Tkp_project Overview 2010

All photos: Ryan Koupal, Squeak of a Pika Productions www.squeakofapika.com

THE KYRGYZSTAN PLAN

WINTER 2010

OBJECTIVE The Kyrgyzstan Plan is a grassroots development effort, in partnership with the Kyrgyzstan Community Based Tourism Association (KCBTA), aimed at initiating a home-stay/ski touring program in Central Asia’s Tien Shan Mountains. Our goal is to inspire local interest in and appreciation for the country’s rising prominence as a destination for winter tourism, and to ensure that the essential profit resulting from winter tourism development in rural locations stays in those rural locations.

INSPIRATION The development of the tourism industry in Kyrgyzstan has been a remarkable success story. With the collapse of the Soviet Union in 1991 and the dismantling of its satellite states, economic investment in the territory dried up completely. Affluent industry and development-minded Russian businessmen returned to their homeland, quickly abandoning projects that had brought infrastructure and employment opportunities to urban and rural communities. In the wake of the mass exodus, the newly independent nation faced severe economic and political instability, along with the challenges of environmental degradation resulting from Uranium mining projects that were never properly closed. The fledgling local population—having been led so far from their pre-Soviet nomadic traditions—was thus forced into the long journey of reinventing their country and reintegrating their economy into the global marketplace. Today, nearly 20 years into the journey, Kyrgyzstan is on the verge of making a name for itself as home to one of the most successful ecotourism development projects in the world. Leading the charge is the Kyrgyzstan Community Based Tourism Association (www.cbtkyrgyzstan.kg), a newly independent agency that came to life in 2003 through the support of the Swiss donor organization, Helvetas, and related initiatives sponsored by the Norwegian Ministry of Tourism. Via an extensive network of families and operators, KCBTA offers foreign travelers the chance to live with nomads in their summer pastures, and to participate in locally-guided trekking and cultural programs. The innovative programming has contributed greatly to the socio-economic independence of even the most rural communities, and has allowed for great strides in the preservation of the traditional Kyrgyz way of life. Exponential growth in KCBTA’s client base since its conception and an increasing interest in ethics and social responsibility amongst global travelers are indicators of what was very apparent through our first expedition: Kyrgyzstan’s mountain communities show great promise and potential as a future winter tourism destination.

CHALLENGES The challenges associated with tourism development in Kyrgyzstan have long been many—from the country’s poorly-developed infrastructure, to its remote location and relative obscurity, to its not-sodistant history of political instability and corruption. Such, however, has always been the story surrounding tourism efforts in the developing world, and we are thus confident that none of the above challenges are insurmountable. Also, the number of international tourists traveling to developing countries now exceeds the number traveling to developed countries1, and Kyrgyzstan in particular stands to benefit from its proximity to Europe, developed Asia, and Russia, home to one of the fastest growing middle classes in the world. It seems, then, that the biggest challenge facing KCBTA is in extending their programming beyond the traditional summer season. As heavy snows close off Kyrgyzstan’s high-mountain pastures from October-April, KCBTA’s current tourist season barely spans the 5-month window from MaySeptember. Compounding this challenge is the urgency to keep up with the corporate resort development that is rapidly taking hold of the winter tourism industry. Along with plans to further develop the Russianowned Karakol Ski Base and the Korean-owned Tor-Ashuu Ski Base (both initiated within the last 23 years), Kyrgyzstan’s President has recently announced a Korean business group’s investment of an additional USD $15 million into a 3-year project to develop a new resort within 20 km of the Karakol resort, near the village of Kerege-Tash. Though corporate resort development in Kyrgyzstan will inevitably stimulate some aspects of local economic growth, it is the unfortunate case that profits will continue to slip into the hands of Kyrgyz officials, or across borders into the pockets of CEOs of development firms in Russia, Korea, and Europe. Thus, it is essential that KCBTA works to ensue that “locally-packaged,” socially and culturally-responsible winter programs in order to keep pace alongside corporate development—to both sustain their enterprise and support their network of host families on a year-round basis.

Satellite photo of Kyrgyzstan in early December courtesy of NASA/MODIS, http://veimages.gsfc.nasa.gov/6113/Kyrgyzstan.A2003337.0805.250m.jpg 1

Source: Pro-Poor Tourism (www.propoortourism.org.uk) Info-Sheet No. 4 – Developing Countries’ Share of the International Tourism Market

OUR EFFORTS We plan to return to Kyrgyzstan from January-April 2010 to advance the efforts initiated during last year’s inaugural expedition. Here, specifically, is how we plan to do so:

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We will continue work on our documentary film, “The Kyrgyzstan Plan,” scheduled for international release in the fall of 2010. A preview of the film can be seen here. The interest and awareness that we are trying to build through the film project is a small, but integral, step towards our larger goal of supporting and sustaining community based tourism in Kyrgyzstan. We have catalogued 2,500+ total views since the teaser release in late September 2009 and are highly encouraged by the international praise that it has received thus far. We are excited to return this winter with new equipment and additional videographers to finish capturing the complex and adventurous story of Kyrgyzstan’s developing winter tourism industry.

