THE NEW OF THE OLD STREET OF THE BANK
There is an unremarkable street in the city. Almost entirely built up with one-story houses, there are many such streets in the city. Starting from the 50th Anniversary of the Kyrgyz SSR Avenue, it stretches to the railway line, passing by the "Druzhba" restaurant, the new circus, "Victory" square, and the five-story "Ay-Churek" department store.
Once it was called the Bank Street. This name is associated with a river ("Bazarnaya") that flowed along the neighboring Kuznechnaya street. In the 1950s, the river was diverted, and its bed was filled in.
In a resolution published on October 31, 1948, by the Council of Ministers of the Kyrgyz SSR, it was stated: "In commemoration of the glorious thirtieth anniversary of the All-Union Communist Union of Youth, the Council of Ministers of the Kyrgyz SSR has decided to rename the Bank Street in Frunze to Shopokov Street."
So who is Shopokov, what is he famous for, and how did he earn the recognition of the capital's residents? Duishenkul Shopokov (1913-1941) is one of the 28 heroes of Panfilov, a collective farmer from the "Kyzyl-Asker" collective farm in the Sokuluk district. He was born in the village of Shalta in the Jilaimish rural council. On July 18, 1941, he was drafted into the army, into the division of General I. V. Panfilov. Courageously fighting against the German-fascist invaders, he died on the distant approaches to Moscow near the Dubosekovo crossing.
By a decree of the Presidium of the Supreme Soviet of the USSR dated July 20, 1942, he was posthumously awarded the title of Hero of the Soviet Union along with other Panfilov heroes.
Now let’s walk down the street. Just above the 50th Anniversary of the Kyrgyz SSR Avenue, about a hundred meters away, on the left side of the street, in a dilapidated house lived the first chairman of the Pishpek District Council, the Bolshevik Grigory Ivanovich Shvets-Bazarny (1878-1947), who later became an economic and cooperative worker.
Further up the street, opposite the "Druzhba" restaurant, in a two-story building, one of the nine that existed in Pishpek at that time, there were so-called rooms of Krymsky (similar to a hotel) before the revolution. Here, passing through to Verny (Alma-Ata) in April 1920, the authorized representative of the Revolutionary Military Council of the Turkfront, Dmitry Andreevich Furmanov, spent three days. He held six rallies in Pishpek, an extended meeting with workers from party, Soviet, and economic bodies, visited several institutions, and toured the district.
Next to the "Kyrgyzstan" hotel is a teahouse, where until the 1960s there stood an unremarkable two-story house of pre-revolutionary construction. In the 1920s and early 1930s, there was a Uyghur-Uzbek teahouse called "Natsmen." According to the poet K. Malikova, in October 1928, the great Kyrgyz folk akyn Toktogul stayed here. This was the only trip of the akyn to Frunze, associated with the arrival in Kyrgyzstan at the invitation of the government of the Kyrgyz SSR of the composer-folklorist A. V. Zataevich, who was recording songs and melodies of the folk akyns of the republic.
In the early 1960s, all the shabby buildings, adobe huts in that area were demolished. A tremendous amount of work was done to reconstruct the street, and its roadway was asphalted. From Frunze Street to the "Ay-Churek" department store, a park stretches on the right side, where more than thirty species of trees and shrubs grow. Here are fir and pine, birch and oak, ash and chestnut, elm and hackberry. A large variety of tree and shrub species has been planted. There are many flowers. In the center of the park is a wide alley with a tiled surface, stretching from the department store to Frunze Street. The circus building, the "Kyrgyzstan" hotel with a fountain, the opera and ballet theater, and the teahouse together with the park create a beautiful corner of the new city on the old street.
Losev D. S., Kochkunov A. S. What the Streets Tell
Streets of Bishkek
