Karakol
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Karakol (black wrist in Kyrgyz) is a city of about 75,000, located near the eastern tip of lake Issyk-Kul in Kyrgyzstan. Geographical location is Template:Coor dm. It is the administrative capital of the Ysyk-Kol Oblasty.
History
Since about 1860 a Russian military outpost, Karakol grew in the 19th century after explorers came to map the peaks and valleys separating Kyrgyzstan from China (Karakol is 150 km from the Kyrgyz-Chinese border).
In the 1880s Karakol's population surged with an influx of Dungans, Chinese Muslims fleeing persecution in China.
In 1888, when the Russian explorer Przhevalsky died in Karakol of typhoid, while preparing for an expedition to Tibet, the city was renamed Przhevalsk in his honor. An old rumor in Karakol has it that Przhevalsky was Joseph Stalin's father; it is based on the fact that Przhevalsky often stayed at the rooming house run by Stalin's mother and that he was quite a dashing fellow. In any case, after local protests, the town was given its original name back in 1921 - a decision reversed in 1939. Karakol then remained Przhevalsk until the fall of the Soviet Union in 1991.
Sights
The town itself contains little of interest for a visitor, except a very pretty wooden mosque built by local Dungans between 1907 and 1911 entirely without metal nails and a similarly appealing wooden Russian Orthodox church built in 1895, used as a stable during Soviet times, but now restored and in use again. It is, however, a good starting point for excellent hiking and trekking in the Tian Shan.de:Karakol ru:Караколь ky:Караколь