Description of Osh by Foreigners
Brief but curious descriptions of Osh, its old and new urban areas, were left by Russian and foreign travelers. For example, Guillaume Capu, a participant in the French-Kyrgyz expedition to Pamir in the 1880s, noted: “From the height of the terrace of the district chief's house... we have a view of the city of Osh, resembling a chaotic cluster of yellow adobe houses, huddled among tall poplars, like cobblestones on a large construction site. At its edge rises an unusually shaped solitary mountain with a white spot on it, the mosque of Takht-i-Suleiman, or Solomon's throne.”
The notes of the Englishman Dunmore, who visited Osh on December 29, 1892, are also quite interesting. The traveler spoke highly of the new part of the city and its main street: “We entered a long street lined with poplars on both sides, with quite a good surface. We passed by a large number of one-story houses resembling Indian huts, but built at a significant distance from each other. This street mainly housed officers' houses, barracks for Russian soldiers, a prison, as well as other public institutions - post office, telegraph, various civil and military establishments. There were also several shops located aside, under the poplars.”
The shops mentioned by the author in the new town part of Osh represented a market close to the so-called soldiers' settlement, later nicknamed the Drunken Market, apparently due to the alcoholic beverages sold there. Its emergence was associated with the improvement activities of the district chief M.E. Ionov. The point is that by the end of the 1870s, the newly minted townspeople from the settlers of European Russia felt the need for their own market to purchase food and everyday household items. The district authorities and the garrison command were interested in local purchases of food for prisoners and soldiers, as well as fodder for service and transport horses. Meanwhile, stingy contractors for the construction of market stalls in the new town part never got started, bargaining for favorable conditions. Moreover, the "city" had no extra money or building materials. However, M.E. Ionov had business acumen. He found among the townspeople a resourceful contractor, Mamat Itimov, and on September 16, 1882, a business contract was signed with him, and within a year he built 16 stalls, which he rented out to city merchants. And after 10 years, all the buildings and property in the new market passed into the ownership of the city.
Here is another description left by the Russian traveler I.P. Yuvachev, who visited Osh on March 16, 1907, at the suggestion of the editorial office of the magazine "Historical Herald": “I arrived in Osh in the middle of the night and stayed at the only hotel on the main street of the city. The rooms are relatively clean... This place - very picturesque and healthy - once belonged to the Khans of Kokand. From here, there is a lovely view of the entire valley of the upper Syr Darya River.”
Noteworthy is its construction, conceived after 1876 and implemented in 1880 by M.E. Ionov. He began construction with his own money in a contracting manner, finding financially savvy people and experienced builders among the residents of Osh. Within a year, a solid building was accepted on the balance of the municipal economy at an estimated cost of over four thousand rubles by a special commission of the Ferghana Regional Administration. The house was surrounded by a vast garden. Subsequently, many Russian and foreign travelers passing through the city stayed there.
Construction of the new part of the city of Osh in 1876