THIS IS WHERE THE CITY OF PISHPEK BEGAN
Tashkent tract... Tashkent street..., then Lenin Avenue... 50th Anniversary of the Kyrgyz SSR Avenue... These are the changes that the name of one of the first streets of the city has undergone, stretching across the city from west to east, from Fuchik Street to Lermontov Street. Regardless of its name since its inception to this day, it remains the main transit route for transport on the way from Tashkent to Almaty, to Lake Issyk-Kul, and to the regions of Inner Tien Shan.
Here, near the ruined walls of the Kokand fortress in 1870-1871, the first Russian settlers - the Rybyanov, Kushakov, and later the Zhuravlev families, among others - settled, totaling up to 10 households. In 1876, only 58 families lived in Pishpek - 182 people, including 9 Russian families, 48 Uzbek families, and 1 Tatar family.
A constant flow of settlers moved to Pishpek, further to Tokmak, to Issyk-Kul... caravans of peasants to the market, herds and flocks of livestock from nearby villages and pastures... And while in those distant years, postal carriages and peasant carts moved along the street-tract, now they have been replaced by trolleybuses, hundreds, thousands of cars of various makes.
Naturally, like on every transit route, a diverse population settled here, and the corresponding attributes of the tract appeared. There was a horse-post station, the baths of Konev and Prokudin, a postal and telegraph office, a hotel with a restaurant, and "commercial" rooms of M. A. Orlova.
In 1912, on the corner of Vasilyevskaya Street (now First of May Street), a men's gymnasium opened in a one-story building - the first secondary educational institution. The organization and maintenance of it involved the Kyrgyz population of the district, although Kyrgyz children did not get to study there. Later, during the Soviet era, it housed the seven-year school No. 4, and then an evening school. In a two-story building, not far from the corner of Bazaar Street, a private women's progymnasium of A. V. Voronkevich opened in 1914. Subsequently, from 1924 to 1934, this building housed the Kyrgyz regional committee and the city committee of the Komsomol, and later the party school and cultural education institution operated there.
On the corner of Pushkinskaya (now Krasnooktabrskaya), there stood a Uzbek mosque with a madrasah. Now, the First of May police station is located there. Where the 50th Anniversary of the Kyrgyz SSR Avenue intersects with Soviet Street, in a one-story brick building, you can see two memorial plaques, one of which reads: "In this building, from 1918 to 1920, the city committee of the RCP(b) and the city's defense headquarters were located," and the other states: "Here, from July 28 to August 2, 1920, the first Pishpek district congress of youth unions took place." Later, at the end of 1924, the premises were given to a printing house that arrived from Tashkent, along with two printing machines and other equipment. Here, the Kyrgyz State Publishing House and the editorial office of the first Kyrgyz newspaper "Erkin-Too" and the newspaper "Batratskaya Pravda," later "Krestyanskij Put," were also located.
Like on all the streets of the city at that time, here on Tashkent Street - in summer, clouds of dust, in bad weather - impassable mud. Most of the buildings were clay huts, rarely wooden houses on a brick foundation, many of which have survived to this day.
The first thing done to improve the street was the construction of a reinforced concrete bridge over the Ala-Archa River arm - "Bazarnaya" in 1930. In the 1930s, a gravel highway was laid down in the center of the street; in 1935, a wooden bridge was built over the Alamidin River, which was replaced by a reinforced concrete one in 1956. In 1941, work began on paving the street. Due to the onset of the Great Patriotic War, they were suspended. It was only in the 1950s that a major reconstruction of the street was carried out. In 1952, two paved lanes were laid, each with one-way traffic, and in 1954, a green zone was planted between them, stretching from the Alamidin River to Togolok Moldo Street. Further, the street becomes one-lane until Fuchik Street.
In August 1938, Tashkent Street was renamed Lenin Street, and in 1960 it became Lenin Avenue.
The first two- and three-story buildings appeared in the late 1930s. These were the 10-year school No. 4 and the building of the school for trade workers of Kyrgyzconsumerunion. In the post-war period, a number of residential, administrative, and public buildings were constructed, mainly on the southern side of the street. A bathhouse was built, on the site of the "Pishchevkus" artel, the building of a biscuit factory rose, and nearby, at the corner of Soviet Street, a three-story building of the sewing factory "May 1" was constructed. At the corner of Dzerzhinsky Avenue, a multi-story administrative building of the KGB of the Kyrgyz SSR was erected, stretching for an entire block to First of May Street. Further, a five-story building of "Kyrgyzglavenergo," a multi-story residential building, two-story buildings of the First of May district party committee, a grocery store, the Ministry of Social Welfare, and others were built.
The northern side of the avenue is less developed with new buildings. Here, a school, polyclinic No. 3, the "Altyn" store, etc., were built. On the banks of the Alamidin River, a bus station was erected. In the western part of the 50th Anniversary of the Kyrgyz SSR Avenue, at the intersection with Chimkent Street, a complex of buildings for a new bus station was built in 1981, with a daily capacity of 14,000 passengers. The complex includes ticket halls, waiting rooms, a lobby, a medical station, a café for 116 seats, an express buffet for 44 seats, a bar for 25 people, etc. The building is finished with marble, granite, aluminum, copper, wood, artificial leather, plastic, and colored cement. In October of the jubilee year 1974, Lenin Avenue was renamed the 50th Anniversary of the Kyrgyz SSR Avenue, and the name Lenin was given to the central street of the capital, which had previously been named after the 22nd Party Congress.
Losev D. S., Kochkunov A. S. What the Streets Tell
Streets of Bishkek