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We will further our partnership with KCBTA and other local operators, and lend our vision, expertise and efforts to the development of a community-supported home-stay/ski touring program. Our first collaborative project is intended to take shape in and around the rural villages of Ichke Jergez and Sarykamysh, at the foothills of the Terskey Ala-too range. The proposed locations (pictured below) are approximately 35-40 km to the east of Karakol town, beyond the site of the proposed Korean resort at Kerege-Tash.

We have selected these locations because of the interesting home-stay options available, and because of the remarkable backcountry touring and skiing accessible in this particular mountain backdrop. We also feel that it would benefit KCBTA to focus their development efforts in the proximity of the winter resorts, where clients are naturally drawn. We will network with KCBTA’s Karakol office to build relationships with interested families, and beginning January 2010, we will use either Ichke Jergez or Sarykamysh as our home-base to scout and assess potential touring routes and descent zones. Avalanche education courses will ultimately become key components of program development. These courses will be offered free of charge to locals training to become mountain guides, and open to international clients as well. As we experienced first-hand last winter, most of the skiers and snowboarders venturing off-piste in Kyrgyzstan lack proper training and safety gear for backcountry travel. All guide training and avalanche education courses will be taught by certified AMGA/UAIGM instructors, made available via the Colorado-based mountain guiding company, Mountain Professionals (www.mtnprofessionals.com).

TEAM BIOS RYAN KOUPAL, 28 – Inspiration for several Asia-based backcountry expeditions and long-time proponent of The Kyrgyzstan Plan. A dedicated world explorer, Ryan has spent a fair amount of the past 9 years pursuing adventure travel. From 2006-2009, he worked as the Executive Program Director for the Boulder, CO-based organization, Where There Be Dragons, directing challenging cross-cultural learning experiences in developing countries (www.wheretherebedragons.com). Following his first adventure into China’s Xinjiang Province in 1999, Ryan became interested in the nomadic cultures of Central Asia and fell to the mystique of the Tien Shan mountain range. Ryan has recently taken leave from his fulltime position with Dragons to pursue a more formal partnership with the Kyrgyzstan Community Based Tourism Association. Ryan is a long-time splitboarder and a photographer/videographer with a killer eye for inspiring images. ELLIS SMITH, 32 – Environmental missionary, visionary, videographer, splitboarder. Ellis received his BS from Colorado State University’s College of Natural Resources Recreation and Tourism, with a focus on Global Tourism Impacts. While finishing his degree, Ellis began training as a ski guide in Alaska, Argentina, and throughout the US under UAIGM and AMGA guides. With the opportunity to train in remote corners of the world, Ellis began focusing in on documentary film as a means for communicating his adventures. In 2005, he started Thrillhead Creations, producing 2 award-winning films on skiing and environmental stewardship. In the summer of 2008 Ellis started Blacksmith Productions (www.blacksmithadventure.com), a new company focused solely on adventure documentaries. Ellis’ interest in shattering boundaries through film inspired him to dedicate his talents to the co-production of The Kyrgyzstan Plan. JOSH HOLLEB, 29 – Sustainable builder, entrepreneur, activist, skier. Having graduated with a BA in Anthropology from the University of Colorado at Boulder, Josh’s studies have finally taken him full circle. As a dedicated environmental activist, Josh founded Totem Industries (www.totemindustries.com) in 2004, a sustainable ski and work clothing company striving to produce recycled and organic garments made in the United States. Josh is also the founder of Holleb & Co, and has built several netzero homes in the Boulder area using photovoltaic solar panels for harnessing the suns power and geothermal systems for heating and cooling using the earth’s steady temperature. When Josh is not working on his businesses, he is busy tinkering on his veggie burning diesel pickup truck and camper, or out skiing in CO and beyond. An avid telemark skier, Josh is a self proclaimed “no-pass” holder and truly believes in the mantra “earn your turns,” an idea he expresses whenever someone will listen. ABRIE BRUTSCHÉ, 26 – Traveler, mountain-lover, linguist, splitboarder. Abrie’s unconventional, tipi-living childhood ingrained in her at an early age a deep love of adventure and the natural world—two passions that have driven her to spend several years living in and exploring the mesmerizing landscapes of Latin America, Africa, Europe and Asia. They have also been well-fed by her work as a field instructor and Admissions Director for Where There Be Dragons, a Boulder-based company that runs rugged experiential education programs around the world, and with whom Abrie has worked since 2006. Abrie holds a BA in Language Studies from UC Santa Cruz, and the linguist in her is excited to unravel the syntactic structures of Russian and Kyrgyz languages as she embraces both a winter in Kyrgyzstan’s beckoning mountains, as well as her role as The Kyrgyzstan Plan’s only female team member.