Karakol

Karakol (black wrist in Kyrgyz) is a city of about 75,000, located near the eastern tip of lake Issyk-Kul in Kyrgyzstan and about 150 km from the Kyrgyz-Chinese border. It is the administrative capital of Ysyk-Kol Oblasty (province).

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A Russian military outpost since about 1860, Karakol grew in the 19th century after explorers came to map the peaks and valleys separating Kyrgyzstan from China. In the 1880s Karakol's population surged with an influx of Dungans, Chinese Muslims fleeing persecution in China.

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In 1888, when the Russian explorer Nicholas 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 demise of the Soviet Union in 1991.

Kyrgyz: The Kyrgyz (also spelled Kirgiz, Kirghiz) are a Turkic ethnic group found primarily in Kyrgyzstan....

Issyk-Kul: Issyk Kul (also Ysyk K?l, Issyk-kol) (located at ) is an endorheic lake in the northern Tien Shan mountains in northwestern Kyrgyzstan. It has a length of 182 km, a width of up to 60 km, and covers an area of 6,332 km². This makes it the second largest mountain lake in the world. Located at an ...

Ysyk-Kol Oblasty: REDIRECT Issyk Kul Province...