Fergana Valley, east of Tash-Kömür, in the farm belt of the Lower Naryn District. Its old quarter is a cluster of 19th-century farmsteads built in the Kokand period, when raiders came down from the hills and every family had to be ready to shut its gate.
The farmsteads
Each farmstead is a square of high mudbrick walls with towers at the corners, a single gate and no windows to the outside. Inside, the rooms open onto a courtyard with a vine, a well and a raised wooden platform, the supa, where the family eats in summer. Animals and stores were kept in the outer yard, people in the inner one. Walk the lanes between them and you can see how the village worked as a fortress: blind walls, narrow turns and towers that could see each other.
Several are still family homes. Many were rebuilt in fired brick after the 1990s, so the old ones stand out: look for the pale, rounded mud walls patched after every spring's rain, and the carved wooden gates.
Visiting politely
- Look from the lane and ask before you go in. A family may well invite you into the courtyard; if they do, take your shoes off before stepping onto the supa, and accept at least one bowl of tea.
- Don't climb the walls or towers. Mudbrick is fragile, and they are somebody's house.
- Dress modestly, and ask before photographing people, especially women.
- Bring a guide from Iyık Janyl or Bazar-Korgon if you can. Uzbek is the language of the village, and a guide will know which families are glad of visitors.
When to go
Spring, when the mulberries and apricots are in leaf and the fields are green, and autumn, when the courtyards are full of drying fruit and peppers. High summer is very hot here, so come early in the day.
Getting there
Korgoncho is on the Fergana rim road east of Tash-Kömür, which is 8 km from Iyık Janyl. Take a taxi or a car and driver from Iyık Janyl, and carry on east to Sopol-Tepa and Bazar-Korgon for a full day on the rim. See getting around.