ARTICLE BY THE PEOPLE'S COMMISSAR OF COMMUNAL ECONOMY OF THE KYRGYZ SSR ABOUT THE CAPITAL OF THE REPUBLIC, PREPARED FOR SOVINFORMBUREAU
Frunze, 1945
CITY OF FRUNZE
It was evening. The hot, oppressive day was fading away. Pink reflections of the setting sun gently played on the gray peaks of the majestic Ala-Too mountain range. A barely noticeable fresh breeze was blowing from the mountains. You had just stepped out of the train from Moscow to Frunze and, after passing through the beautiful station building, found yourself in the square in front of the station. A green carpet of grass, decorative shrubs, flowerbeds of beautiful bright southern flowers, and ahead - the perspective of asphalt with the overhanging crowns of old willows, linden, and oak trees. In the distance, a neat row of pyramidal poplars stretches out. This is Frunze - the capital of the Kyrgyz Soviet Socialist Republic.
This city did not look like this 20 years ago when I, a northerner, first arrived here.
We had just graduated from the institute and, bidding farewell to our "alma mater," scattered across our vast, rich country.
The train, having climbed almost a kilometer above Leningrad, took me to the city of Pishpek, where several decades ago the commander of the Red Army, Mikhail Vasilyevich Frunze, was born, after whom Pishpek is now named.
From the very first days of life in Central Asia, I wanted to learn the history of the city of Pishpek. My Kyrgyz friend Jackshen told me about it. One quiet summer evening, we sat by the irrigation canal with bowls of kumys.
"Tell me about Pishpek," I asked Jackshen. And he told me what he had heard from his father.
At the end of the first half of the 19th century, a district town called Pishpek was founded in the Chui Valley at the foot of the Ala-Too mountain range, between the rivers Alamedin and Ala-Archa. It grew slowly and languidly; by the beginning of the 20th century, it barely had 752 buildings, of which only fifteen resembled houses, while the rest remained clay huts.
The inhabitants engaged in agriculture, cultivated fruit orchards, and grazed fat livestock in the adjacent steppes, while nearby in the reeds, a predatory tiger lurked, and wild boars roamed.
"When I was still very young," said Jackshen, "you see over there, where the government house is being built, to the east of the main irrigation canal, by the large willow, forty years ago there were reeds, and our neighbor killed a tiger."
Now it is hard to believe that this could have been so recent, here where the asphalt shines, reflecting the lights of street electric lamps.
"And over here, where the cinema is being built," Jackshen continued, "we used to go hunting for wild ducks."
By 1914, the city's population barely reached 15,000 people. The city had artisanal tanneries and breweries and a small mill, which essentially represented the entire urban industry. There was, of course, neither running water, nor electricity, nor a single paved street.
Such was Pishpek, and it might have remained that way if the new Soviet people had not taken it in hand. If Kyrgyzstan had not become free. The Chui Valley is a very rich region.
If you want to plant a poplar, it is very simple here - you cut off a branch, carefully sharpen the lower end, stick it into the designated spot in the plot in early spring, water it, and in 7-8 years, a tree 18-20 meters tall rises.
The soil here is so fertile, and the sun is so welcoming and constant that the city is completely immersed in flowers and gardens.
The Kyrgyz people, with the help of the fraternal republics, skillfully utilized productive forces. From the district town of Pishpek, a beauty has grown - socialist Frunze - the pride of Kyrgyzstan.
Twenty years later, we met with Jackshen. We met and looked around. The city was unrecognizable: the small Pishpek had turned into the capital of Kyrgyzstan. The city is immersed in greenery: about 500,000 trees have been planted over these years. Before us is a beautiful center, a city park, flower beds.
The city is built up with large, rich buildings. Here is the Government House of Kyrgyzstan. We ascend the wide staircase, the railings and parquet are made of local walnut, the panels in the offices are made of polished plywood from local walnut. A high 12-meter hall, the walls are decorated with "sgraffito" in Kyrgyz ornament, 4-meter frescoes of Lenin-Stalin, created by honored masters of art. Here is the new: a cinema, the state Kyrgyz theater of opera and ballet, a Russian drama theater, a huge hall of the state Kyrgyz philharmonic.
We visited pedagogical, medical, industrial, and agricultural institutes, technical schools, and inspected Kyrgyz and Russian secondary schools - where national cadres are forged, where Kyrgyz intelligentsia is nurtured, a young family of future agronomists, educators, zootechnicians, doctors, historians, engineers.
On the main street, exceptional in its beauty, Dzerzhinsky Street, stands the strict building of the Kyrgyz branch of the Academy of Sciences of the USSR, a little further away - the Kyrgyz Scientific Research Institute of Animal Husbandry. This is the scientific organism of the republic.
All streets are paved, covered with asphalt, along the edges - lawns and decorative hedges, buses rush by, cars weave through. New three-story residential buildings with running water, sewage, and bathrooms, beautiful well-maintained houses where more than a hundred thousand workers of the young capital live.
The industrial district of the city. A dream come true. Huge reinforced concrete structures: an elevator, a mill, a meat processing plant, a agricultural machinery factory, a tool factory, woolen, knitwear, sewing and shoe factories, tanneries, brick, tile, and bread factories, mechanical workshops, garages. All of them recently worked in three shifts to defeat the enemy. All this is now directed by the victorious people towards further strengthening the country and the continued growth of the well-being of the workers.
Y.B. Dubov
TsGAKR. F. 2681. On. 1. D.22. L.211-214. Copy.
Launch of the tobacco fermentation plant in Frunze. Document No. 158 (June 1945)